The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear Friends, what I should like to bring to you now will have to be said—as has everything that I have had to say recently about Anthroposophy—with a certain undertone called forth by the painful event which befell our work and our Society on last New Year's Eve: the Goetheanum in Dornach, for the time being, is no more; it was consumed by flames in the night before the New Year. And all who witnessed the destruction in this one night of the work of ten long years, accomplished by so many of our friends, and performed by them with complete devotion—all who have loved this Goetheanum very much, just because of this work, and because of what the Goetheanum was to us, will of necessity be weighed down by the thought that we no longer have this particular outer sign of Anthroposophical activity. For, even if some other building for our work shall arise on the same site—which should by all means occur—owing to the trying circumstances of the present time it can, of course, never be the old Goetheanum. Therefore, behind all that I have had to say since those days there actually stands in the background the fearful glow of the flames, which in such a heart-rending way interrupted the development of all our work. Since this outer sign has vanished, we must dedicate ourselves all the more to laying hold of the inner forces and inner realities of the Anthroposophical Movement and of what is connected with it for the entire evolution of humanity. Let me begin then with a sort of consideration of the nature of the human being. I have presented very much of this kind here in your midst, and I should like now to consider again one phase from a certain point of view.

I should like to start with a consideration of the human being entering the world, of the human being who has descended from the pre-earthly existence and is, as it were, taking his first steps here in the life on earth. We know, of course, that at the time of this entrance into the earth-life, a condition governs the soul which has a certain similarity to the ever-recurring condition of man's sleep-life. As the ordinary consciousness has no remembrance, upon awaking, of that which the soul-spiritual part of man has experienced between going to sleep and waking up (with the exception of the varicolored multiplicity of dreams, which actually float away, as we know, when we sink into sleep or when we wake, and which for the ordinary consciousness do not result from deep sleep)—as, then, the ordinary consciousness has no remembrance of this condition, so for the entire earth life this same consciousness remembers only back to a certain point of time in childhood. With one person this point of time is somewhat earlier, with another later. What occurs in the earthly life prior to this is really as much concealed from the ordinary consciousness as are the events of the sleep state. Of course, it is true that the child is not actually sleeping; it lives in a sort of dreamy, indefinite inner activity; but from the point of view of the whole later life, this condition is at least not very much removed from dream-filled sleep.

There are three activities, however, which set in at this time, three things. which the child is learning. There is what we ordinarily sum up in the expression learning to walk, then what is connected with learning to speak, and what for the child is connected with learning to think. Now, in the expression “learning to walk”, for the sake of our own convenience we actually characterize something which is extraordinarily complex in an exceedingly brief way. We need only to recall how the child is at first utterly unadapted to life, how it gradually gains the ability to accommodate its own position of balance to the space in which it is to move during the entire life. It is not merely “learning to walk” which we observe in the child, but a seeking for the state of equilibrium in the earthly life. Connected with learning to walk is all use of the limbs. And for anyone who is able to observe such a matter in the right way, the most remarkable and most important of life's riddles actually find expression in this activity of learning to walk; a whole universe comes to expression in the manner in which the child progresses from creeping to the upright position, to the placing of the little feet, but also in addition to holding the head upright and to the use of arms and legs. And then anyone who has a more intimate insight into how one child steps more on the heel, and another is more inclined to step on the toes, will perhaps have an inkling of what I shall now have to tell you with regard to the three activities mentioned and their relation to the spiritual world. Only, I should like first to characterize these three activities as to their outer aspects.

On the basis of this effort to attain equilibrium—or, if I may express myself now somewhat more learnedly, perhaps also somewhat more pompously, this search for a dynamic of life—on the basis of this effort, learning to speak is then developed. For, anyone who is able to observe knows quite well that the normal development of the child proceeds in such a way that learning to speak is developed on the basis of learning to walk and to grasp. With regard to learning to talk it will be noticed at the very first how the firm or gentle tread of the child is expressed in the act of talking, in the accenting of the syllables, in the force of the speech. And it will be noticed further how the modulation of the words, how the forming of the words, has a certain parallel with the way the child learns to bend the fingers or to keep them straight, whether it is skillful or unskillful. But anyone who can then observe the entire inner nature of the human organization will be able to know—what even the present-day teaching of evolution concedes—that “right-handed” people not only have the speech-center in the left third convolution of the forehead, in the so-called Broca convolution, which represents in a quite simple physiological way the characteristic relation between speech and the ability to grasp, the entire ability to handle the arm and the hand, if I may make use of the pleonasm; but we know also how closely the movement of the vocal cords, the whole adjustment of the speech organism, takes on exactly the same character which the movements of walking and grasping assume. But in the normal development of the child, speech which, as you know, is developed in imitation of the environment, cannot develop at all unless the foundation is first laid in the quest of the state of equilibrium in life.

With regard to thinking: Even the more delicate organs of the brain, upon which thinking depends, are developed in turn from the speech organization. No one should suppose that in the normal development of the child thinking could be evolved before speech. Anyone who is able to observe the process will find that with the child speech is not at first an expression of “thinking”—not at all! It would be ridiculous to believe that. But, with the child, speech is an expression of feeling, of sensation, of the soul-life. Hence you will see that at first it is interjections, everything connected with feelings, which the child expresses by means of speech. And when the child says “Mama” or “Papa”, it expresses feelings toward Mama or Papa, not any sort of concept or thought. Thinking is first developed from speech. It is true that among human beings many a thing is disarranged, so that someone says, “This child learned to speak before it walked.” But that is not the normal development, and in the rearing of a child one should by all means see to it that the normal course of development is actually observed: walking—speaking—thinking.

However, the real character of these activities of the child is truly perceived only when we observe the other side of human life: that is to say, if we observe how in later life these activities are related to each other in sleep; for they arise out of sleep, as I have indicated, or at least out of the dreamlike sleep of the child. But what do these activities signify during the later earth life?

In general, it is not possible for the scientific life of the present day to enter into these things. It actually knows only the exterior of the human being; it knows nothing of the inner relationships of the human being with the Cosmic Being, in so far as the Cosmic Being is spiritual. In every realm human civilization, if I may use the expression—or let us say human culture—has been developed to a certain materialism, or naturalism. Do not think that I wish here to upbraid materialism: if materialism had not come into human civilization, human beings would not have become free. Materialism is therefore a necessary epoch in the evolution of humanity. But today we must be very clear as to the way we have to go now—as well as in the future. And we must be clear about this in every realm. In order that what I now have to say may be better illustrated, I should like to make it clear to you by means of an example.

You all know and can learn from my books that earth humanity, before it passed through those cultural epochs which are only partly similar to the present one—the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Greco-Latin, and then our own—passed through the so-called Atlantean catastrophe. And during this Atlantean catastrophe the humanity which is now the European, Asiatic, and American civilized humanity lived chiefly on a continent where there is now sea—namely, the Atlantic Ocean. At that time this area was occupied mostly by land, and for a very long time, humanity had been developing upon this Atlantean continent. You can read in my books and cycles what humanity passed through during those epochs. I will not speak of other human experiences during the ancient Atlantean time, but only of musical experiences.

The entire musical experience of the ancient Atlantean would necessarily appear very curious, even grotesque, to a man of the present time, if he could hear it—which, of course, he cannot do. For what the ancient Atlanteans were in quest of in music was, for example, the chords of the seventh.

These chords of the seventh had the peculiarity of affecting the souls of these ancient people—in whose bodies we were all ensheathed, for in repeated earth lives we passed through that time also—in such a way that they were immediately transported out of their bodies when they lived in their music, this music which took into special consideration the chords of the seventh.

They knew no other frame of mind in music than a state of rapture, of enthusiasm, a state in which they were permeated by the God; and, when their extraordinarily simple instruments sounded—instruments intended only for accompaniment to singing—then such an Atlantean immediately felt himself to be actually weaving and living in the outer spiritual world.

Then came the Atlantean catastrophe. Among all post-Atlanteans there was next developed a preference for a sequence of fifths. You probably know that for a long time thereafter fifths played a most comprehensive role in musical development; for example, in ancient Greece, fifths played a quite extensive role. And this preference for a sequence of fifths had the peculiarity of affecting people in such a way that, when they experienced music, they now no longer felt drawn out of their bodies, to be sure, but they felt themselves to be soul and spirit within their bodies. During the musical experience they completely forgot physical experience; they felt that they were inside their skin, so to speak, but their skin was entirely filled with soul and spirit. That was the effect of the music, and very few people will believe that almost up to the tenth and eleventh Christian century the natural music was as I have described it. For not until then did the aptitude for thirds appear, the aptitude for the major and the minor third, and everything of the nature of major and minor. That came relatively late. But with this late development there was evolved at the same time the inner experience of music. Man now remained within himself in musical experience. Just as the rest of the culture at this time tended downward from the spiritual to the material, so in the musical sphere the tendency was downward, from the experience of the spiritual into which he passed in ancient times when he experienced music at all, to the experience of music within himself—no longer as far outward as to the skin, but entirely within himself. In this way there first appeared also at that time the major and minor moods, which are actually possible only when music is inwardly experienced.

Thus, it can be seen how in every domain man has descended from the spiritual into the material, but also into himself. Therefore, we should not always merely say, in a narrow-minded fashion, that the material is something of minor value, and we must escape from it. The human being would not have become truly human at all, if he had not descended and laid hold upon the material life. Precisely because he apprehended the spiritual in the material, did the human being become a self-conscious, independent Ego-Being. And today, with the help of Anthroposophical spiritual science, we must again find the way back into the spiritual world—in all realms we must find the way. This is the reason it is so painful that the artistic endeavor, made by means of the Goetheanum at Dornach, has been obliterated as is now the case. The way into the spiritual world must be sought in every realm.

Let us next consider one activity which the child learns—namely, speech—with regard to the entire evolution of the human being. It must really be said that what the child learns there is something magnificent. Jean Paul, the German poet, has said that in the first three years of life—that is, the years in which the essential things we learn are to walk, to speak and to think—the human being learns much more than in the three academic years. Meanwhile the “three” academic years have become many, but a man still learns no more in those three years than he learns as a child in the first three years of life.—Let us now consider speech. In speaking there is first the outer physical-physiological factor: that is, the larynx and the rest of our speech organs are set in motion. They move the air, which becomes the medium of tone. Here we have, in a way, the physical-physiological part. But in what we say there is soul also. And the soul permeates and gleams through all that we utter in the sounds. In as far as speech is something physical, man's physical body and his etheric body have a share in it. As a matter f course, these are silent from the time of going to sleep until the time of wakening. That is, the normal human being does not speak between going to sleep and waking; but in as much as the soul and the ego have a share in speech, they—the astral body and ego—take with them the soul power of speech, when they pass out of the physical and etheric bodies at the time of going to sleep—and they actually take with them everything of a soul nature which the person has put into his speech during the whole day. We are really different beings each evening, for we have been busy talking all day long—one more, another less, many all too much, many also too little—but, no matter, we have been occupied with talking throughout the day, and we have put our souls into what we have said. And what we have put into our speech, that we take with us into sleep, and it remains our being between sleeping and waking.

Now it may be that in our present materialistic age the human being no longer has any notion that idealism or spirituality may be expressed in the speech. People today usually have the idea that speech is intended to express only the external, the tangibly-objective. The feeling that ideals may be expressed in the speech has almost entirely disappeared. For this reason, it is also true that people today generally find so “unintelligible” what is said to them about “spirit”. For what do people say to themselves when spirit is mentioned? They admit that “words” are being used, but of these words people know only that they indicate what can be grasped or seen. The idea that words may also signify something else, something supersensible, invisible, people no longer like at all. That may be one way in which people regard speech; but the other may, of course, be that people shall find the way again to idealism even in words, even in language, knowing that a soul-spiritual experience may sound through each word, as it were.

What a person who lives entirely in the materialism of the language, so to speak, carries over in sleep into the spiritual world brings him, strangely enough, into a difficult relation with the world of the Archangels, the Archangeloi, into which he should enter each night between going to sleep and waking; while the one who preserves for himself the idealism of speech, and who knows how the genius of the language lives in it, comes into the necessary relation to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, especially to that Archangel to whom he himself belongs in the world between sleeping and waking. Indeed, this is expressed even in outer world phenomena. Why do people today seek so frantically for an outer relation to the national languages? Why did this frightful misfortune come upon Europe, which Woodrow Wilson has considered good fortune?—but he was a curious illusionist.—Why then did this great misfortune come upon Europe, that freedom is bound up with the convulsive desire to make use of the national languages, even of the smallest nations? Because in reality the people are frantically seeking externally a relationship which they no longer have in spirit: for in going to sleep they no longer have the natural relation to the language—and also, therefore, not to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi! And humanity will have to find the way back again to the permeation of all that pertains to language with idealism, if they do not wish to lose the way into the spiritual world.

How does humanity today regard what takes place for the individual human being between going to sleep and waking? People do not take account of this sleep condition at all. If we recollect our past life, we seem to have before us a complete life picture. That is not the case; the time spent in sleep has regularly dropped out; the whole picture is continuously interrupted. We always connect the morning with the previous evening, but between them is the night. And what has occurred during sleep in the night constitutes outwardly, in the first place, at least a third of the human life (at all events, among “respectable” people it is so); and, secondly, it is much more important for the inner man than the outer activity during the whole day. To be sure, the outer activity is more important for external civilization; but our inner development during life is brought about by our coming into relation with the spiritual world in the right way while we sleep during the night.

And the same is true regarding what forms the basis of the other activities; that is to say, if the human being in his actions—that is, what he does throughout the entire realm of the movements which he first learns upon entrance into the earth life—if he puts idealism into the whole realm of his actions, that is, if his life contains idealism in its realization, then the human being finds again the right relation with the Hierarchy of the Archai. And if the thoughts contain idealism, if they are not materialistic, the human being finds during sleep the relation with the Hierarchy of the Angels. This is what we discover if, with the help of Anthroposophical spiritual science, we inquire into the relation to the sleep state of these three activities acquired during childhood.

But this relation may be revealed in a much more comprehensive degree, if we observe the entire life of the human being in the cosmos. You are acquainted with the description in my book Theosophy. When the human being passes through the gate of death, he first experiences for some days the condition which consists in the dissipation of the thoughts, of the concepts. We may express it by saying that the etheric body expands into the distances of the cosmos, the human being “loses” his etheric body. But that is the same as if I say that man's concepts and thoughts are dissipated. But what does that actually mean: that the concepts and thoughts are dissipated? It really means very much. It means, namely, that our entire waking life departs from us. Our entire waking life departs from us in the course of two or three days, and nothing at all would be left of our life, if we did not then live through that of which we remain unconscious during the earth life; that is, if we did not then begin to live through in full consciousness what we have experienced during our sleep life. This sleep life is spiritually infinitely richer, more intense, than the waking life. Whether the sleep be short or long, the sleep-life is each time a reversed repetition of the day life, but with a spiritual impulse: What you have accomplished as actions during the day brings you at night into a relation to the Archai, to the Primal Powers; what you have said in the daytime brings you at night into a relation to the Archangeloi, the Archangels; and your thinking brings you in the same way into a relation to your Angel-being, to the Angeloi.

And what man experiences during sleep is independent of time. It is unnecessary to say: “Very well, but the following is possible: At night I go to sleep; something makes a noise; something awakens me; in this case I certainly cannot complete my going back over the day in retrospect.” Even so it is completed, because the time relations are entirely different; that can be experienced in a moment which otherwise might continue for hours if the sleep were undisturbed. During sleep the time relations are quite different from those of the day. Therefore, it can be stated positively, and must so be stated, that each time a person sleeps he once again experiences in retrospect what he has lived through here in the physical world since the last waking, but this time in spiritual manner and substance. And when the waking life of concepts is dissipated into the cosmos, a few days after death, then the human being lives through the very experiences which he had during the third of life spent in sleep. I have, therefore, always had to describe how man requires a third of his earth-life in order then to live through what he has experienced during the nights of his life. Naturally, it is essentially like the day life, but it is experienced in a different way. And at that time, as the second condition after death, he lives through this retrogression, when he actually experiences once again, in a third of the time, the entire life back to birth. Then when he has again arrived at his birth, he enters into that condition which I have already described to you here in another connection; that is, he enters into that condition in which every conception of the world is essentially altered for him.

You see, here on earth we are in a definite place; the world is around us. We know ourselves very little, indeed, with the ordinary consciousness. The world we observe with the outer senses; that we know. Perhaps, you will say that the anatomists know the inner part of the human being very well. Not at all; they know only the outer aspect of the inner being. The real inner part is something entirely different.—If you call to mind today something which you experienced ten years ago, then you have in the memory something which is in your soul, do you not? It is condensed, a brief remembrance of, perhaps, a very, very extended experience. But it is merely a soul picture of something which you have passed through in the earth life. But now enter into yourself—not now into your memories, but into your physical organism, that is, the apparently physical organism—and observe the wonderful construction of your brain, of your lungs, and so forth. Within you there, rolled up as it were, are—not the experiences of this earth life, but rolled together there is the whole cosmos, the entire universe. Man is really a small universe, a microcosmos. In his organs the whole universe is rolled together. But the human being does not know this with the ordinary consciousness. When he is on earth, he has the memory of his experiences. He does not know that he himself in his physical nature is, as it were, the embodied memory of the whole cosmos.—When, therefore, the backward journey through the life, which I have just indicated, has been completed, then, between death and a new birth, we enter into a cosmic life, where we are not, as now, surrounded by the world with its mountains, clouds, stars, seas, and so on, but where our environment consists of the riddles of the inner human being, where everything concerning the mysteries of the inner human being of which we are deprived in the earth life, now constitutes our environment. Here on the earth, as you know, we live within our skin, and we know about the stars, clouds, mountains, rocks, animals, and plants. Between death and a new birth we know about the human being. All the mysteries of the human being are our environment. And do not suppose that it is a less interesting environment than that of the earth! To be sure, the starry heavens are magnificent, the mountains and the seas are grand; but what the inner being of man contains in a single small vessel is grander and mightier than our earth environment, when between death and a new birth we are surrounded by it in its majestic greatness. The human being is the world between death and a new birth, and he must be the world, because we prepare the next earth life. Together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, we must help to prepare the future earth man. As we here are occupied with our outer culture and civilization, as here on earth we make boots or coats, use the telephone, do people's hair, give lectures, do something artistic, or whatever belongs to our present civilization, so, between death and a new birth, together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, we prepare what the human being is, and what we ourselves shall again be in the physical body in the next earth life.

That is the goal of spiritual culture, and it is grander, infinitely grander and more magnificent than the goal of earthly civilization. Not without reason have the ancients called the physical human body a “Temple of the Gods”, because together with the Gods, with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, this human physical body is formed between death and a new birth. That is what we do, that is where we are with our ego—among the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, working on humanity, together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies. We move about, as it were, among the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies; we are spirits among spirits.

What we do there we can, of course, do only according to what we have accomplished here in the earth life; and that also is revealed to us in a certain sense in the relation of sleep to waking. Just think how chaotic the dream is! I do not undervalue the wonderfully varied multiplicity and the grandeur of the dream; but we must nevertheless recognize that the dream, compared with the earth life, in whose images it is clothed, is chaotic. You need only to recall that dream which I have mentioned before as an illustration (Volkelt told this dream, according to a report from Württemberg, but we know of such, do we not?). A city lady visited her sister, who was the wife of a country parson, and she dreamed that she went with her sister to church to hear a sermon; but everything was quite peculiar; for, after the Gospel was read and the pastor went up to the pulpit, he did not begin to preach, but instead of raising his arms, he lifted wings, and finally began to .crow like a cock! Or recall another dream in which a lady said she had just dreamed of considering what good thing she should cook for her husband, and nothing at all occurred to her until finally the thought came to her that she still had an old pickled grandmother upstairs in the attic, but she would be very tough yet.—You see a dream can be as chaotic as that—strangely chaotic. But just what does it mean that the dream acts so chaotically? What does it really mean?

While we sleep, we are, with our ego and astral body, outside of our physical and etheric bodies. And during that time we experience again in reverse order—especially with regard to the moral significance—all that we have done, have said and have thought during the day. We live through that in reverse order. We are preparing for ourselves our karma for the next earth life, and this appears in pictures already in the time between going to sleep and waking. But these pictures are still very bungling; for when, upon waking, we are again about to enter into the physical body, the picture does not yet fit in properly: that is, we are not able to conceive things in conformity with the macrocosm; instead we conceive something entirely different, perhaps a “pickled grandmother”. That is because, with regard to what we have already formed in our sleep, we do not understand the adaptation to the human physical body. This adaptation to the human physical body is exceedingly difficult; and we acquire it in that working together, which I have described, with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies between death and a new birth. There the soul-spiritual self must first readjust what otherwise in the dream so often enters so awkwardly, when the sleep consciousness is again fully overcome, and the person without his own cooperation has plunged again into his old physical body. This soul-spiritual self, between death and a new birth, must penetrate all the mysteries of the physical body, in order that the body may be built up in the right way. For the body is really not formed by the parents and grandparents alone. To believe that is one of the perfect follies of science. (We are justified in making such a statement!) For how does science approximately set forth this human development? Well, it says that as the basis of material substance we have molecules, which are built up in a complicated way from atoms. The albumen molecule, which is contained in the embryo-cell, is the most complicated of all, and because it is so complicated (naturally no scientist can describe it, but he points to its exceeding complexity) because it is so complicated, a human being can originate from it. That is the simplest sort of explanation of the human being! It is simply asserted that the entire human being is already contained in the molecule; it is merely a very complicated molecule.—The truth is, however, that the albumen molecule must completely revert to chaos, must become dust of disorganized matter, if a human being is to originate from it. We have in the outer world organized matter in crystals, in plants, and so on: if anything is to originate, even a plant, or an animal, then the matter must first completely return to dust. And only when it no longer has a definite form does the entire cosmos work upon the tiny bit of stuff, making in it an image of itself. How is it, then, with the human being? Between death and a new birth, we form this human image, with all its mysteries, into which we weave our karma, and we send this image down before us into the body of the mother. So we have first formed the spirit germ—only, this is very large in comparison with the physical germ—and this descends into the matter which has become chaotic. That is the truth—not what the present-day physiology dreams.

In this time of which I have been speaking, the Ego lives as a soul-spiritual being among soul-spiritual Divine Beings, actively occupied with learning to know completely the inner human being as such for the next earth life. Of that which is then spiritually experienced in tremendous majesty and grandeur, an image marvelously appears in the child in the individual actions in attaining equilibrium. It is very interesting to see how the Primal Powers, or Archai, work over from the life between death and a new birth into the whole effort of the child to attain balance or, as we trivially say, to learn to walk. Anyone who can see in everything earthly an image of the spiritual can see in all the practice in walking, in the use of the hands, and so on, an image of those soul-spiritual deeds which we performed between death and a new birth in seeking spiritual equilibrium as an ego among higher egos.

And, when we have completed those conditions in which we are a spirit among spirits, in which we prepare what is to be manifested in our earth life in the body, in the members, through which we again become a human being of such and such a nature, and experience our karma—when we have passed through these conditions yonder in the world between death and a new birth, then a condition appears in the pre-earthly life in which we can no longer distinguish the individual spiritual Beings with whom we have worked for so long, but in which there is only a general perception of the spirit. We know then, to be sure, that we live in a spiritual world; but, because we are now already approaching the earth life, the impression which the spiritual world makes upon us becomes one of greater uniformity, and is no longer a perception of the particular, individual spiritual Beings.

I can express myself by means of a trivial comparison, in order that we may be able to understand one another, but please be very clear about this, namely, that in doing so I refer, nevertheless, to something very exalted. If a little cloud appears somewhere in the distance, you say that it is a little cloud; but when you approach it, you become aware that it is a swarm of gnats. Then you are distinguishing the separate individuals. Well, in the spiritual world between death and a new birth, it is reversed: there you distinguish at first the single individualities of the spiritual Beings; then the impression becomes a general one. What I mean is that the manifestation of the spiritual replaces experience of the spiritual.

Indeed, this condition, which separates us, as it were, from the spiritual world, because we are already seeking the way down to earth again—this condition is reflected now in the inner something within us which forms the basis of human speech. Suppose we speak. It begins with the larynx (that is not exact, but approximate), and the other organs of speech are set in motion. But behind this there lies that which is essential. What is essential lies in the heart, behind the larynx; it lies in the breathing process and everything connected with it. Just as learning to walk, seeking equilibrium, is an earthly image of our movements in the spiritual world, so that which underlies speech is likewise an earthly image of the condition of manifestation in which we perceive the divine-spiritual Beings only as a blurred mass. So the child experiences again when it learns to walk a condition which it has gone through between death and a new birth.

And when we have sent down the spiritual germ of our physical body, when through conception it has gradually become united with the body of the mother, then we are still above. At the end of the time before earthly embodiment, we draw together our etheric body out of all the regions of the universe. And that action, which takes place in the supersensible world in attracting the etheric body, finds expression in the child's learning to think.

Now you have the three successive conditions: experience in the spiritual world in learning to walk; manifestation of the spiritual world in learning to speak. (For this reason, that which as Cosmic Word underlies speech we call the Cosmic Logos, the inner Word. It is the manifestation of the universal Logos, in which the spiritual expresses itself, as do the gnats in the swarm of gnats; it underlies speech.) And then what we do in the forming of our etheric body, which actually thinks in us—we think the whole night through, only we are not present with our ego and astral body—that is the last part which we gather together for ourselves before we descend to earth, and that activity is what extends over into the thinking. Thus, in learning to walk, to speak, and to think, the baby organizes into the physical body what it brings down from the pre-earthly existence.

This is what leads to real spiritual knowledge and also at the same time to the artistic and the religious comprehension of the world; namely, that we are able to relate each single occurrence in the physical sense existence to the spiritual world. Those people who would always like to speak of the divine-spiritual only “in general” I have often likened to a man who should go out into a meadow, and to whom should be pointed out daisies, dandelions, wild chicory, whereupon he would say: “All that does not interest me; they are all just flowers!” That is easy, to say they are all just flowers. But something in the flower-being is differentiated there. And so it is also in the spiritual world. Naturally, it is easy to say that something spiritual underlies everything of a sense-physical nature. But the point is that we should know more and more what spiritual something lies at the foundation of the various sense-physical phenomena; for only in this way can we from the spirit actually lay hold again upon the sense-physical course of life.

By means of this principle, for example, our Waldorf School pedagogy becomes a unique pedagogy, which actually considers the human being. This will appear even more clearly when once this pedagogy shall be developed for the child's first years. As there it would be adapted to learning to walk, to speak, and to think, and the further evolution of these faculties, so we now naturally adapt the method to the years following the sixth and seventh, in such a way that we consider questions such as these: What embodies itself in the child at this moment? What comes to expression in the child's life, with each week, with each month, of that which existed before birth? Thus the pedagogy is really developed from the spirit.

That is one of the impulses of which we must rediscover many, if humanity does not wish to remain in the downward course, but intends to begin to ascend. We must find the way again into the spiritual world; but we shall be able to do this only when we learn quite consciously to find ways and means to act and to speak from the spirit.

In the time immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe, human beings lived from the spirit—that is, each individual—because each could be told on the basis of the point of time at which he was born, what his karma was. At that time astrology did not signify that dilettantism which it often represents today, but it signified livingly experiencing the deeds of the stars with them. And as a result of this living experience, it was revealed from the Mystery Temple to each individual human being how he had to live. Astrology had a vital significance for the individual human experience. Then came the time, about the 6th, 5th and 4th pre-Christian centuries, in which people no longer experienced the mysteries of the starry heavens, but in which they experienced the course of the year. What do I mean by it when I say that human beings experienced the “course of the year”? It means that they knew from direct perception that the earth is not the coarse clod which present day geology contemplates. Upon such an earth as geology represents, plants could never grow, to say nothing of the appearance of animals and human beings. There could be none of these, because the earth of the geologists is a rock; and something will grow directly on a rock only if the entire cosmos works upon it, only if it is united with the whole universe. What man must learn again today was known even in ancient times, namely, that the earth is an organism and has a soul.

It is true that this earth-soul also has its special destiny. Suppose it is winter here with us, Christmas time, the time of the winter solstice—that is the time when the earth soul is fully united with the earth. For, when the cover of snow is over the earth, when, as it were, a mantle of cold surrounds the earth, then the earth-soul is united with the earth, rests within it. It is also true then that the earth-soul, resting within the earth, sustains the life of a multitude of elemental spirits. When today a naturalistic view believes that the seeds which I plant in the earth in the autumn merely lie there until the following spring, that is not true; the seeds must be protected throughout the winter by the elemental spirits of the earth. This is all connected with the fact that during the winter time the earth-soul is united with the earth-body.

Now let us take the opposite season, that is, midsummer, St. John's season. Exactly as the human being inhales the air and exhales it, so that at one time it is within him and at another time outside of him, so the earth breathes in her soul—that is during the winter; and at the height of summer, St. John's season, the earth-soul is entirely breathed out, sent out into the far reaches of the cosmos. At that time the earth-body is, as it were, “empty” of the earth-soul. The earth in her soul lives with the events of the cosmos, the course of the stars, and so on. Therefore, in ancient times there were the winter-mysteries, in which man experienced the union of the earth-soul with the earth; and then there were the summer-mysteries, in which man was able to perceive the mysteries of the universe, from the experience which the earth-soul shared with the stars, for it was granted to the human souls of initiates to follow the earth-soul out into the cosmic spaces.

That people had a consciousness of these things you can learn even from the fragments of ancient tradition which are still extant.—It is now a long while ago, but I often sat—right here in Berlin—with an astronomer, who was very famous here, and who started a fearful agitation about the Easter Festival, saying that it was very disturbing when the Easter Festival, let us say for example, did not fall each year at least on the first Sunday in April, and it was awful that it should be on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. Naturally, it helped not at all to give reasons against his argument, for the fact which lay at the root of the matter was the fear that a dreadful confusion was caused in the debit and credit columns of the ledger, if Easter falls at a different time each year! This movement had already assumed rather large dimensions. (I once mentioned the fact here that on the first page of the ledger there usually stand the words, “With God”, but generally what is in these books is not exactly “with God”.) In those times when the Easter Festival was established according to the course of stars—when the first Sunday after the spring full moon was dedicated to the sun,—in those times a consciousness still existed that in the winter season the earth-soul is in the earth; that at St. John's season the earth-soul is wholly outside in cosmic spaces, and in the spring it is on the way to cosmic spaces. Therefore, the spring festival, the Easter Festival, cannot be established only with reference to the earth, on a definite day, but must be regulated according to the constellations of the stars. There is a deep wisdom in this, which comes from the times when, as a result of the ancient instinctive clairvoyance, human beings were still able to perceive the spiritual reality in the course of the year. We must attain to this again, and we can attain to it again in a certain sense if we lay hold upon the tasks of the present in connection with just such explanations as we have carried on together here.

I have already often said here that, of the spiritual Beings with whom man is united each night, in the way I have told you—for instance, through speech with the Archangels—certain Beings are the ruling spiritual powers throughout a certain period of time. In the last third of the 19th century the Michael-time began, that time in which the Spirit who in the records is usually designated Michael, became the determinative Spirit in the affairs of human civilization. These things are repeated in cycles. In ancient times men knew something of all these spiritual processes. The ancient Hebrew age spoke of Jahve, but it spoke always of the “countenance of Jahve”, and by the countenance was meant the Archangels who actually mediated between Jahve and the earth. And when the Jews expected the Messiah on earth, they knew that it was the time of Michael; that Michael was the agent of Christ's activity on earth. They misunderstood, however, the deeper significance of that fact. Now, since the '70's of the 19th century, the time has come again for the earth when the Michael Power is the ruling spiritual power in the world, and the time has come when we must understand how to bring spirituality into our actions, to arrange our life from the spirit. That means to “serve Michael”—not to order our life merely from the material point of view, but to be conscious that he who has the overcoming of the low Ahrimanic Powers as his mission—that is, Michael—must become our Genius, so to speak, for the evolution of civilization. How can he become that?

Well, he can become our guiding spirit if we call to mind how we can again make connections with the course of the year in the spiritual sense. There is actually great wisdom in the entire cosmic course in the fact that we may unite with the spring festival the festival of the resurrection of Christ Jesus. The historical connection—I have often explained it—is a completely right one: The only possibility is for the spring festival—that is, the Easter Festival—to occur on a different day each year, precisely because it is viewed from the other world. Only we upon the earth have the narrow-minded conception that “time” runs along evenly, that one hour is always as long as another. We determine time by means of our earthly expedient, mathematics; whereas, for the actual spiritual world, the cosmic hour is something living. There one cosmic hour is not equal to another but is longer or shorter. Therefore, it is always possible to err if we establish from the earthly point of view something which should be fixed according to the heavens. The Easter Festival has been established rightly in accordance with the heavens.

What kind of a festival is it? It is that festival which is intended to remind us, and which once reminded humanity with the greatest vividness, that a God descended to earth, took up his abode in the man, Jesus of Nazareth, in order that, at the time when human beings were approaching the development of the ego, they would be able in a suitable manner to find the way back through death into the spiritual life. I have often explained this here. The Easter Festival is, therefore, that festival in which man sees in the Mystery of Golgotha death and immortality following it. We look upon this spring festival in the right sense when we say to ourselves: Christ has affirmed the immortality of man in that He Himself has conquered death; but we human beings only rightly understand the immortality of Christ Jesus if we appropriate this understanding during the earth life; that is, if in our souls we vitalize our relation to the Mystery of Golgotha, and if we are able to free ourselves from that materialistic concept which would dissociate from the Mystery of Golgotha all spiritual significance. Today people no longer wish to acknowledge “Christ” at all, but merely “the humble man of Nazareth, Jesus.” A man would feel embarrassed, as it were, in the presence of his own scientific instincts, if he were to grant that the Mystery of Golgotha involves a spiritual mystery in the middle of earth existence—namely, the death and resurrection of the God.

When we experience that fact spiritually, we prepare ourselves to have spiritual experience of other things also. This is the reason it is so important for the human being of the present time to attain the possibility of experiencing, at the outset, the Mystery of Golgotha as something purely spiritual. Then he will experience other spiritual facts, and he will find the approach, the way, to the spiritual worlds through the Mystery of Golgotha. But then, beginning with the Mystery of Golgotha, the human being must understand the Resurrection while he still lives; and, if he feelingly understands the Resurrection while he lives, he will thereby be enabled to pass through death in the right way. In other words, Death and Resurrection in the Mystery of Golgotha should teach the human being to reverse the condition; that is, during life to experience Resurrection within the soul, in order that, after this inner soul resurrection, he may pass through death in the right way. That experience is the opposite of the Easter experience. At the Easter season we should be able to immerse ourselves in the Death and Resurrection of the Christ. As human beings, however, we need also to be able to immerse ourselves in what is for us resurrection of the soul, in order that the resurrected soul of man may pass rightly through death. As we in the spring acquire the true Easter mood when we see how the plants then germinate and sprout, how nature is resurrected, how nature overcomes the death of winter, so we shall be able, when we have experienced summer in the right way, to acquire a feeling of certainty that the soul has then ascended into cosmic spaces. We are then approaching the autumn, September is coming, the autumnal equinox; the leaves which in the spring became budding and green, now become brownish, yellowish, and drop off; the trees stand there already partly denuded, nature is dying. But we understand this slowly dying nature if we look deeply into the process of decay, into the approach of the snowy covering of the earth and say to ourselves: There the earth-soul is returning again to the earth, and it will be entirely within the earth when the winter solstice shall have come.

It is possible to feel this autumn-time with the same intensity as the spring-time. And if we feel in spring, at Easter-time, the Death and Resurrection of the God, then we shall be able to feel in the autumn the resurrection and death of the human soul; that is, the experience of resurrection during the earth-life in order to pass through death in the right way. Then, however, we must understand also what it signifies for us, for our present time, that the earth-soul is breathed out into the cosmic spaces during St. John's season, in the summer, is there united with the stars, and comes back again. He who has insight into the mystery of this succession of the seasons in the course of the year knows that the Michael-force, which in former centuries did not come down to earth, now comes down through the nature forces! So that we are able to meet the autumn with its falling leaves, when we perceive the Michael-force coming down from the clouds to the earth. Indeed, the name “Michael” is to be found in the calendars on this date, and Michaelmas is a festival day among the peasants; but we shall feel the present time spiritually, in such a way that earthly human events are for us closely connected with the events of nature, only when we again become capable of understanding the year's progression to such an extent that we shall be able to establish in the course of the year the annual festivals, as people of old established them from their ancient dream-like clairvoyance. The ancients understood the year, and on the basis of the mysteries which I have been able only to indicate today, they established Christmas, Easter and the St. John's Festival. At Christmas people give one another gifts, and do some other things also; but I have often explained, when I have given Christmas and Easter lectures here, how little remains with humanity today of these ancient institutions, how everything has become traditional and external. If we shall come to understand again the festivals, which today we merely celebrate but do not understand, then, from the spiritual knowledge of the course of the year, we shall also have the power to establish a festival which will have true significance only for the humanity of the present time: that will be the Michael Festival at the end of September, when autumn approaches, the leaves become withered, the trees become bare, nature moves toward decay—just as it moves toward the sprouting of the Easter season. We shall have the power to establish such a festival, if in decaying nature we perceive how then the earth-soul unites itself with the earth, and how the earth-soul brings Michael with it from the clouds! If we have the force to create from the spirit such a festival as shall again bring into our social life a community of interest, then we shall have done it from the spirit; for then we shall have originated something among us of which the spirit is the source. It would be more important than all the rest of social reflection and the like—which, in the present confused conditions, can only lead to something if the spirit is in them—if, to begin with, a number of intelligent persons were to unite in order to establish again upon earth something from the cosmos: that is, to originate something like a Festival of Michael, which would be worthy of the Easter Festival, but as an autumn festival would be the counterpart of the Easter Festival! If people were able to decide upon something the motive for which lies only in the spiritual world, but which in such a festival would again bring among men a feeling of common interest, something which would be created in the immediate present, out of the full, joyous human heart, that would result in something which would socially unite people again.

For in ancient times the festivals made strong bonds between human beings. Just consider what, has been done, and what has been said and thought on behalf of the festivals and at the festivals for the whole civilization!

That is what has been gradually interwoven into the physical world through the fixing of festivals directly out of the spirit. If people of today could decide in a worthy manner to establish a Michael Festival at the end of September, it would be a deed of the greatest significance. For this purpose, people would have to have courage, not merely to dispute about outer social organizations and the like, but to do something which will unite the earth with the heavens, which will again connect physical conditions with spiritual conditions. Then, because by this means the spirit would again be brought into earthly affairs, something would actually happen among men which would be a mighty impulse for the extension of our civilization and of our whole life. There is naturally no time to set forth in detail all that this would mean for scientific, religious and artistic experience, but such a new festival, created from the spirit, in grand style, would affect these realms just as did the ancient festivals. And how much more important would be such a creation from the spiritual world, than all that is developed today in social tirades. For what would be the significance of such a creation? Oh, it signifies much for the deep observation of the human soul, if I see what a man intends, or if I understand his words rightly. If we today are able to learn from observation how the whole cosmic course operates when autumn approaches, if we can unriddle, can decipher, the entire physiognomy of the universe, and out of our knowledge can act creatively, then we shall disclose not only the willing of human beings in the creation of such a festival, but we shall disclose the willing of Spiritual Beings, of Gods!

One idea Goethe had for his ‘Faust’ was that at the end of Part II, Act 3, Mephistopheles, who in this Act had worn the mask of Phorkyas, should step in front of the curtain, take off the mask, descend from the Kothurni and deliver a kind of Epilogue. The idea, as the now meaningless stage instruction tells us, was that this Epilogue was to indicate the manner in which the final figure of Faust was to be taken. The words Mephistopheles was to speak as Commentator are not in ‘Faust,’ but they have been preserved on a single sheet among Goethe's literary remains. Through the mouth of Mephistopheles Goethe seeks to tell the public in a not unhumorous way what attitude to adopt towards his Faust. These words are worthy of notice, and in a certain respect to-day's study is to be conducted in their spirit. They refer to Euphorion who was born in some spirit fashion, and jumps and hops about immediately after his birth and utters ‘a tender word.’ In this way these words refer to him:

‘Enough, ye see him, though it is much worse
Than on the British stage, where a small child
Grows step by step to take heroic shape.
Here it is madder still: for, scarce conceived,
He's also born:
He leaps and dances, speaks a tender word.
If many criticize,
There are who think this is not to be taken
So straight and crudely, that there's more behind.
One scents the Mysteries, perhaps withal
Mystifications, Indian and may be
Egyptian; for the man is right who knows
How to squeeze all together, brew it well
And twist and turn in etymology.

We say it also, and the true disciple
Of the newer symbolism will agree.’

Thus all such explanations as rest on a basis of old traditions are to be straightway excluded. On the contrary, an explanation is demanded drawn from the depths of spirit-life. Therefore also Mephistopheles says: ‘We say it also, and the true disciple of the newer symbolism will agree.’ If you read carefully Part II of ‘Faust,’ you will know that Goethe is rich in word-construction in this poem, and that we must not therefore cavil at what appears to be ungrammatical. Here in this sentence is clearly expressed that the man who understands Faust rightly in Goethe's sense, also sees that deeper things lie behind. But everything that rests on study or might lead to a merely symbolic explanation is discouraged. The demand is that the explanation of Faust is to depend on the faithful discipleship which is aware of the spiritual experience which we may call ‘experience in the sense of the new Spiritual Science.’ ‘The true disciple of the newer symbolism’ is the commentator of Faust in Goethe's sense. Thus it is to be done by drawing direct from spirit-life; and Goethe no doubt here betrays that he has put something into it which made it possible for him to get away from old symbols and to coin new and independent symbols out of direct spirit-life. If we want to compare the presentation of the spiritual world in the two parts of ‘Faust,’ we might say that Part I presents to a large extent the fruits of knowledge—the outer influences on one who has dim ideas of the spiritual world, and who tries to enter it through reading all kinds of things and conducting all kinds of experiments. Part I contains this studied view of the supernatural world.

Part II contains experience, living experience, and if you understand rightly, you know that it can derive only from a personality which has learnt to know the reality of the spiritual, supernatural worlds behind the physical world. Truly, Goethe was consistent in his presentation, although some things in Part II are so dissimilar from Part I. What he had learnt in Part I, he experienced in Part II, he has seen it. He was in the spiritual, supernatural world: he indicates this, too, clearly enough, where in Part I he makes Faust say:

‘What says the Sage, now first I recognize:
“The Spirit-world no closures fasten;
Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead:
Disciple, up! untiring, hasten
To bathe thy breast in morning-red!”‘

Scene I, p. 15.

Goethe can point—from personal knowledge—to what he sees who ‘bathes his breast in morning-red,’ in order to await the rising of the spiritual sun. We find in the whole of Part I—no doubt you realize it from yesterday's discourse—an energetic upward-striving of Faust the student, to this dawn, but we also find clearly indicated that the path is nowhere traversed in a satisfactory way. Now how does Part II begin? Is the advice of the wise man, ‘to bathe the breast in morning-red,’ carried out in one respect?

We find Faust ‘bedded on flowery turf, fatigued, restless, endeavouring to sleep,’ surrounded by spiritual beings. We find him withdrawn from all physical vision, veiled in sleep. Beings from the spiritual world are busy with his spirit, which is withdrawn from the physical world. Marvellously and forcefully we are told what direction Faust's soul takes in order to grow into the spiritual world. Then we are shown how his soul really does grow into that world which is described as the spiritual world in the ‘Prologue in Heaven,’ in Part I. Goethe says from deep experience what was always told the pupil in the School of Pythagoras, that he who enters the spiritual world is met by the secret music of the universe:

‘The sun-orb sings, in emulation,
'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:
His path predestined through Creation
He ends with step of thunder-sound.’

This must be the music from the worlds of the spiritual life, if they are to be depicted as they are. What is said here of the ‘music of the spheres’ is not a poetic image, nor a metaphor, but a truth, and Goethe remains consistent to it, in that Faust, withdrawn from the physical world, now proceeds to grow, like an initiate, into that world from which this music comes. Therefore, in the scene where at the beginning of Part II Faust is withdrawn into the spiritual world, it is written again:

‘Hearken! Hark!—The Hours careering
Sounding loud to spirit-hearing.
See the new-born day appearing!
Rocky portals jarring shatter,
PhSbus' wheels in rolling clatter,
With a crash the Light draws near!
Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes—
Eye is blinded, ear amazes:
The Unheard can no one hear!’

Faust II, Act I.

Would that those people who think that they can understand a poem only if they can say ‘Such things must be taken as the poet's images, created by right of poetic licence’—would that they would cease to call these things realistic. The physical sun makes no sound! It is the spiritual sun behind the physical which sounds in the ears of him who is entering the spiritual life. They are spiritual, not physical sounds. In this passage, again, we hear the sounds of thousands of years harmonizing. Unconsciously he who can follow the course of the human spirit through thousands of years will be reminded in this passage of some great words spoken thousands of years ago; words spoken by one who through his initiation knew that what appears to us as the physical sun is the expression of the sun-spirit and the sun-soul, as the physical human body is the expression of the human spirit and the human soul. He looked up to the spiritual sun and called it ‘Ahura Mazdao,’ ‘The great sun-aura.’ We are reminded of Zarathustra, who, looking thus at the sun, and feeling the world full of spirit, spoke the great and powerful words:

‘I want to speak! Listen to me, all ye who from far or near, desire to listen: Mark well, for He will be revealed. No more shall the False Teacher destroy the world—he who has professed evil faiths with his tongue. I shall speak of what is the highest in the world, what He, the Great, Ahura Mazdao, has taught me. Whosoever will not hear His Words, as I speak them, will suffer misery when the Earth-Cycle is fulfilled!’

Before the spiritual sun rises in the soul, the learner must bathe in the dawn which precedes it. Hence the words of the Wise Man: ‘Disciple, up! untiring hasten to bathe thy breast in morning-red!’ Does Faust, the disciple, do this?

After the spiritual beings which surrounded him had been busy with him while his soul was for a time withdrawn from his body, he awakes as a changed man. The soul has entered the body, so that he has a dim idea, or he bathes in the morning-red, of the rising sun of the spirit:

‘Life's pulses now with fresher force awaken
To greet the mild ethereal twilight o'er me;
This night, thou, Earth! hast also stood unshaken,
And now thou breathest new-refreshed before me,
And now beginnest, all thy gladness granting,
A vigorous resolution to restore me,
To see the highest life for which I'm panting.—
The world unfolded lies in twilight glimmer,
A thousand voices in the grove are chanting;
Vale in, vale out, the misty streaks grow dimmer;
The deeps with heavenly light are penetrated;
The boughs, refreshed, lift up their leafy shimmer
From gulfs of air where sleepily they waited;
Colour on colour from the background cleareth,
Where flower and leaf with trembling pearls are freighted,
And all around a Paradise appeareth.’

Faust II, Act I.

Faust now feels also that he has awakened in that world, into which he has been translated during his unconsciousness, and he bathes his earthly breast in the morning-red. But it is only the beginning of the journey. He feels that he is at the gate of initiation, and thereupon he cannot yet bear the direct vision of the spiritual sun:

‘But if there burst from those eternal spaces
A flood of flame, we stand confounded ever;
For Life's pure torch we sought the shining traces,
And seas of fire—and what a fire!—surprise us.’

Wherefore he sees at first the world of the spiritual—but still, as we shall see in a moment, as a symbol.

‘Behind me, therefore, let the sun be glowing!
The cataract, between the crags deep-riven,
I thus behold with rapture ever-growing.
From plunge to plunge in thousand streams't is given,
And yet a thousand, to the valleys shaded
While foam and spray in air are whirled and driven.
Yet how superb, across the tumult braided,
The painted rainbow's changeful life is bending,
Now clearly drawn, dissolving now and faded,
And evermore the showers of dew descending!
Of human striving there's no symbol fuller:
Consider, and 't is easy comprehending—
Life is not light, but the refracted colour.’

Faust II, Act I.

This is Faust bathing his earthly breast in the morning-red, in order to prepare himself to look straight at the spiritual sun, which rises at initiation.

Now Faust is to go into the great world with the gifts he has received as one approaching illumination. It might be thought remarkable that Faust is now transplanted to the Imperial Court, when he is in the midst of all kinds of masques and revels. All the same, these masques and pranks contain deep truths and are everywhere significant. It is not possible to enter upon this significance to-day. It will be in any case the task of this study to bring out only a few moments from the whole content of Part II of ‘Faust’ Many lectures would have to be given, if we wanted to throw light on everything. We shall say only this about the general idea of these Masque scenes: For a man who surveys human life with an enlightened eye, certain words will have a different meaning from what they have in ordinary external life. Such a man, steeping himself in the whole great course of human evolution, knows that such words as ‘Folk spirit’ (Volksgeist), ‘Time-spirit’ (Zeitgeist), are not mere abstractions. He sees in the spiritual world the true and real beings corresponding to what one ordinarily calls abstractly ‘Folk spirit and Time-spirit.’¹ Thus, since he has the vision, it is made clear to Faust as he enters the great world where decisions affecting the world are made from a Court, that in all these happenings there are supernatural powers at work. Outside in the physical world one can observe only individual people and the laws they have. In the spiritual world there are beings behind all that. Whereas people are under the impression that what they do is prompted by their own souls, and that they make their own resolutions, human acts and human thoughts are really pervaded and permeated by beings from the supernatural world—national spirits, time-spirits, and so on. People think they are free to make resolves, to think and to form ideas, but they are guided by spiritual beings behind the physical world. What men call their understanding, by which they believe they can control the course of time, is the expression of spiritual beings behind. Thus, the whole Masque, which is to have some meaning, becomes for Faust the expression of the fact that one can realize how in the course of world-events a part is played by powers originating in those beings which Faust met already in Part I, originating, in short, in Mephistopheles. Man is surrounded by such spiritual beings, towering above him. Thus Mephistopheles appears at the turn of the modern age as that being which prompts the human intellect to the discovery of paper money. And Goethe presents the whole affair with a certain humour: how the same spirit, the same intellect which in man is bound to the physical instrument of the brain, when inspired by the related spirit which lets nothing count but the physical, gives rise to such phenomena as can control the world—phenomena however which have an importance only for the physical world. In this way the deeper sense of development is indicated precisely in this Masque and mummery. But we are soon led out of the world which lies before us, where we are shown the part played by supernatural powers, and into the really spiritual world.

After it has been made rich, the Court wishes to be amused by the presentation of figures from ancient history. Paris and Helena are to be conjured up from the past. Mephistopheles, who belongs to those powers of the spiritual world which inspired the discovery of paper money, cannot penetrate to the worlds which give rise to the whole deeper development of men. Faust carries in him the soul and spirit which can penetrate these spiritual worlds. For he is the disciple who has bathed the earthly breast in the morning-red, and we are shown how Faust has already experienced something which can be looked upon as the first stage of clairvoyance—the stage completed by the clairvoyant when he has put his soul through the appropriate exercises. There are certain exercises which the student has to perform, in meditation, concentration, and so on, which are set him in occult-scientific symbols, in which he steeps himself, whereby the soul, withdrawing from the physical and etheric body, is transfigured in the night, as it at first becomes clairvoyant in the spiritual world. What is it that the student experiences here, when he has received the effect of those exercises?

The first stage of clairvoyance is something which can bring people to a condition of great confusion. We shall see best why this is if we look at what are sometimes called the ‘dangers of initiation.’

Living in the physical world of the senses, one sees the objects round one in sharp contours, outlined in space, and the human soul makes halt at or attaches itself to these firm outlines, which one finds everywhere, filling the soul when it gives itself to sense-phenomena. Now just imagine for a moment all these objects round you becoming misty, losing their contours, merging into each other, becoming like cloud-pictures. It is something like this in the world into which the clairvoyant enters after the first exercises have taken effect. For he arrives at what is behind the whole sense-world, what lies behind all matter, what gives rise to the sense-world. He arrives at the stage where the spiritual world first approaches him. If you think how, in the mountains, crystals form themselves out of their mother-substances into their shapes and lines, so is it, roughly, when the clairvoyant human being comes into the spiritual world. At first it all appears confusing if the student is not sufficiently prepared. But the figures of the physical world grow out of this chaotic world, like the crystal shapes out of their mother-substance. At first the spiritual world is experienced like the mother-substances of the physical world. Into this realm man enters by the gates of death. The images, indeed, will take on other, fixed shapes, when the clairvoyant is further developed, shapes which are interwoven with those outlines which exist in the spiritual world, and which resound with what we have called in the spiritual sense, the music of the spheres. The clairvoyant experiences this after a time, but at first it is all confusing. Still, into this realm enters man.

Now if the images of Helena and Paris are to be brought up, it must be from this world. Faust alone, who has bathed the earthly breast in the morning-red, and found the entrance to the spiritual world, can step into this world, Mephistopheles cannot. He can achieve only what the world of reason can achieve. He can go as far as the key that opens the spiritual realm. But Faust has the confidence and certainty that he will find there what he seeks: the everlasting, the permanent residue when the physical form of man is dissolved at death into its elements.

Now it is wonderful how we are told the way in which Faust is to descend into the spiritual realm. The introduction already shows us that the man who depicts it is well acquainted with the facts—as well as with the perceptions and feeling which come over anyone who really knows these things and does not merely play at them. It all stood in grand manner before Goethe's soul—all that exists of this world of feeling when the seed for initiation, described yesterday, was opened by a particular event.

He read a passage in Plutarch, where is described how the city of Engyium seeks an alliance with Carthage. Nicias, the friend of the Romans, is to be arrested. But he poses as a man possessed. The pro-Carthaginians want to seize him, but they hear these words from his mouth: ‘The Mothers, the Mothers press hard on me!’ That was a cry which in old times one heard only from a man who was in a condition of clairvoyance and withdrawn from the physical world. Nicias could be regarded either as a fool, as one possessed, or as a clairvoyant. But how could this be known? Because he said what those who had some knowledge of the spiritual world recognized. At the utterance of: ‘It is the Mothers who press hard on me!’ the citizens realize that he is not possessed, but inspired; that he can say something as a real witness which can be learnt in the spiritual world—and so he remains unmolested.

On reading this scene, there is released in Goethe's soul something which had been sown as the kernel of initiation already during his Frankfort period. He knew what it meant to penetrate into the spiritual world. Hence also the words put into the mouth of Faust, when Mephistopheles speaks of the ‘Mothers,’ Faust shudders. He knows what it means—that lie touches on a holy but forbidden kingdom, forbidden, that is, for him who is not sufficiently prepared. Mephistopheles, indeed knows also of this realm, that he may not enter it unprepared. Hence the words: ‘Unwilling I reveal a loftier mystery.’ Still, Faust must descend into this kingdom in order to bring to pass what has to be brought to pass—into this kingdom where one sees what is otherwise firm and solid in transfigurations of eternal being. Here the spiritual sense catches sight behind the physical forms of the sense-world of what penetrates into this sense-world to maintain in it its sharp outlines. And then Mephistopheles says, describing this realm as it appears to all who step into it:

‘Escape from the Created
To shapeless forms in liberated spaces!
Enjoy what long ere this was dissipated!
There whirls the press like clouds on clouds unfolding.’

One cannot depict more vividly a real experience of a man truly initiated. The things ‘long ere this dissipated’ will be found in this world, when it is presented thus. ‘To shapeless forms of liberated spheres,’ i.e., into that realm where the forms of the sense-world are no more, where they do not exist, which is ‘liberated’ from them—there where ‘what long ere this was dissipated’ does exist—into this realm Faust is to betake himself. And when one reads ‘There whirls the press, like clouds on clouds unfolding,’ one recognizes again something which is characteristic in the highest degree. Let us think of the entry into the supernatural world as a gate. Before one enters, the soul has to be prepared by means of worthy symbols. One of these is taken from the appearance of the rising sun, and completes the image of bathing the earthly breast in the morning-red: the sun making a particular triangle round itself. The soul goes through this symbol and experiences its after-effects when it has passed through the gate, when it is within, in the spiritual world. Hence these effects: ‘There whirls the press, like clouds on clouds unfolding.’ Every word would be a living proof of what this scene is meant to be: Faust's penetration to the first stages of the supernatural world, which you find called the ‘imaginative world.’ When Goethe presented this, he was not obliged to compound a picture of the spiritual world from old Indian or Egyptian descriptions; he was able to put down quite realistically what he himself had experienced; and this he did.

Now Faust brings up the ‘glowing tripod,’ round which the Mothers sit, the sources of existence in the spiritual world. With its help Faust is able to conjure up Paris and Helena before men, and to present pictures from the spiritual world. It would lead too far to explain in detail the important symbol of the glowing tripod. We are concerned to show how a kind of initiation is really depicted in Part II of ‘Faust.’ But we see how carefully and correctly Goethe proceeds by the fact that he shows us the way into the spiritual world which he only who is worthy can tread slowly and with resignation. He shows us that Faust is not even yet worthy enough. Only he is worthy to enter the spiritual world who has put off everything that is connected with narrow personality so that no wishes or desires, arising from it, any longer exist. This is apparently to say little, but in truth it is saying a great deal. For usually between what is sought and what is to be achieved by the cancellation of all personal wishes and desires, there lies not only one human life, but many. Goethe shows with the certainty of knowledge that Faust is not yet worthy. Desire awakes in him; he wants to embrace Helena from a personal desire. Whereupon the whole thing collapses—it vanishes. He has committed a sin against the spiritual world. He cannot hold her. He must penetrate further into the spiritual world. And so we see him in the course of Part II going further on his way. We see him after being ‘paralysed by Helena’ again in another state of consciousness, withdrawn from the physical body and fallen into sleep; and how something happens around him which as it were clambers from the sense-world into the supersense-world. What this is shows us nothing other than that Faust, once again withdrawn from the physical world, experiences something which can only with full consciousness be experienced in the supersense-world. What he has now to go through is the complete growth of man. He must go through those mighty events which take place behind the scenes of the stage of the physical world, so that he really can behold what he wants to behold. Helena must be brought back again into the physical world, she must be reincarnated into a new body. When he brings back the merely imaginative image from the spiritual world the whole thing breaks down. He must go deeper. We see him now overcoming a second stage. In this state in which he is put we now see how the consciousness gradually lives upward from the sense-world into the supersense-world. This is done in a poetically masterly way. It is not a case of marvelling at the reality of it, for that is explained simply by the fact that Goethe depicts Part II of ‘Faust’ from his own experience. But the way is masterly in which Goethe represents the secret of Helena's becoming mortal, it is also poetic.

Whoever is acquainted with the elementary truths of Spiritual Science, knows that man, in assuming life on our earth, brings with him an eternal, spiritual part from quite other realms, that this spiritual part is combined below with the physical hereditary line, taken from the physical-sense-world and bequeathed finally by father and mother. On the whole—taking the various parts of man altogether without entering more precisely upon human nature—we may say that in man are combined something eternal and something earthly. The eternal part, going on from life to life, which descends from the spiritual world to be embodied in a physical form—this we call ‘spirit.’ And in order that this spirit can combine with physical matter, there must be an intermediate part, and this in terms of Spiritual Science is the soul. Thus spirit, soul and body are combined in the formation of a human being.

Now Faust with his increased consciousness is to experience how these parts of human nature combine. The spirit descends from spiritual spheres, gradually surrounds itself with the soul which is derived from the psychic world, and then draws the physical covering round itself in accordance with the laws of the physical world. If one knows the principle which attaches itself as ‘soul’ around the spirit, and often called by us the ‘astral body,’ if one knows what is between spirit and body, one has that intermediate member, which as it were binds together spirit and body.

The spirit Faust finds in the realm of the Mothers. He knows already where to look for it, whence it comes, when it betakes itself into a new embodiment. But he has yet to learn how the tie is formed, when the spirit comes into the physical world. And now we are shown in that remarkable scene, how, starting from the sense-world and touching the boundary of the supersense-world, the ‘Homunculus’ is produced in Wagner's laboratory. Mephistopheles himself has a hand in it, and we are told in spirited words that only the conditions of his creation are provided by Wagner. Thus this remarkable figure, the Homunculus comes into being, assisted as it were by the spiritual world. Much thought has been spent on this Homunculus. But thinking and speculating on such things lead nowhere. The problem who he is can be solved only by real creation out of Spiritual Science. To those who spoke of him in the Middle Ages he was no other than a definite form of the astral body.

This scene is not to be pictured in the sphere of sense—but in such a way that it must be thought of as quite removed into the spiritual world. You must follow all the events in Faust's condition of consciousness. The way in which the Homunculus is described in the subsequent scenes shows him to be really the representative of the astral body.

‘He has no lack of qualities ideal
But far too much of palpable and real.’

That is the characteristic of the astral body, and he says of himself:

‘Since I exist, then I must active be.’

an astral figure, which cannot stay still, compelled to live in continuous activity. He must be taken away to those spheres, where he can actually combine spirit and body.

And now we see the creation of man, which Faust experiences, represented to us in the ‘Classical Walpurgis-Night.’ There we are shown the sum of all the powers and beings which are active behind the physical-sense-world, and spirits from the physical world are continually being interspersed, which have trained their souls so far that they have grown together with the spiritual world, and that they are at the same time conscious in the spiritual world. The two great philosophers Anaxagoras and Thales are figures of this kind. The Homunculus wishes to find out from them how one can come to be, how one can proceed to a physical form, when one is spiritual. All the figures which we see in this ‘Classical Walpurgis-Night’ are there to assist—figures of the realization of the astral body which is ready to enter the material, physical world. If one could follow it all exactly, every detail would be a proof of its meaning. The Homunculus seeks information from Proteus and Nereus as to how he can enter the physical world. He is shown how he can wrap himself in the elements of matter, and how the spiritual qualities are in him—viz., how the soul gradually betakes itself into the physical-sense elements—through that which has played its part in the realms of nature kingdoms. We are shown how the soul has to traverse again the states of the mineral, the plant and the animal realms, in order to rise to human shape:

‘On the broad ocean's breast must thou begin!’

that is, in the mineral realm; then you must go through the plant realm. Goethe, indeed, invents an expression for it, which does not otherwise exist. He makes the Homunculus say: ‘Es grunelt so:’²

‘Here breathes and blows a tender air;
And I delight me in the fragrance rare.’

It is pointed out to him what road he has to take till a physical body is formed by degrees round him. Finally comes the moment of love. Eros will complete the whole. Thales gives the advice:

‘Yield to the wish so wisely stated,
And at the source be thou created!
Be ready for the rapid plan!
There, by eternal canons wending,
Through thousand, myriad forms ascending,
Thou shalt attain, in time, to Man.’

Then, when the Homunculus has entered upon the physical world, he loses his qualities, the ego becomes his master!

‘But struggle not to higher orders:
Once Man, within the human borders,
Then all is at an end with thee.’

So says Proteus—i.e., at an end with the astral body which has not yet penetrated into the human realm.

Goethe's whole theory of nature, with its relationship between all life, and its metamorphosic development from the incomplete to the complete appears here in the picture. The spirit can at first be only like a seed in the world. It must pour itself into matter, into the elements, and dive below in them, in order to assume from them a higher form. The Homunculus is shattered on Galatea's shell-chariot. He dissolves into the elements. It is a marvellous presentation of the moment when the astral body has enwrapped itself in a body of physical matter—and can now live as man.

These are experiences Faust goes through while he is in another state of consciousness, a condition outside the body. He is becoming gradually ready to behold the secrets lying behind physical-material existence. And now he is able to behold the spirit of Helena, from the realm of things ‘long ere this dissipated’ appearing in bodily shape before him. We have in Act 3 of Part II the re-embodiment of Helena. Goethe represents the idea of re-incarnation cryptically—as he had to in his day; how spirit, soul and body unite from the three realms, to form a human being—and before us stands the re-incarnated Helena.

We must of course remember that, since he is a poet, Goethe presents in pictorial form the experience of the clairvoyant consciousness. Wherefore we must not rush in with heavy-fisted criticism and ask: ‘Is Helena now really re-incarnated?’ We must keep in mind that a poet is speaking of what he has himself experienced in spiritual worlds.

In this way Faust, after having conquered a new stage of life, is able to experience harmony with what is ‘long ere this dissipated,’ the union with Helena. We see now how a being springs from the union of the human soul with the spiritual when the soul has raised itself up into higher worlds; a child of the spirit, subject not to the laws of the sense-world, but to the laws of the spiritual world: Euphorion. We shall understand what springs from the union of the raised spirit with the sense-world if we remember the previously-quoted passage from the proposed Epilogue of Mephistopheles-Phorkyas at the end of Act III, and if we realize that Goethe has in ‘Euphorion’ put in traits which belong to Byron, whom he much honoured. In doing so he may, after all, apply the laws of the spiritual world to it, since he is concerned with events in the spiritual world. And so Euphorion, though scarce conceived, may be already born and at once jump about and stir himself and say spirited things. Once more we see how strictly and conscientiously Goethe takes the entry into the spiritual world. In his aspiration for supernatural worlds, Faust is far beyond his present experiences. But even so he is not free from those powers from which he must liberate himself, if his soul is to unite completely with the spiritual world. He is not free from what Mephistopheles mixes into these spiritual experiences. Faust is what one calls a mystic, who—in the Helena-Euphorion scene—lives and moves completely in the spiritual world. But because he has not yet scaled the necessary step which makes him capable of being absorbed entirely by the spiritual world, so, once more, what he can experience in it escapes him: viz., Helena and Euphorion. What he had brought by his experience from the spiritual world eludes him yet again. He has become capable of living in the spiritual world, of experiencing Euphorion, the child of the spirit, who springs from the marriage between the human soul and the world-spirit—but it escapes him again and vanishes. Now there sounds from the depths a remarkable call. He is now like a mystic, stumbling for a time, one who has had a glimpse into the spiritual world and knows what it is like, but could not remain, and sees himself suddenly cast out again into the material world: he feels his soul to be the mother of what was born from the spiritual world, but what he has born sinks again into the spiritual world, and it is as if it were to call out to the soul itself:

‘Leave me here, in the gloomy Void,
Mother, not thus alone!’

as if the human soul had to follow into the realm which has once more disappeared. Faust retains nothing more than Helena's robe and veil. The man who goes deeper into the meaning of such things, knows what Goethe meant with the ‘robe and veil;’ it is so exactly what remains when one has once peeped into the spiritual world and has then had to withdraw. There remains with one what is nothing else but the abstraction, the ideas, which stretch from epoch to epoch—nothing else but robe and veil of spiritual powers which endure from age to age.

So the mystic is again thrust out for a time and confined to his thoughts, like the intelligent historian, with everywhere robe and veil which carry him from age to age. These ideas are not unfruitful; for him who is limited to the sense-world, they are very much of a necessity. For him, who has already a feeling and an experience of the spiritual world, they contain another importance. They stand out dry and abstract for the man who in any case is an abstractionist, but the man who has once been touched by the spiritual world—even if he grasps only these abstract ideas—is carried by them through the world into quite another age, in which he can again experience something of the effect of the powers throughout the great world.

Faust is transplanted again into the world he once before experienced at the Court. He sees again how the beings, in whose deeds man is only embedded, play the chief part. He sees again how supernatural threads are spun, and how the same power which he knows as Mephistopheles helps to spin them. So his life passes once more from the sense-world into the super-sense—he learns how powers worm themselves into our sense-world which we see out there in the world of nature, how Mephistopheles leads, as it were, the spirits behind the forces of nature on to the battlefield: ‘Hill-folk,’ he calls them. The powers behind the material world are represented as if the hills themselves bring their people into the war. But here is a life that stands on a subordinate plane. This participation of a world that lies below the realm of man, though directed by spiritual forces, is here plainly depicted. There follows, grandly shown, the description of the part played by the historical forces, which are real forces for the spiritual spectator. Out of the old armouries and storerooms where lie the old helmets, come those beings of whom the abstractionist would say they are ‘historical ideas’—of whom, however, he who can look into it knows that they live in the spiritual world. And we see how Faust in his higher state of consciousness is led to the great powers in history, we see these powers of history arise and being led into the field. Faust's consciousness is to be raised still higher. The whole world must appear to him spiritualized—all the events we see around us, which the ordinary abstractionist describes only with his understanding, for being limited to a physical brain, he imagines he has done everything when he describes the externals. But all this is connected, and is guided and directed by supernatural beings and forces.

When man's life is carried in this way to spiritual heights, he discovers the whole might of that which is to drag him down again into the material world. He gets to know in a remarkable manner him whom he has not quite got to know before. So it is now with Faust. He stands now at an important point in his inner development: he has to complete the journey: Mephistopheles is involved in everything he has seen up to now. He can be free from Mephistopheles—from those spiritual forces which bind man to the sense-world, and try to prevent his liberation—only when he accosts Mephistopheles as the Tempter. There where the world with its realms, nature and history with its spirituality confront Faust, he experiences something in which the man who understands these things can without difficulty recognize from what depths Goethe spoke. The ‘Tempter,’ who would drag man down when he has risen a certain way into the spiritual world, comes to man and tries to give him false feelings and sensations concerning what he sees in the supernatural world. The approach of the Tempter to man is presented in the grand manner. He is the same who came to the Christ and promised him all the kingdoms of the world and their glories.

Something like this happens to the man who has entered into the spiritual world. He is promised by the Tempter the world with all its glories.

What does this mean? Nothing else than that he may not believe that anything of this world could still belong to his narrow egoism. That all personality with its egoistic wishes and desires must be thrust away, that the ‘Tempter’ must be overcome, Goethe points out through Mephistopheles in such a way that it may be a touchstone for us of what his meaning is:

‘Yet now, with sober season to address thee,
Did nothing on our outside shell impress thee?
From this exceeding height thou saw'st unfurled
The glory of the Kingdoms of the World.’

(Matt. 4.)

One might say that Goethe points out with these words, more than clearly enough for those who refuse to understand, what he really intends, in order to represent also this important stage in the spiritual growth of man. Then Faust succeeds in so far overcoming the egoism of persona! wish and desire, that he dedicates all his activity to that piece of land with which he has been enfeoffed. He does not desire possession of this land—he does not desire fame—nothing of all that—he wants only to devote himself to work for other people:

‘Stand on free soil among a people free!’

We must take these words to mean that personal egoism gradually departs from the human soul. For no one who has not overcome this personal egoism, can really reach the last stage, which Goethe still wants to depict. So he shows Faust at the point where the garments of human personal egoism fall away like scales, where Faust gives himself absolutely to the spiritual, where in fact all the frippery of fame and external honours in the world are nothing more to him. But one thing Faust has not even yet overcome. And again we see from a spiritual point of view deep, deep into Goethe's heart, as he now describes what happens next.

Faust has become a selfless man up to a point. He has learnt what it means to say: ‘The act is all, the glory is nothing.’ He has learnt to say: ‘I desire to be active. My activity must flow out into the world—I will have nothing as reward for this activity!’ But in one small incident it is revealed that his egoism has not completely disappeared. On his wide territories there stands an old cottage on rising ground, in which lives an old couple, Philemon and Baucis. In all things Faust's egoism has disappeared, except with regard to this cottage. Here there is a last remnant of egoism which speaks in his soul. What he could do with this rising ground! He could stand up there and survey at a glance the fruits of his labour—and rejoice at what he had accomplished! That is a last bit of egoism, the enjoyment in a physical survey. Gratification in a commanding material view, that remains to him still. He must get beyond. Nothing of desire and comfort, i.e., of direct surrender to the outer world, with which egoism is connected, may remain in his soul. And once more we see Faust in touch with spiritual forces. In the ‘Midnight’ scene, enter four Grey Women. They come up near to him. Three of them, Want, Guilt and Necessity cannot do anything to him, but now something emerges which belongs to the experiences of the Way of Initiation. Along the Way of Initiation there is a secret connection between all that a man's egoism can make him do and that attitude of soul which is expressed by the word ‘Care.’ In that man who is far enough to look selflessly into the spiritual world, there is no care. Care is the companion of egoisms. And as little as some can perhaps believe that when Care is present, egoism has not disappeared, so true is it that on the long, self-denying path into the spiritual world, egoism must completely vanish. If man steps into the spiritual world and brings with him into it any trace of egoism, Care comes and reveals itself as a disturbing power. Here we have something of the dangers of initiation. In the material world, the kindly powers of the spiritual world take care to see that the power of Care cannot thus come near human beings. But the moment they grow together with the spiritual world, and learn to know powers which are at play there, such things as Care become disturbing forces. Some things may have been overcome by means of the keys which lead into the spiritual world, but Care slips through all key-holes. To be sure, if man is far enough, and faces Care bravely, Care becomes a power that can remove from him this last remnant of egoism. Faust goes blind. Why? He goes blind because the power of the last bit of egoism remaining in him is cancelled by the power of Care. The last possibility of personal enjoyment is removed. It gets darker and darker all round. Now his soul feels the last remnant of egoism when he has ordered the cottage to be pulled down, from whose site the selfish pleasure of satisfaction in his work could have been derived.

‘But in my inmost spirit all is light!’

Now Faust's soul belongs to that world over which Care and all the disturbing elements which vex the body have no power, and he experiences what those about to be initiated into the spiritual world experience. He takes part as an outside observer, in events which he does not experience in the physical world, his own death and burial. He looks down from the spiritual world upon the physical world and upon all that happens to him as if it were another. The events concern now only those powers which are in the physical world.

It would take us far to explain how Goethe now makes the ‘Lemures’ appear, which consist only of sinews and bones, so that they have no soul; they represent man at the stage before he has received a soul. But Faust himself is carried into the spiritual world. We see Mephistopheles fighting a last battle for Faust's soul—a significant and remarkable battle. If one were to divide this battle up into its details one would see what a deep knowledge of the spiritual world Goethe had.

There lies the dying Faust. Mephistopheles fights for the soul. He knows that this soul can leave the body at several places. Here there is much to be learnt by those who read in one or other handbook how the soul leaves the body. Goethe is further. He knows that it is not always the same place, but that the soul's departure from the body in death depends entirely on the state of development of the person. He knows that the soul, while in the body, receives a shape corresponding to the body only because of the elastic power of love. Mephistopheles believes Faust's soul to be ready for the Kingdom of darkness. In that case it could have only the shape he describes as a ‘hideous worm.’ When a soul has given itself to its own powers, it can have only a shape expressing its virtues or vices. If Faust's soul were ripe for the Kingdom of darkness, its shape would have been as Mephistopheles thought. But now it is developed and is carried away, because its virtues are such as correspond to the spiritual world and spiritual worlds take possession of it.

Next we meet those people who are, so to speak, the connecting units between the physical and the spiritual world, who stand as initiates in the physical world and range with their spirit into the spiritual world: supernatural men of experience and observers—so they are introduced to us. Goethe tells in his poem that he has inscribed as ‘Symbolum’ how two voices resound out of the spiritual world:

‘Still call from beyond
The voices of spirits,
The voices of masters:
To exercise fail not
The powers of goodness.’

Here also Goethe is consistent with his knowledge. He represents the spirits which are not incarnate in the material world. But first he represents those to whom the name ‘Masters’ is often applied, who are incarnate in the material world. He represents them in the garb which was the handiest in his day, as ‘Pater Ecstaticus,’ ‘Pater Seraphicus,’ and ‘Pater Profundus.’ Concerning this he said to Eckermann: ‘In any case you will allow that the ending, where the rescued soul rises to heaven, was very difficult to do, and that I might have easily lost myself in vagueness with such supernatural, scarcely guessable things, unless I gave my poetic intentions a delimiting form and firmness by means of the sharply-outlined, ecclesiastical figures and ideas.’

Whoever heard here the lectures on ‘Christian Initiation’ will recognize again to what extent Goethe was initiated into those things.

Thus Faust's soul rises through the regions, through which those souls have passed which have grown accustomed to the spiritual world and are active in it, and assist in bringing other souls into it. And then we see how Goethe lays down, so to speak, his ‘credo’—that ‘credo’ which marks him as a member of that spiritual-scientific stream, which has also so often been spoken of here, especially in the lecture ‘Where and how does one find the Spirit’³ in which an example was given of how man ‘lives’ himself into the spiritual world. There was mentioned the ‘black Cross with the red roses.’ Powers are awakened in the soul when man yields himself to this ‘Cross of roses,’ which represents in the black cross the sinking down of the sense world and in the red roses the blossoming up of the spiritual world. It represents what the abstract words say:

‘And until thou this thing hast,
This death and birth,
Thou art but a sorry guest
On the dark earth.’

What man attains through spiritual understanding, through the power of the red roses, Goethe was well aware, and he confesses it: the red roses fall down from the spiritual world, as the immortal part of Faust is taken up. And so we see how Goethe really shows us the path of the human soul into the spiritual world.

Some things could be presented only sketchily. For there is something peculiar about this ‘Faust’ of Goethe: it becomes deeper and even deeper, the more one grows into it, and only then one learns what Goethe can become for humanity. One learns to recognize what he will one day become, if Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy will illuminate Goethe's esoteric poetry, where he speaks of the spiritual world from his own experiences. Goethe depicts realistically what he knows to be facts of the spiritual world. This second Part of Faust is a realistic Poem—closed of course to those who do not know that the spiritual worlds are realities.⁴ What we have are not ‘symbols,’ but only a poetic clothing up of quite realistic, albeit supernatural events, such as the soul experiences when it becomes one with the world that is its original home; when it feels itself possessed, not of knowledge which is only an abstraction, a growing together with sense observation or abstract understanding, but of knowledge which is a real fact of the spiritual world. Certainly one will for a long time yet be far from an understanding of Goethe's ‘Faust;’ for one will first have to learn the language of ‘Faust’ if one wants to get inside it. One can take up commentary after commentary: not only once are the words explained by otherwise quite clever people. As Wagner sees the ‘Homunculus’ sprouting in the retort, he says—(you can read in commentaries what his words are supposed to mean):

‘'Twill be! the mass is working clearer!
Conviction⁵ gathers, truer, nearer!’

I say it as wrongly as all those since Goethe have said, who make it mean that Wagner has the conviction that the Homunculus will come into being: ‘The conviction in Wagner is working clearer!’ And the explainers of ‘Faust’ imagine they can ladle out the whole of its depth with such trivialities! Certainly our age, which has also another word coined by Goethe in its mouth, viz. ‘superman,’ without grasping its deeper meaning, could not explain these words otherwise. Their true meaning, however, is this: that which is conceived in the physical world is a ‘conception’ (‘Zeugung ‘); that which is conceived here in the astral world is a ‘super-conception,’ (Uberzeugung—conviction). One has first to learn how to read Goethe, when like all great minds, he makes his own words. Then one will be able to measure the whole earnestness, out of which the Faust arose. Then one will, above all, not commit the triviality of understanding the final words of Faust to mean by ‘eternal-feminine,’ something which has to do with the feminine in the sense-world.

The ‘eternal-feminine’ is that power in the soul which lets itself be fertilized by the spiritual world, and thereby grows together in its clairvoyant and magical deeds with the spiritual world. What can be fertilized there is this ‘eternal-feminine’ in every human being, which draws him up to the spheres of the eternal; and Goethe has depicted in Faust this course of growth of the eternal feminine into spiritual worlds.

Look round in the physical world: we really see everything properly for the first time, when we see in it, not the true reality, but a symbol of eternity. This eternity is experienced by the soul when it passes the gates into the spiritual world. There it experiences what can be explained in matter-of-fact sense terms, if they are used in a quite special way. On this point Goethe has also expressed himself—and as a great warning for all who of set opinion insist in abstractions concerning something or other. In two successive poems Goethe has expressed, like a great exhortation to mankind, that when someone speaks of a thing in the spiritual world, he can express it in diametrically opposite views. In the first poem he says:

‘The eternal must persist through all:
For into nothing all must fall
If it insists in being.’

While he here gives utterance to the thought of his ‘eternal flux’ philosophy, he says immediately afterwards in the next poem:

‘No being can to nothing fall,
Eternity persists in all,
Rejoice in that thou art.’

While the opposite thoughts of the sense-world are used as the contrasted reflexions of the super-sense world, the latter cannot be described in terms of the former. Material words are always insufficient when used in a special sense.

So we see how Goethe, while representing the ‘indescribable’ from the most diverse sides, causes it to be done before the eyes of the spirit. What is ‘unattainable’ for the material world is within the reach of spiritual vision, if the soul schools itself in that part which can be developed by means of the powers which Spiritual Science can give it. It is not for nothing that Goethe makes that work in which he has exposed the most exquisite and richest of his experiences, ring forth in a ‘Chorus Mysticus,’ which of course must contain nothing trivial. For in this Chorus Mysticus he points out to us how that which is indescribable in material words is done, when the language of imagery is used: how the soul, by means of the eternal womanhood in it is drawn into the spiritual world.

‘All things transitory
But as symbols are sent:
Earth's insufficiency
There grows to Event:
The Indescribable,
Here it is done:
The Woman-Soul⁶ leadeth us
Upward and on!’

In such words could Goethe speak of the way to the spiritual world. In such words could he speak of the powers of the soul, which when developed, lead mankind step by step into the spiritual world.

• 1. See Cycle XIII, Mission of the Folk-Souls, by R. Steiner.
• 2. Dictionary: grows green. – Ed.
• 3. 15th October, 1908, Berlin.
• 4. See Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Scientific Elucidation of Goethe's Faust, Vols. I and II, in course of translation (1933).
• 5. Uberzeugung.
• 6. Ewig-Weibliche; the Eternal Feminine.

We were able to close our lecture on the Mission of Anger (illustrated in Prometheus Bound) with the saying of Heraclitus: “Never will you find the boundaries of the soul, by whatever paths you search for them; so all-embracing is the soul's being.” We came to know this depth in the working and interplay of the powers of the soul; and the truth of the saying came home to us especially when we turned our attention to the most deeply inward part of man's being. Man is most spiritual in his Ego, and that was our starting-point.

The Ego complements those other elements of man's being which he has in common with minerals, plants and animals. He has his physical body in common with minerals, plants and animals; his etheric body in common with animals and plants; his astral body in common with animals. Through his Ego he first becomes man in the true sense and is able to progress from stage to stage. It is the Ego that works upon the other members of his being; it cleanses and purifies the instincts, inclinations, desires and passions of the astral body, and will lead the etheric and physical bodies on to ever-higher stages. But if we look at the Ego, we find that this high member of man's being is imprisoned, as it were, between two extremes.

Through his Ego, man is intended to become increasingly a being who has a firm centre in himself. His thoughts, feelings and will-impulses should spring from this centre. The more he has a firm and well-endowed centre in himself, the more will he have to give to the world; the stronger and richer will be his activities and everything that goes out from him. If he is unable to find this central point in himself, he will be in danger of losing himself through a misconceived activity of his Ego. He would lose himself in the world and go ineffectually through life. Or he may lapse into the other extreme. Just as he may lose himself if he fails to strengthen and enrich his Ego, so, if he thinks of nothing but developing his Ego, he may fall into the other extreme of selfish isolation from all human community. Here, on this other side, we find egoism, with its hardening and secluding influence, which can divert the Ego from its proper path. The Ego is confined within these two extremes.

In considering the human soul, we called three of its members the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul. We also came to recognise—surprisingly, perhaps, for many people—that anger acts as a kind of educator of the Sentient Soul. A one-sided view of the lecture on the mission of anger could give scope for many objections. But if we go into the underlying significance of this view of anger, we shall find in it an answer to many important riddles of life.

In what sense is anger an educator of the soul—especially the Sentient Soul—and a forerunner of love? Is it not true that anger tends to make a man lose control of himself and engage in wild, immoral and loveless behaviour? If we are thinking only of wild, unjustified outbursts of anger, we shall get a false idea of what the mission of anger is. It is not through unjustified outbreaks of anger that anger educates the soul, but through its inward action on the soul.

Let us again imagine two teachers faced with children who have done something wrong. One teacher will burst into anger and hastily impose a penalty. The other teacher, though unable to break out into anger, is also incapable of acting rightly, with perfect tranquility, out of his Ego, in the sense described yesterday. How will the behaviour of two such teachers differ? An outburst of anger by one of them involves more than the penalty imposed on the child. Anger agitates the soul and works upon it in such a way as to destroy selfishness. Anger acts like a poison on selfishness, and we find that in time it gradually transforms the powers of the soul and makes it capable of love. On the other hand, if a teacher has not yet attained inner tranquility and yet inflicts a coldly calculated penalty, he will—since anger will not work in him as a counteracting poison—become increasingly a cold egoist.

Anger works inwardly and can be regarded as a regulator for unjustified outbursts of selfishness. Anger must be there or it could not be fought against. In overcoming anger the soul continually improves itself. If a man insists on getting something done that he considers right and loses his temper over it, his anger will dampen the egoistic forces in his soul; it reduces their effective power. Just because anger is overcome and a man frees himself from it and rises above it, his selflessness will be enhanced and the selflessness of his Ego continually strengthened. The scene of this interplay between anger and the Ego is the Sentient Soul. A different interplay between the soul and other experiences takes its course in the Intellectual Soul.

Although the soul has attributes which it must overcome in order to rise above them, it must also develop inwardly certain forces which it should love and cherish, however spontaneously they may arise. They are forces to which the soul may initially yield, so that, when it finally asserts itself, it is not weakened, but strengthened, by the experience. If a man were incapable of anger when called upon to assert himself in action, he would be the weaker for it.

It is just when a man lovingly immerses himself in his own soul that his soul is strengthened and an ascent to higher stages of the Ego comes within reach. The outstanding element that the soul may love within itself, leading not to egoism but to selflessness, is truth. Truth educates the Intellectual Soul. While anger is an attribute of the soul that must be overcome if a man is to rise to higher stages, truth should be loved and valued from the start. An inward cultivation of truth is essential for the progress of the soul.

How is it that devotion to truth leads man upwards from stage to stage? The opposites of truth are falsehood and error. We shall see how man progresses in so far as he overcomes falsehood and error and pursues truth as his great ideal.

A higher truth must be the aim of man's endeavour, while he treats anger as an enemy to be increasingly abolished. He must love truth and feel himself most intimately united with it. Nevertheless, eminent poets and thinkers have rightly claimed that full possession of truth is beyond human reach. Lessing,²¹ for example, says that pure truth is not for men, but only a perpetual striving towards it. He speaks of truth as a distant goddess whom men may approach but never reach. When the nature of truth stirs the soul to strive for it, the soul can be impelled to rise from stage to stage. Since there is this everlasting search for truth, and since truth is so manifold in meaning, all we can reasonably say is that man must set out to grasp truth and to kindle in himself a genuine sense of truth. Hence we cannot speak of a single, all-embracing truth.

In this lecture we will consider the idea of truth in its right sense, and it will become clear that by cultivating a sense of truth in his inner life man will be imbued with a progressive power that leads him to selflessness.

Man strives towards truth; but when people try to form views concerning one thing or another, we find that in the most varied realms of life conflicting opinions are advanced. When we see what different people take for truth, we might think that the striving for truth leads inevitably to the most contradictory views and standpoints. However, if we look impartially at the facts, we shall find guidelines which show how it is that men who are all seeking truth, arrive at such a diversity of opinions.

Let us take an example. The American multimillionaire, Harriman,²² who died recently, was a rarity among millionaires in concerning himself with thoughts of general human interest. His aphorisms, found after his death, include a remarkable statement. He wrote: No man in this world is indispensable. When one goes, another is there to take his place. When I lay down my work, another will come and take it up. The railways will continue running, dividends will be paid; and so, strictly speaking, it is with all men.

This millionaire, accordingly, rose to the point of declaring as a generally valid truth—no man is indispensable!

Let us compare this statement with a remark by a man who worked for many years in Berlin and gained great distinction through his lecture courses on the lives of Michelangelo, Raphael and Goethe—I mean the art-historian Herman Grimm.²³ When Treitschke²⁴ died, Herman Grimm wrote of him roughly as follows: Now Treitschke is gone, and people only now realise what he accomplished. No-one can take his place and continue his work in the same way. A feeling prevails that in the circle where he taught, everything is changed. Note that Herman Grimm did not add the words, so it is with all men.

Here we have two men, the American millionaire and Herman Grimm, who arrive at exactly opposite truths. How does this come about? If we carefully compare the two statements, we shall find a clue. Bear in mind that Harriman says pointedly: When I lay down my work, someone else will continue it. He does not get away from himself. The other thinker, Herman Grimm, leaves himself entirely out of account. He does not speak about himself, or ask what sort of opinions or truths others might gain from him. He merges himself in his subject. Anyone with a feeling for the matter will have no doubt as to which of the two spoke truth. We need only ask—who carried on Goethe's work when he laid it down? We can feel that Harriman's reflections suffer from the fact that he fails to get away from himself. Up to a point we may conclude that it is prejudicial to truth if someone in search of truth cannot get away from himself. Truth is best served when the seeker leaves himself out of the reckoning. Would it be true to say, then, that truth is already something that gives us a view (Ansicht) of things?

A view, in the sense of an opinion, is a thought which reflects the outer world. When we form a thought or reach a decision about something, does it follow that we have a true picture of it?

Suppose you take a photograph of a remarkable tree. Does the photograph give a true picture of the tree? It shows the tree from one side only, not the whole reality of the tree. No-one could form a true image of the tree from this one photograph. How could anyone who has not seen the tree be brought nearer to the truth of it? If the tree were photographed from four sides, he could collate the photographs and arrive finally at a true picture of the tree, not dependent on a particular standpoint.

Now let us apply this example to human beings. A man who leaves himself out of account when forming a view of something is doing much the same as the photographer who goes all round the tree. He eliminates himself by conscious action. When we form an opinion or take a certain view, we must realise that all such opinions depend on our personal standpoint, our habits of mind and our individuality. If we then try to eliminate these influences from our search for truth, we shall be acting as the photographer did in our example. The first condition for acquiring a genuine sense of truth is that we should get away from ourselves and see clearly how much depends on our personal point of view. If the American multimillionaire had got away from himself he would have known that there was a difference between him and other men.

An example from everyday life has shown us, that if a man fails to realise how much his personal standpoint or point of departure influences his views, he will arrive at narrow opinions, not at the truth. This is apparent also on a wider scale. Anyone who looks at the true spiritual evolution of mankind, and compares all the various “truths” that have arisen in the course of time, will find—if he looks deeply enough—that when people pronounce a “truth” they ought first of all to get away from their individual outlooks. It will then become clear that the most varied opinions concerning truth are advanced because men have not recognised to what extent their views are restricted by their personal standpoints.

A less familiar example may lead to a deeper understanding of this matter. If we want to learn more about beauty, we turn to aesthetics, which deals with the forms of beauty. Beauty is something we encounter in the outer world. How can we learn the truth about it? Here again we must free ourselves from the restrictions imposed by our personal characteristics.

Take for example the 19th century German thinker, Solger.²⁵ He wished to investigate the nature of beauty in accordance with his idea of truth. He could not deny that we meet with beauty in the external world; but he was a man with a one-sided theosophical outlook, and this was reflected in his theory of aesthetics. His interest in a beautiful picture was confined to the shining through it of the only kind of spirituality he recognised. For him, an object was beautiful only in so far as the spiritual was manifest through it. Solger was a one-sided theosophist; he sought to explain sense-perceptible phenomena in terms of the super-sensible; but he forgot that sense-perceptible reality has a justified existence on its own account. Unable to escape from his preconceptions, he sought to attain to the spiritual by way of a misconceived theosophy.

Another writer on aesthetics, Robert Zimmermann,²⁶ came to an exactly opposite conclusion. As against Solger's misconceived theosophical aesthetics, Zimmermann based his aesthetics on a misconceived anti-theosophical outlook. His sole concern was with symmetry and anti-symmetry, harmony and discord. He had no interest in going beyond the beautiful to that which manifests through it. So his aesthetics were as one-sided as Solger’s. Every striving for truth can be vitiated if the seeker fails to recognise that he must first endeavour to get away from himself. This can be achieved only gradually; but the primary, inexorable demand is, that if we are to advance towards truth we must leave ourselves out of account and quite forget ourselves. Truth has a unique characteristic: a man can strive for it while remaining entirely within himself and yet—while living in his Ego—he can acquire something which, fundamentally speaking, has nothing to do with the egoistic ego.

Whenever a man tries in life to get his own way in some matter, this is an expression of his egoism. Whenever he wants to force on others something he thinks right and loses his temper over it, that is an expression of his self-seeking. This self-seeking must be subdued before he can attain to truth. Truth is something we experience in our most inward being—and yet it liberates us increasingly from ourselves. Of course, it is essential that nothing save the love of truth should enter into our striving for it. If passions, instincts and desires, from which the Sentient Soul must be cleansed before the Intellectual Soul can strive for truth, come into it, they will prevent a man from getting away from himself and will keep his Ego tied to a fixed viewpoint. In the search for truth, the only passion that must not be discarded is love.

Truth is a lofty goal. This is shown by the fact that truth, in the sense intended here, is recognised today in one limited realm only. It is only in the realm of mathematics that humanity in general has reached the goal of truth, for here men have curbed their passions and desires and kept them out of the way. Why are all men agreed that three times three makes nine and not ten? Because no emotion comes into it, Men would agree on the highest truths if they had gone as far with them as they have with mathematics. The truths of mathematics are grasped in the inmost soul, and because they are grasped in this way, we possess them. We would still possess them if a hundred or a thousand people were to contradict us; we would still know that three times three makes nine because we have grasped this fact inwardly. If the hundred or thousand people who take a different view were to get away from themselves, they would come to the same truth.

What, then, is the way to mutual understanding and unity for mankind? We understand one another in the field of reckoning and counting because here we have met the conditions required. Peace, concord and harmony will prevail among men to the extent that they find truth. That is the essential thing: that we should seek for truth as something to be found only in our own deepest being; and should know that truth ever and again draws men together, because from the innermost depth of every human soul its light shines forth.

So is truth the leader of mankind towards unity and mutual understanding, and also the precursor of justice and love. Truth is a precursor we must cherish, while the other precursor, anger, that we came to know yesterday, must be overcome if we are to be led by it away from selfishness. That is the mission of truth: to become the object of increasing love and care and devotion on our part. Inasmuch as we devote ourselves inwardly to truth, our true self gains in strength and will enable us to cast off self-interest. Anger weakens us; truth strengthens us.

Truth is a stern goddess; she demands to be at the centre of a unique love in our souls. If man fails to get away from himself and his desires and prefers something else to her, she takes immediate revenge. The English poet Coleridge has rightly indicated how a man should stand towards truth. If, he says, a man loves Christianity more than truth, he will soon find that he loves his own Christian sect more than Christianity, and then he will find that he loves himself more than his sect.

Very much is implicit in these words. Above all, they signify that to strive against truth leads to humanly degrading egoism. Love of truth is the only love that sets the Ego free. And directly man gives priority to anything else, he falls inevitably into self-seeking. Herein lies the great and most serious importance of truth for the education of the human soul. Truth conforms to no man, and only by devotion to truth can truth be found. Directly man prefers himself and his own opinions to the truth, he becomes anti-social and alienates himself from the human community. Look at people who make no attempt to love truth for its own sake but parade their own opinions as the truth: they care for nothing but the content of their own souls and are the most intolerant. Those who love truth in terms of their own views and opinions will not suffer anyone to reach truth along a quite different path. They put every obstacle in the way of anyone with different abilities, who comes to opinions unlike their own. Hence the conflicts that so often arise in life. An honest striving for truth leads to human understanding, but the love of truth for the sake of one's own personality leads to intolerance and the destruction of other people's freedom.

Truth is experienced in the Intellectual Soul. It can be sought for and attained through personal effort only by beings capable of thought. Inasmuch as truth is acquired by thinking, we must realise very clearly that there are two kinds of truth. First we have the truth that comes from observing the world of Nature around us and investigating it bit by bit in order to discover its truths, laws and wisdom. When we contemplate the whole range of our experience of the world in this way, we come to the kind of truth that can be called the truth derived from “reflective” thinking—we first observe the world and then think about our findings.

We saw yesterday that the entire realm of Nature is permeated with wisdom, and that wisdom lives in all natural things. In a plant there lives the idea of the plant, and this we can arrive at by reflective thought. Similarly, we can discern the wisdom that lives in the plant. By thus looking out on the world we can infer that the world is born of wisdom, and that through the activity of our thinking we can rediscover the element that enters into the creation of the world. That is the kind of truth to be gained by reflective thought.

There are also other truths. These cannot be gained by reflective thought, but only by going beyond everything that can be learnt from the outer world. In ordinary life we can see at once that when a man constructs a tool or some other instrument, he has to formulate laws that are not part of the outer world. For example, no-one could learn from the outer world how to construct a clock, for the laws of Nature are not so arranged as to provide for the appearance of clocks as a natural product. That is a second kind of truth: we come to it by thinking out something not given to us by observation or experience of the outer world. Hence there are these two kinds of truth, and they must be kept strictly apart, one derived from reflective thought and the other from “creative” thought.

How can a truth of this second kind be verified? The inventor of a clock can easily prove that he had thought it out correctly. He has to show that the clock does what he expects. Anything we think out in advance must prove itself in practice: it must yield results that can be recognised in the external world. The truths of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy are of this kind. They cannot be found by observing external experience.

For example, no findings in the realm of outer Nature can establish the truth we have often dwelt on in connection with the immortal kernel of man's being: the truth that the human Ego appears again and again on earth in successive incarnations. Anyone who wishes to acquire this truth must raise himself above ordinary experience. He must grasp in his soul a truth that has then to be made real in outer life. A truth of this kind cannot be proved in the same way as truths of the first kind, gained by what we have called reflective thought. It can be proven only by showing how it applies to life and is reflected there. If we look at life with the knowledge that the soul repeatedly returns and ever and again goes through a series of events and experiences between birth and death, we shall find how much satisfaction, how much strength and fruitfulness, these thoughts can bring. Or again, if we ask how the soul of a child can be helped to develop and grow stronger, if we presuppose that an eternally existent soul is here working its way into a new life, then this truth will shine in on us and give proof of its fruitfulness in daily experience. Any other proofs are false. The only way in which a truth of this kind can be confirmed is by giving proof of its validity in daily life. Hence there is a vast difference between these two kinds of truth. Those of the second kind are grasped in the spirit and then verified by observing their influence on outer life.

What then is the educational effect of these two kinds of truth on the human soul? It makes a great difference whether a man devotes himself to truths that come from reflective thought or to those that come from creative thought. If we steep ourselves in the wisdom of Nature and create in ourselves a true reflection of it, we can rightly say that we have in ourselves something of the creative activity from which the life of Nature springs. But here a distinction must be made. The wisdom of Nature is directly creative and gives rise to the reality of Nature in all its fullness, but the truth we derive from thinking about Nature is only a passive image; in our thinking it has lost its power. We may indeed acquire a wide, open-minded picture of natural truth, but the creative, productive element is absent from it. Hence the immediate effect of this picture of truth on the development of the human Ego is desolating. The creative power of the Ego is crippled and devitalised; the Self loses strength and can no longer stand up to the world, if it is concerned only with reflective thoughts. Nothing else does so much to isolate the Ego, to make it withdraw into itself and look with hostility on the world. A man can become a cold egoist if he is intent only on investigating the outer world. Why does he want this knowledge? Does he mean to place it at the service of the Gods?

If a man desires only this kind of truth, he wants it for himself, and he will be on the way to becoming a cold egoist and misogynist in later life. He will become a recluse or will sever himself from mankind in some other way, for he wants to possess the content of the world as his own truth. All forms of seclusion and hostility towards humanity can be found on this path. The soul becomes increasingly dried up and loses its sense of human fellowship. It becomes ever more impoverished, although the truth should enrich it. Whether a man turns into a recluse or a one-sided eccentric makes no difference; in both cases a hardening process will overtake his soul. Hence we see that the more a man confines himself to this kind of reflective thought, the less fruitful his soul will be. Let us try to understand why this is so.

Consider the realms of nature and suppose that we have before us an array of plants. They have been formed by the living wisdom which calls forth their inherent productive power. Now an artist comes along. His soul receives the picture that Nature sets before him. He does not merely think about it; he opens himself to Nature's productive power and lets it work upon him. He creates a work of art which does not embody merely an act of thinking; it is imbued with productive power. Then comes someone who tries to get behind the picture and to extract a thought from it. He ponders over it. In this way its reality is filtered and impoverished. Now try to carry this process further. Once the soul has extracted a thought from the picture, it has finished with it. Nothing more can be done except to formulate thoughts about the thought—an absurd procedure which soon dries up.

It is quite different with creative thinking. Here a man is himself productive. His thoughts take form as realities in outer life; here he is working after the example of Nature herself. That is how it is with a man who goes beyond mere observation and reflective thinking and allows something not to be gained from observation to arise in his soul. All spiritual-scientific truths require a productive disposition in the soul. In the case of these truths all mere reflective thinking is bad and leads to deception. But the truths attainable by creative thought are limited, for man is weak in the face of the creative wisdom of the world. There is no end to the things from which we can derive truths by reflective thought; but creative thought, although the field open to it is restricted, brings about a heightening of productive power; the soul is refreshed and its scope extended. Indeed, the soul becomes more and more inwardly divine, in so far as it reflects in itself an essential element of the divine creative activity in the world.

So we have these two distinct kinds of truth, one reached by creative thought, the other by reflective thought. This latter kind, derived from the investigation of existent things or current experience, will always lead to abstractions; under its influence the soul is deprived of nourishment and tends to dry up. The truth that is not gained from immediate experience is creative; its strength helps man to find a place in the world where he can co-operate in shaping the future.

The past can be approached only by reflective thought, while creative thought opens a way into the future. Man thus becomes a responsible creator of the future. He extends the power of his Ego into the future, in so far as he comes to possess not merely the truths derived from the past by reflective thinking, but also those that are gained by creative thinking and point towards the future.

Herein lies the liberating influence of creative thinking. Anyone who is active in the striving for truth will soon find how he is impoverished by mere reflective thinking. He will come to understand how the devotee of reflective thinking fills his mind with phantom ideas and bloodless abstractions. Such a man may feel like an outcast, condemned to a mere savouring of truth and may come to doubt whether his spirit can play any part in shaping the world. On the other hand, a man who experiences a truth gained by creative thinking will find that it nourishes and warms his soul and gives it new strength for every stage in life. It fills him with joy when he is able to grasp truths of this kind and discovers that in bringing them to bear on the phenomena of life he can say to himself: Now I not only understand what is going on there, but I can explain it in the light of having known something of it previously.

With the aid of spiritual-scientific truths we can now approach man himself. He cannot be understood merely by reflective thinking, but now we can comprehend him better and better, while our feeling of unity with the world and our interest in it are continually enhanced. We experience joy and satisfaction at every confirmation of spiritual-scientific truths that we encounter. This is what makes these truths so satisfying: we have first to grasp them before we can find them corroborated in actual life, and all the while they enrich us inwardly. We are drawn gradually into unity with the phenomena we experience. We get away more and more from ourselves, whereas reflective thinking leads to subtle forms of egoism. In order to find confirmation of truths gained by creative thinking we have to go out from ourselves and look for their application in all realms of life. It is these truths that liberate us from ourselves and imbue us in the highest degree with a sense of truth and a feeling for it.

Feelings of this kind have been alive in every genuine seeker after truth. They were deeply present in the soul of Goethe when he declared: “Only that which is fruitful is true”—a magnificent, luminous saying of far—reaching import. But Goethe was also well aware that men must be closely united with truth if they are to understand one another. Nothing does more to estrange men from one another than a lack of concern for truth and the search for truth. Goethe also said: “A false doctrine cannot be refuted, for it rests on a conviction that the false is true.”²⁷ Obviously there are falsities that can be logically disproved, but that is not what Goethe means. He is convinced that a false viewpoint cannot be refuted by logical conclusions, and that the fruitful application of truth in practical life should be our sole guide-line in our search for truth.

It was because Goethe was so wonderfully united with truth that he was able to sketch the beautiful poetic drama, Pandora, which he began to write in 1807. Though only a fragment, Pandora is a ripe product of his creative genius—so powerful in every line, that anyone who responds to it must feel it to be an example of the purest, grandest art. We see in it how Goethe was able to make a start towards the greatest truths—but then lacked the strength to go further. The task was too arduous for him to carry through; but we have enough of it to get some idea of how deeply he had penetrated into the problems of spiritual education. He had a clear vision of everything that the soul has to overcome in order to rise higher; he understood everything we learnt yesterday about anger and the fettered Prometheus, and have learnt today about that other educator of the soul, the sense of truth.

How closely related these two things are in their effects on the soul can be seen also in the facial expressions they call forth. Let us picture a man under the influence of anger, and another man upon whom truth is acting as an inward light. The first man is frowning—why? In such cases the brow is knitted because an excessive force is working inwardly, like a poison, to hold down a surplus of egoism which would like to destroy everything that exists alongside and separate from the man himself. In the clenched fist of anger we see the wrathful self closed up in itself and refusing to go forth into the outer world. Now compare this with the facial expression of someone who is discovering truth. When he perceives the light of truth, he too may frown, but in his case the wrinkled brow is a means whereby the soul expands, as though it would like to grasp and absorb the whole world with devoted love. Observe, too, the eyes of a man who is trying to overhear the world's secrets. His eyes are shining, as though to encompass everything around him in the outer world. He is released from himself; his hand is not clenched, but held out with a gesture that seeks to absorb the being of the world.

The whole difference between anger and truth is thus expressed in human physiognomy and gesture. Anger thrusts the human being deeper into himself. If he strives for truth, his being expands into the outer world; and the more united he becomes with the outer world, the more he turns away from the truths gained by reflective thinking to those gained by creative thinking. Therefore, Goethe in his Pandora brings into opposition with each other certain characters who can be taken to represent forces at work in the human soul. They are intended to express symbolically the relationships between the characteristics and capacities of the soul.

When you open Pandora, you come upon something remarkable and highly significant at the very start. On the side of Prometheus, the stage is loaded with tools and implements constructed by man. In all these, human energies have been at work, but in a certain sense it is all rough and ready. On the side of Epimetheus, the other Titan, there is a complete contrast. Here everything is perfectly finished; we see not so much what man creates, but a bringing together of what Nature has already produced. It is all the result of reflective thinking. Here we have combination and shaping, a symmetrical ordering of Nature's work. On the side of Prometheus, unsymmetry and roughness; on the side of Epimetheus, elegant and harmonious products of Nature, culminating in a view of a wonderful landscape. What does all this signify? We need only consider the two contrasted characters: Prometheus the creative thinker, Epimetheus the reflective thinker. With Prometheus we find the products mainly of creative thinking. Here, although man's powers are limited and clumsy, he is productive. He cannot yet shape his creations as perfectly as Nature shapes her own; but they are all the outcome of his own powers and tools. He is also deficient in feeling for scenes of natural beauty.

On the side of Epimetheus, the reflective thinker, we see the heritage of the past, brought into symmetrical order by himself. And because he is a reflective thinker, we see in the background a beautiful landscape which gives its own special pleasure to the human eye. Epimetheus now comes forward and discloses his individual character. He explains that he is there to experience the past, and to reflect upon past occurrences and the visible world. But in his speech he reveals the dissatisfaction that this kind of attitude can at times call forth in the soul. He feels hardly any difference between day and night. In brief, the figure of Epimetheus shows us reflective thinking in its most extreme form. Then Prometheus comes forward carrying a torch and emerging from the darkness of night. Among his followers are smiths; they set to work on the man-made objects that are lying around, while Prometheus makes a remarkable statement that will not be misunderstood if we are alive to Goethe's meaning. The smiths extol productivity and welcome the fact that in the course of production many things have to be destroyed. In a one-sided way they extol fire. A man who is an all-round reflective thinker will not praise one thing at the expense of another. He casts his eye over the whole. Prometheus, however, says at once:

In partiality let the active man
Find his pleasure

He extols precisely the fact that to be active entails the acceptance of limitations. In Nature, the right is established when the wrong destroys itself. But to the smiths Prometheus says: Carry on doing whatever can be done. He is the creative man; he emerges with his torch from the darkness of night in order to show how from the depths of his soul the truth gained by his creative thinking comes forth. Unlike Epimetheus, he is far from a dreamlike feeling that night and day are all one. Nor does he experience the world as a dream. For his soul has been at work, and in its own dark night it has grasped the thoughts which now emerge from it. They are no dreams, but truths for which the soul has bled. By this means the soul advances into the world and gains release from itself; but at the same time it incurs the danger of losing itself. This does not yet apply to Prometheus himself, but when a man introduces one-sidedness into the world, the danger appears among his descendants.

Phileros, the son of Prometheus, is already inclined to love and cherish and enjoy the products of creative work, while his father Prometheus is still immersed in the stream of life's creative power. In Phileros we are shown the power of creative thinking developed in a one-sided way. He rushes out into life, not knowing where to search for enjoyment. Prometheus cannot pass on to his son his own fruitfully creative strength, and so Phileros appears incomprehensible to Epimetheus, who out of his own rich experience would like to counsel him on his headlong career.

We are then magnificently shown what mere reflective thinking involves. This is connected with the myth that Zeus, having fettered Prometheus to the rock, imposes Pandora, the all-gifted, on mankind.

Most beautiful and gifted she approached
The amazed watcher, moving with noble grace,
Her gracious look inquiring whether I,
Like to my sterner brother, would repel her,
But all too strongly were my heart-beats stirred,
With sense bemused my charming bride I welcomed.
Towards the mysterious dowry then I turned,
The earthen vessel, tall and shapely, stood
Close-sealed ...

Prometheus had warned his brother against this gift from the gods. But Epimetheus, with his different character, accepts the gift, and when the earthen vessel is opened, all the afflictions that can befall mankind come pouring out. Only one thing is left in the vessel—Hope.

Who, then, is Pandora and what does she signify? Truly a mystery of the soul is concealed in her. The fruits of reflective thinking are dead products, an abstract reflection of the mechanical thoughts forged by Hephaestus. This wisdom is powerless in the face of the universally creative wisdom from which the world has been born. What can this abstract reflection give to mankind?

We have seen how this kind of truth can be sterile and can lay waste the soul, and we can understand how all the afflictions that fall on mankind come pouring out of Pandora's vessel. In Pandora we have to see truth without the powers of creativity, the truth of reflective thinking, a truth which builds up a mechanised thought-picture in the midst of the world's creative life. For the mere reflective thinker only one thing remains. While the creative thinker unites his Ego with the future and gets free from himself, the reflective thinker can look to the future only with hope, for he has no part in shaping it. He can only hope that things will happen. Goethe shows his deep comprehension of the myth by endowing the marriage of Epimetheus and Pandora with two children: Elpore (Hope) and Epimeleia (Care), who safeguards existing things. In fact, man has in his soul two offspring of dead, abstract, mechanically conceived truth. This kind of truth is unfruitful and cannot influence the future; it can only reflect what is already there. It leaves a man with nothing but the hope that what is true will duly come to pass. This is represented by Goethe with splendid realism in the figure of Elpore, who, if someone asks her whether this or that is going to happen, always gives the same answer, yes, yes. If a Promethean man were to stand before the world and speak of the future, he would say: “I hope for nothing. With my own forces I will shape the future.” But a reflective thinker can only reflect on the past and hope for the future; thus Elpore, when asked whether this or that will happen, replies always, yes, yes. We hear it again and again. In this way a daughter of reflective thinking is admirably characterised and her sterility is indicated.

The other daughter of this reflective thinking, Epimeleia, is she who cares for existing things. She sets them all in symmetrical order and can add nothing from her own resources. But all things which fail to develop are increasingly liable to destruction; hence we see how anxiety about them continually mounts, and how through mere reflective thinking a destructive element finds its way into the world. This is wonderfully well indicated by Goethe when he makes Phileros fall in love with Epimeleia. We see him, burnt up with jealousy, pursuing Epimeleia, until she takes refuge from him with the Titan brothers. Strife and dissension come simultaneously on to the scene. Epimeleia complains that the person she loves is the very one to seek her life.

Everything that Goethe goes on to say shows how deeply he had penetrated into the effects of creative thinking and reflective thinking on the soul. The creative thinking of the smiths is set in wonderful contrast to the outlook of the shepherds; whilst the latter take what Nature offers, the former work on the products of Nature and transform them. Therefore Prometheus says of the shepherds: they are seeking peace, but they will not find a peace that satisfies their souls:

Go your ways in peace; but peace
You will not find.

For a wish merely to preserve things as they are leads only to the unproductive side of Nature.

The truths which belong to creative thinking and reflective thinking respectively are thus set before us in the figures of Prometheus and Epimetheus, and in all the characters connected with them. They represent those soul-forces which can spring from an excessive, one-sided predilection for one or other way of striving after truth. And after we have seen how disastrous are the consequences of these extremes, we are shown finally the one and only remedy—the co-operation of the Titan brothers. The drama leads on to an outbreak of fire in a property owned by Epimetheus. Prometheus, who is prepared to demolish a building if it no longer serves its purpose, advises his brother to make all speed to the spot and do all he can to halt the destruction. But Epimetheus no longer cares for that; he is thinking about Pandora and is lost in his recollection of her. Interesting also is a dialogue between the brothers about her:

Prometheus:

Her form sublime, from ancient dark emerging,
Came near me also. To make another like her,
Even Hephaestus would have failed in that.

Epimetheus:

Art thou, too, prating of this fabled birth?
From ancient gods, a mighty race, she springs:
Uranione, Hera's peer, and sister
Of Zeus himself.

Prometheus:

And yet Hephaestus, for her rich adornment,
Made for her head a net of shining gold,
Weaving with subtle hand the finest threads.

In every sentence spoken by Prometheus we see how mechanised, abstract limitations obsess his mind. Then Eos, the Dawn, appears. She is an unlit being who precedes and heralds the sun, but also contains its light within herself already. She does not simply emerge from the darkness of night; she represents a transition to something which has overcome night. Prometheus appears with his torch because he has just come out of the night. The artificial light he carries indicates how his creative work proceeds from the night's darkness. Epimetheus can indeed admire the sunlight and its gifts, but he experiences everything as in a dream. He is an example of pure reflective thinking. The way in which light can escape the attention of a soul absorbed in creative activity is shown by what Prometheus says in the light of day. His people, he says, are called upon not merely to observe the sun and the light, but to be themselves a source of illumination. Now Eos, Aurora, comes forward. She calls upon men to be active everywhere in doing right. Phileros, already having sought death, should unite with the forces which will make it possible for him to rescue himself. The smiths, who are working within the limits of their creative thinking, and the shepherds, who accept things as they are, are now joined by the fishermen. And we see how Eos gives them advice:

Morning of youth, dawning of day,
More beautiful than ever,
From the unfathomed ocean
I bring you now.
Awake, shake off your sleep,
You dwellers in the bay
By cliffs encircled,
You fishermen, arise,
And ply your craft.
With speed spread out your nets
Around the well-known waters,
A splendid catch is certain
When my voice cheers you on.
Swim, you swimmers! Dive, you divers!
Watch, you watchers on the heights!
May the shores and seas together
Swarm with swift abounding life!

Then we are shown in a wonderful way how Phileros is rescued on the surging flood and unites his own strength with the strength of the waves. The active creative power in him is thus united with the creative power in Nature. So the elements of Prometheus and Epimetheus are reconciled.

Thus Goethe offers a solution rich in promise, by showing how knowledge gained from nature by reflective thinking can be fired with productive energy by the creative thinking element. This latter acquires its rightful strength by receiving, in loyalty to truth, what the gods “up there” bestow:

Take note of this:
What is desirable, you feel down here;
What is to be given, they know up there.
You Titans make a great beginning,
But the way to the eternal good, the forever beautiful,
That is the work of the gods; they ensure it.

The union of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the human soul will bring salvation for them and for mankind. The whole drama is intended to indicate that through an all-round grasping of truth the entire human race, and not only individuals, will find satisfaction. Goethe wished to show that an understanding of the real nature of truth will unite humanity and foster love and peace among men. Then Hope, also, is transformed in the soul—Hope who says yes to everything but is powerless to bring anything about. The poem was to have ended with the transformed Elpore, Elpore thraseia, coming forward to tell us that she is no longer a prophetess but is to be incorporated into the human soul, so that human beings would not merely cherish hopes for the future but would have the strength to co-operate in bringing about whatever their own productive power could create. To believe in the transformation wrought by truth upon the soul—that is the whole perfected truth which reconciles Prometheus and Epimetheus.

Naturally, these sketchy indications can bring out only a little of all that can be drawn from the poem. The deep wisdom that called forth this fragment from Goethe will disclose itself first to those who approach it with the support of a spiritual-scientific way of thinking. They can experience a satisfying, redeeming power which flows out from the poem and quickens them.

We must not fail to mention a remarkably beautiful phrase that Goethe included in his Pandora. He says that the divine wisdom which flows into the world must work in harmony with all that we are able to achieve through our own Promethean power of creative thinking. The element that comes to meet us in the world and teaches us what wisdom is, Goethe called the Word. That, which lives in the soul and must unite itself with the reflective thinking of Epimetheus, is the Deed of Prometheus. So the union of the Logos or Word with the Deed gives rise to the ideal that Goethe wished to set before us in his Pandora as the fruit of a life rich in experiences. Towards the end of the poem, Prometheus makes a remarkable statement: “A real man truly celebrates the deed.” This is the truth that remains hidden from the reflective thinking element in the soul.

If we open ourselves to this whole poem, we can come to realise the heroic yearning for development felt by men such as Goethe, and the great modesty which prevents them from supposing that by reaching a certain stage they have done enough and need not try to go further. Goethe was an apprentice of life up to his last day, and always recognised that when a man has been enriched by an experience he must overcome what he has previously held to be true.

When as a young man, Goethe was beginning to work on Faust, and had occasion to introduce some translations from the Bible, he decided that the words “In the beginning was the Word”, should be rendered as “in the beginning was the Deed”. At this same time he wrote a fragment on Prometheus.²⁸ There we see the young Goethe as altogether active and Promethean, confident that simply by developing his own forces, not fructified by cosmic wisdom, he could progress. In his maturity, with a long experience of life behind him, he realised that it was wrong to underestimate the Word, and that Word and Deed must be united. In fact, Goethe revised parts of his Faust while he was writing his Pandora. We can understand how Goethe came by degrees to maturity only if we realise the nature of truth in all its forms.

It will always be good for man if he wrestles his way to realising that truth can be apprehended only by degrees. Or take a genuine, honest, all-round seeker after truth who is called upon to bring forcibly before the world some truth he has discovered. It will be very good if he reminds himself that he has no grounds for pluming himself on this one account. There are no grounds at any time for remaining content with something already known. On the contrary, such knowledge as we have gained from our considerations yesterday and today should lead us to feel that, although the human being must stand firmly on the ground of the truth he has acquired and must be ready to defend it, he must from time to time withdraw into himself, as Goethe did. When he does this, the forces arising from the consciousness of the truth he has gained will endow him with a feeling for the right standards and for the standpoint he should make his own. From the enhanced consciousness of truth we should ever and again withdraw into ourselves and say, with Goethe: Much that we once discovered and took for truth is now only a dream, a dreamlike memory; and what we think today, will not survive when we put it to a deeper test. The words often spoken by Goethe to himself in relation to his own honest search for truth may well be echoed by every man in his solitary hours:

A poor wight am I
Through and through.
My thoughts miss the mark,
My dreams, they are not true.²⁹

If we can feel this, we shall be in the right relationship to our high ideal, Truth.

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• 21. Cf. for example the polemic “Eine Duplik” (1778), part 1.
• 22. Edward Henry Harriman, 1848–1909. North American railway magnate.
• 23. Herman Grimm, 1828–1901, in his essay “Ernst Curtius, Heinrich von Treitschke, Leopold von Ranke”, in: Fragmente, vol 1, Berlin & Stuttgart, 1900, p.246.
• 24. Heinrich von Treitschke, 1834–96. German historian.
• 25. Karl Friedrich Solger, 1780–1819, from 1811 Professor of Philosophy in Berlin. Cf. Erwin. Vier Gespräche über das Schöne und die Kunst, 1815, and Vorlesungen uber Asthetik, ed. Heyse, 1829.
• 26. Robert Zimmermann, 1824–98. Professor in Vienna. Member of the school of Herbart. Cf. his Asthetik, 1858–65.
• 27. The first quotation is from the poem “Vermächtnis”, 1829; the second is from the “Sprüche in Prosa” in vol V, p.402 of Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, edited with a commentary by Rudolf Steiner, 5 vols, Dornach, 1975.
• 28. Faust 1, 11.1224 and “Prometheus”, a dramatic fragment, 1773.
• 29. From the poem “Sprichtwörtlich”.

Translated by Antje Heymanns

It lies in the nature of current scientific observations that the phenomena we want to dedicate today’s lecture to are basically not much talked about by current natural science. Yet every human being should feel that sleep is something how is placed among the phenomena of our life as if life’s greatest riddles are presented to us through it. Surely people always must have felt the mysteriousness and significance of sleep when they spoke of sleep as the ‘brother of death.’ Today, we have to limit ourselves to speaking of sleep as such, because the coming lectures will repeatedly lead us back to the contemplation of death in many ways.

All that man in a direct sense counts as belonging to his soul experiences, all imaginations that from morning to evening surge up and down, all emotions and feelings which constitute man’s soul drama, all pain and suffering, and the will impulses as well—all of it sinks down, as it were, into an indeterminate darkness when the human being falls asleep.

Some philosophers might doubt themselves, so to speak, when they talk about the nature of the soul, about the nature of the spirit that reveals itself in human nature. Yet, they have to admit that even if it had been firmly nailed down by definitions and ideas and showed itself to be well researched, it basically seems to disappear into nothing within the course of each day.

If we look at the manifestations of our soul life in the way one usually does so scientifically and also amateurishly, then we basically must say that these are extinguished during the state of sleep; they are gone. For someone who only wants to observe the physical expressions of the soul, the human being becomes on deeper reflection, so to say, all the more a riddle. Because the actual bodily functions, the bodily activities, continue during sleep. Only what we usually call the ‘soul’ discontinues.

The question then arises as to whether one is speaking about bodily and soul matters in the right sense when one includes what appears to be extinguished on falling asleep, when actually the soul aspect is included to the full extent. Or, if already the ordinary observation of life, apart from Spiritual Science or anthroposophical observations, could show us that the soul is active and proves to be effective even when it is enveloped by sleep. However, if one wants to gain some clarity about those concepts, or one could say, if one wants to observe the manifestations of life in this field in the right sense, one must place exact terms before one’s soul.

By way of introduction, I would like to mention in advance that on this topic as well, Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy is not in a position to make generalisations of the kind that people love to make today. If today we talk about the nature of sleep, then we will only talk about the nature of human sleep. In the last lecture, with regard to other fields, we have touched on this many times—Spiritual Science knows very well that which outwardly manifests itself in the same way, as this or that other appearance by different beings, can have quite different causes in the respective beings. We have indicated that this applies to death, to the whole spiritual life and to the formation of the spiritual life of animals and human beings. Today, it would go too far to also talk about the sleep of animals. Therefore, we want to say in advance that all we talk about today applies only to the sleep of human beings.

Through our consciousness, we can speak about soul manifestations within ourselves—anyone can feel this—because we are conscious of what we imagine, want, and feel. Now the question must arise—and this is extremely important particularly for today’s observations—whether we may readily combine the definition of consciousness as we use it for the ordinary consciousness of a human being in the present with the concept of the soul or the spirit in a human being? First, to express myself more clearly about these concepts, I like to draw a comparison. A man might walk around in a room and cannot see his own face in any spot in that room. The only place he can see his face is where he can look into a mirror. His own face appears as an image in front of him. Isn’t there an enormous difference for man whether he just walks around in a room and lives within himself or whether he sees what he expresses of this living also in a mirror image? It could probably be so with human consciousness in a somewhat extended way. The human being could, so to speak, experience his soul life—and he would only become knowledgeable or conscious of this soul-life itself, the way he lives it, when it confronts him like a mirror. This could very well be. Thus, we could say, for example, that it is quite possible that the human soul life continues regardless of whether the human being is awake or asleep. But that the waking state consists of the fact that the human being perceives his soul life through a mirroring, let’s say first of all, through a mirroring within his physicality and that he cannot perceive it in the state of sleep because it cannot be mirrored in his physical body.

Although we have not yet proven anything with this, at least we would have gained two concepts. We could differentiate between the soul life as such and becoming conscious of the soul life. We can think that for our consciousness, for our knowledge of the soul life, as we currently stand in our everyday human life, everything depends on us receiving the mirror image of our soul life through our physicality because if we do not receive this, we cannot know anything about it. We would then be wholly in a sleeping state. Now that we have gained these concepts, let us try to place the phenomena of waking and sleeping life a little before our soul.

Someone who is really able to observe life, will feel very clearly, and one would like to say, will ‘behold’ how the moment of falling asleep truly proceeds. He can perceive how the imaginations, the feelings weaken in their brightness, diminish in their intensity. But this is not the most essential. When a human being is awake, he lives in such a way that he creates order through his self-conscious Ego in his whole imaginative life, whereby he summarises, as it were, all ideas with his Ego. For at the moment when we in our waking life would not summarise all our ideas with our Ego, we would not be able to lead a normal soul life. We would have one group of ideas that we would relate to ourselves and call our concepts and another group we would look at as something foreign, like an external world. Only people who experience a split in their Ego, which for people today would be a state of sickness, could have such a tearing apart of their imaginative lives into different areas. For a normal person it is essential that all his ideas are in perspective related to a single point: the self-conscious Ego.

The moment we fall asleep, we feel distinctly that, at first, the Ego will be, so to speak, overwhelmed by imaginations despite these growing dimmer. The ideas assert their independence; they live an independent life. Single clouds of ideas, as it were, form within the horizon of consciousness, and the Ego loses itself in imaginations. Then man feels how the sense perceptions like seeing and hearing and so on become blunter and blunter, and finally, he feels how the will impulses are paralysed. Now, we must point out something clearly observed by just a few people. The human being feels furthermore, as he sees things with defined borders in his daily life, that at the moment of falling asleep, something asserts itself like a feeling of being locked up in a vague fog, which occasionally makes itself felt as cooling, or with other sensations in certain parts of the body: on the hands, on the joints, on the temples, on the spine etc. These are feelings that someone falling asleep can very well observe. They are, one would like to say, the kind of trivial experiences that one can have every evening when falling asleep if one wants to.

Better experiences are had by people who, through a finer developed soul life, more precisely observe the moment of falling asleep. They can then feel something like an awakening despite falling asleep. What I am about to tell you now, can be told by anyone who has acquired certain methods of really observing these things, because it is a common human phenomenon. The moment people feel like an awakening when they are slipping into sleep can really be described as follows: something like an expanding conscience, like morality, wakes up in the soul. This is indeed the case. This is particularly shown when people observe their soul concerning what they have experienced the previous day and with which they are satisfied in their conscience. In the moment of moral awakening, they feel this especially clearly. At the same time, this feeling is quite the opposite of the feeling during the day. While the feeling during the day shows itself by things approaching us, one who falls asleep feels as if his soul is pouring itself out over a world that is now awakening. This mainly includes a relaxation, a pouring out of feeling over that which the soul, through itself can experience in relation to its moral inner being as if through an expanding conscience. Then it is a moment of inner bliss, which appears to be much longer for the one falling asleep, when it is about dwelling on things with which the soul can agree. There is often a deep conflict when the soul has to reproach itself. In short, the moral human being who, during the day, is repressed through the strong sensory impressions, relaxes and feels himself very distinctly when falling asleep.

Everyone who has acquired a particular method, or maybe even only a feeling concerning such observations, knows that at this moment a certain longing awakens, which we could describe like this: One really wants this moment to extend into the indefinite, that it would never end. But then comes something like a ‘jolt’, a kind of inner movement. For most people, this is very difficult to describe. Of course, Spiritual Science can describe this inner movement quite precisely. It is, as it were, like a demand that the soul makes on itself: You must now relax even further; you must pour yourself out further. But by making this demand of itself, the soul loses itself for the moral life in its surroundings. This is like throwing a small drop of colour into water and dissolving it: the colour can still be seen at first. But once the drop distributes itself throughout the water, it pales more and more and finally, the colour display as such stops. So it is when the soul is just beginning to swell and live in its moral mirror image where it can still feel itself, but the feeling stops once the jolt, the inner movement, occurs, as the drop of colour loses itself in the water.

This is not a theory; it can be observed and is accessible to everyone, just like a natural scientific observation is exactly accessible to everyone. If we thus observe the process of falling asleep, we can certainly say that the human being intercepts, as it were, something when falling asleep that, afterwards, he somehow can no longer be conscious of. If I may be allowed to use both of my earlier constructed ideas—the human being has, as it were, a moment of parting from the mirror of the body in which the manifestations of life appear to him as mirror images and because he has no other means to mirror what otherwise is mirrored by the body, the possibility to perceive himself, ceases.

Again, it is possible to perceive in a certain sense the day’s happenings—if one does not want to be altogether stubborn and obstinate regarding what relates to the soul and the effect of what moves into an vague darkness. I have already pointed out in another context that someone forced to memorise this or that, i.e., learn things by heart, can do this much more easily if he sleeps on it more often, and that depriving oneself of sleep is the greatest enemy of memorisation. The possibility and the ability to memorise more easily even returns once we have slept on an issue and not want to learn something by heart in one go. This is also the case with other activities of the soul. However, we could convince ourselves very easily that it would be impossible to learn anything at all, to acquire anything when the soul is involved, if it weren’t for the inclusion of sleep states among our life states. The natural conclusion that has to be drawn from such phenomena is that our soul needs to withdraw from time to time from our physical body, in order to gain strength from an area that is not within our body, because the respective strengths within the body are being worn out. We must imagine that when we wake up in the morning from sleep, that from the state in which we were then, we have brought along strength to develop abilities, that we could not develop if we were constantly shackled to our bodies. This is how the effect of sleep shows itself in our ordinary nature, when one wants to think straight and not be obstinate.

What shows itself in general when one pauses in ordinary life, and for which one needs some good will to hold one’s life phenomena together, is shown very clearly and precisely when man goes through developments that are able to lead him to a real beholding of the spiritual life. Here I would like to elaborate on what occurs when a human being has developed the forces that lie dormant within his soul in order to reach a state in which he can neither perceive with the senses nor comprehend with the mind. This will be followed up in more detail in the lecture How does one Attain Knowledge of the Spiritual World,¹ where the methods will be quite comprehensively covered. Right now though, we will highlight some of the experiences that a person, truly practising such exercises is able to have that endow his soul, as it were, with spiritual eyes and spiritual ears, and through which he can look into the spiritual world, which is not an object of speculation, but for someone who perceives with his senses, it is just as much an object as colours and forms, warmth and coldness, and sounds. How to attain true clairvoyance has already come to light in previous lectures. This spiritual development, these exercises, actually consist of a person bringing out of himself something that he has within himself, gains other organs of perception, jolting upwards, as it were, over the soul, as it is in its ordinary state, and thus perceives a world that is always around him but which cannot be perceived in the normal state. When a person undergoes such exercises, the first thing that changes is his sleep life. Anyone, who has done their own real spiritual research knows this. I would now like to talk about the very first stage of change in the sleep life of a person who is actually clairvoyant and engaged in spiritual research. The first beginnings of this possibility of spiritual research do not make the person appear very different from the normal ordinary state of consciousness because a person who performs these exercises, as we shall discuss later, will at first sleep like any other human being and is just as unconscious as anyone else. But the moment of waking up will show something very special to the one who has performed spiritual exercises. I will now describe to you some very concrete phenomena that are based on facts.

Let’s assume that a person who is practising these exercises is thinking very hard about something that another person could also be thinking about. He tries, maybe because he has a very difficult problem in front of him, to exert all his mental power to get to the bottom of it.

Perhaps he’ll be like a schoolboy: his mental power just isn’t sufficient to solve the problem. This could definitely happen. If he has now already obtained through his exercises more possibilities to experience the inner states of the soul in connection with the physical state, he will certainly feel something quite peculiar when he finds himself incapable to do something. Unlike usual, he perceives a resistance in his physical organs, for example in his brain. He properly senses that the brain puts up resistance against him, just as we feel resistance when we try to drive in a nail with a hammer that is too heavy. The brain then begins to gain a reality. The way man normally uses his brain, he would not feel it as if he were using an instrument, as is the case with a hammer, for example. A spiritual researcher feels his brain, he feels himself independent in relation to his thinking. That is an experience. But if he can’t solve a task, he feels that he is no longer able to carry out certain activities that he must perform when thinking. He feels very clearly that he is losing power over the instrument. This fact can be experienced very precisely.

If the spiritual researcher sleeps on the problem and then awakens, it will often happen that he feels up to the task without any further ado. But at the same time he also feels precisely that prior to waking up he has done something, that he has worked on something. He feels that he had been able to set something within him in motion during his sleep, that he had caused an activity. During the waking state he was forced to use his brain. He knows that. He can do nothing but use his brain when he is awake. But he was no longer able to use it properly, because—as I have described—it resisted him. During sleep, he feels, he is not dependent on using his brain. He was able to create a degree of flexibility without using the brain that was too tired or otherwise too heavily occupied. Now he feels something very peculiar: he perceives the activity that he has performed during sleep, albeit not directly. The Lord gives to his own, but not in their sleep. The spiritual researcher is not saved from having to solve his problem now in the waking state. It may come easily to him, but normally it is not so, and particularly not with things that simply must be solved by the brain.

Hence, the human being feels something that he has not known before in the sensory world—he senses his own activity, which presents itself to him in vivid pictures, in strange pictures that are in motion. It is just as if the thoughts he needs were living beings who would enter into all kinds of relationships with each other. Thus he senses his own, let’s call it, ‘mental activity’ that he undertook during sleep, like a series of pictures. This feeling is difficult to describe, as one is stuck in it in a quite peculiar way and has to tell oneself, ‘This is you yourself!’ But, on the other hand, one can distinguish this feeling very clearly from oneself, in the same way as one is able to distinguish a physical movement one makes from oneself. Thus one has pictures, imaginations of an activity performed before waking up. And now one can notice, if one has learned to watch oneself, that these pictures of an activity that was performed prior to waking up, connect themselves with our brain and turn it into a more flexible, more useful instrument, so that one will be able to complete something, which one could not do before because of a resistance, for example, to think certain thoughts. These are subtle things, but without them one won’t really get behind the secret of sleep. Thus, one feels that one has not performed an activity as in the awake state, but one that served the restoration of certain things in the brain which were worn out. The instrument has been restored in a way that was not possible before. One feels like a master builder of his own instruments.

The feeling during such an activity is significantly different from that during a daytime activity. The feeling one has about the day activities is comparable to copying something from a template or a model. There I am forced to follow the picture in front of me with every stroke or dot of colour. In regard to the things that appear as pictures at the moment of waking and that are, as it were, an illustration of an activity during sleep, one has the feeling of inventing the strokes, of creating the figures out of oneself, without being tied to a model. With such an occurrence one will have, as it were, intercepted what the soul did prior to waking up: one has intercepted the activity of brain regeneration. Because sooner or later one realises that what feels like a kind of coating the brain organs with what one remembers as figures is nothing other than a restoration of what has been damaged in the course of the day. One really has the feeling of being a master builder working on oneself.

Basically the difference between a spiritual researcher who perceives such things and an ordinary person is only that a spiritual researcher just perceives these things, whereas an ordinary person cannot pay attention to them and does not perceive them. The same activity that the spiritual researcher undertakes is performed by every human being, but the normal person doesn’t catch the moment when the organs are restored by the activity that takes place during sleep.

Let’s take such an experience and compare it to what was previously said about an increase in bluntness and dullness, and a reduction in brightness of the daily imaginative life at the moment of falling asleep. This latter phenomenon can only be viewed in the right light if one either frees oneself from today’s highly suggestive concepts of the world view that believes itself to be firmly based on natural science, or by actually accepting the available results of contemporary natural research. For example, in brain research, and according to the results of natural research, people who think more precisely can do nothing but acknowledge the independence of the spiritual from the physical. And it is very interesting that recently a popular book was published in which basically everything that has to do with spiritual life and the sources of spiritual life was presented wrongly and completely without any insight. But in this book, The Brain and the Human Being, by William Hanna Thomson,² a lot of smart things are said. It deals in particular with modern brain research and with many other things that are presented—for example, as I also have more often pointed out—with symptoms of fatigue, which are quite instructive. But I have already explained that muscles and nerves cannot get tired in any other way than through conscious activity. As long as our muscles only serve an organic activity they cannot become tired. It would be bad if, for example, the heart muscle and other muscles needed rest. We only become fatigued when we perform an activity that is not innate to the organism—such as an activity that belongs to the conscious life of the soul. Thus one has to say; if the soul life was born out of the human being like the heart activity, then the immense difference between fatigue and non-fatigue could not be explained. The author of the book therefore feels compelled to acknowledge that the soul relates to the physical no differently than a rider relates to his horse, i.e., that it is completely independent from the physical. This is an enormous concession from a person who thinks like a natural scientist. One could get very strange feelings if, forced by contemporary natural research, one has to confess to oneself that the relationship between the soul life and the body life must be imagined as being roughly the same as that of a rider to a horse. That is, according to the image that people had of a centaur in earlier times, when they still looked deeper into the spiritual realm.

It is not apparent that the author of the book would have thought of this, but again this thought comes to mind from the natural scientific conception, and one gets the feeling that such ideas stem from times when a certain clairvoyance still existed for many people. Today, however, certain imaginations about centaurs seem to be more compatible with what a gentleman once told me: He said:

‘The Greeks watched the Scythes, who came from the North, and other rider clans, perhaps when they emerged from a fog. They could not distinguish the shapes clearly, and so they thought that these had grown out of the horse.’ A materialist might be satisfied with such an explanation. But it is just contemporary natural scientific research that pushes for an acknowledgment of the independence of the soul from the physical.

One thing we can hereby definitely notice, and we can follow such things best if we recall certain occurrences before our soul that are not commonplace, but still exist and cannot be denied. The spiritual researcher knows how that common man in the country, at the hour of his death, suddenly began to speak in Latin, a language he had never really used and which one could prove he had only heard once in Church when he was a little boy. This is not a fable, but a reality. Of course he did not understand anything of it, when he had heard or recited it. And yet it is true. From this, the idea should be formed in every human being that what affects us in our environment contains something in addition to what we absorb into our normal consciousness. Because what we absorb into our ordinary consciousness is often dependent on our education, on what we comprehend and the like. But not only what we can comprehend unites itself with us, but we have in us the possibility to absorb endlessly more than what we take up consciously. We can even observe in every human being how at certain times he has ideas, that were not strongly noticed at the time he experienced them here or there, so that he may not remember them at all. But through certain things they re-appear, and may even place themselves into the centre of his soul life. We really have to acknowledge that what constitutes the extent of our soul life is endlessly more than what we can receive and embrace with our day consciousness. This is extraordinarily important. Because in this way our attention is steered towards something inside of us that can really only make a slight impression on our corporeality because it has hardly been noticed, and then again it lives on in us. In this way, we are pointed to the foundations of our soul life, which should actually exist for every reasonable person. Every rational person should tell himself that, what is in the world around him for his consciousness while he is consciously looking at the world, is basically dependent on the organisation of his sensory organs and on what he can understand. And no one is entitled to want to limit reality by what they can perceive. It would be completely illogical to want to deny the spiritual researcher that behind the physical world a spiritual world exists, simply for the reason that man is only allowed to speak about what he sees and hears and what he can think about, and he is never allowed to judge what he cannot perceive. Because the world of reality is not the world of the perceptible. The world of the perceptible is limited by the sensory organs. For this reason one should never —in the Kantian sense—speak of the limits of knowledge; or about what a human being may or may not know, but only about that what he has before of him in accordance with his organs of perception.

Considering this, one must say to oneself: Behind the colourful carpet of the sensory world, behind that which the warmth sense perceives as warmth or cold and so on, lies an infinite reality. Should therefore only what we perceive, or only the reality we perceive exert an influence on us? If we think that we are only shown a part or a section of the entire reality through our perception, then it is only logically tenable that there lies an infinite reality behind what can be given to us through our perception. However, this is also real for us, as we have been placed in it, so that what surges and lives outside and influences us, lives on for us. But what is our actual waking life like during the day? There really is no other way than to imagine the waking day life in this way, and to say; ‘We open our senses, our capacity to realise something immense and confront this immensity. Because each person has particular eyes, particular ears, and a certain sense of warmth, and so on, we are placing a particular section of reality in front of us. Anything else we reject, almost, as it were, fend it off, exclude it from us. So what does our conscious activity consist of? It consists of a defence against, or an exclusion of something different. And by straining our sensory organs, we are holding back something that we have not perceived. What we perceive is the remainder, are the remains of what is spreading itself around us, and what we, for the most part reject. In this way, we feel actively placed in this world, feel connected with it. Likewise, we defend ourselves through our sensory activity against a multitude of impressions, because, figuratively speaking, we are not able to bear the entire immeasurable infinity and take in only a section of it. If we think like this, then we must imagine quite different relationships between our whole organism, our entire bodily nature and between the external world, than those which we can perceive or comprehend with our intellect. Then it will not seem so unusual to think that the relationships, which we have with the outside world, live in us and that also the invisible, super-sensible or extra-sensible is active within us—and that the extra-sensible by being active in us, uses our senses to fabricate a section out of the entire immeasurable reality. Then our relationship to reality is completely different from how we are able to perceive it through our senses. Then there lies something of relationships with the outside world in our soul that does not exhaust itself through sensory perception, that eludes our waking daytime consciousness. Then it is with us as if we are stepping in front of a mirror with our inner being and have to say to ourselves:

‘Basically you are something completely different. The mirror only shows you the forms, maybe also the colours; but within you you are thinking. You are feeling within you. All of this the mirror cannot show you. It only shows you what is dependent on its laws. As a soul facing its organism, you are something completely different from what your senses show you; they limit you to what is according to their laws. When you face the world, as with a mirror—you are actually facing a world that is only made possible by the organisation of your senses!’

If you think this idea through to the end, then you will not be surprised to find that basically all life of our awake day consciousness depends very much on the organisation of our sensory organs and on our brain, just as what we see in a mirror depends on the quality of the mirror. Anyone who looks into a garden mirror and sees a caricature of their face looking towards them, will happily agree that the picture in the mirror is not dependent on them, but on the mirror. In the same way, what we perceive depends on the set-up of our mirroring apparatus, and our soul activity is limited, as it were, reflected back into itself by mirroring itself in our body life. Then it is no longer astonishing that the detail—and this can also be physiologically proven—is dependent on the physical body, whereby this or that happens one way or another in our consciousness. Because everything that the soul does in order for something to become conscious, to become knowledge for us, depends on the organisation of our body. Observation shows us that the concepts that we initially only constructed, actually correspond to the facts. The only difference is that our corporeality is a living mirror. We let the mirror in which we look be as it is. However, there is one way in which we can influence the reflection: if we breathe on the mirror, then it can no longer reflect properly. But the reflection in our physicality, which experiences the activity of our soul, is connected with the fact that when we reflect ourselves in our corporeality, the reflection itself is an activity, a process within our bodily nature, and that which appears as a reflection, we place as an activity before ourselves.

Thus the bodily life actually presents itself as if, in a certain sense, we would write down what we think and then would have the characters in front of us. This is how we write the activity of our soul into our physicality. What an anatomist can verify are only the characters, the external apparatus, because we do not completely observe our soul life if we only observe it within our physical life. We only observe it completely, if we do this independently from our physical life. This, however, can only be done by the spiritual researcher who observes the soul life as it shows itself mirrored into the waking day life at the moment of awakening. It shows that the soul life is like an architect, who builds something during the night, and acts as a dismantler during the day.

Now we have the soul life in the waking state and in the state of sleep before us. In the state of sleep we have to imagine it as independent from body life, like a rider is independent from the horse. But just like the rider uses the horse and uses up its strength, the soul consumes the activity of the body so that chemical processes run like letters of the soul’s life. With this we reach a point where the physical life, as it is limited in the senses, in the brain, is so diminished by us that we have exhausted it for the time being. Then we must begin the other activity, initiate the reverse process and again build up what has declined. This is the life during sleep—so that we, starting from the soul, perform two opposite activities on our body. So, during the awake state we have around us our world of flowing and ebbing concepts, joy and sorrow, feelings and so on. But while we have them in front of us, we wear out our physical life, we basically destroy it constantly. During sleep, we are the architects, we can restore what we have destroyed during our waking life.

So what does a spiritual researcher perceive? He perceives the architectural activity of rebuilding in curious pictures like a circular movement twisting around itself: a real process, that is the reverse of normal awake day life. It is really no fantasy when one speaks about recognising in these self-entwining movements the mysterious activity that the soul performs during sleep, which consists of reconstituting what we have destroyed during our day life—hence the recuperation through and necessity of the sleep life. So why is the sleep life such that it doesn’t enter into our consciousness? Yes, and why is it that we become conscious of our waking life? The reason for this is that for the processes we perform in our waking day life, we have got something like mirror images. However, when we are performing the other activity of rebuilding what has been worn out, we have nothing wherein this could be reflected. We are lacking a mirror for this. Only a spiritual researcher is able to show the underlying reasons for this. From a certain point onwards, the spiritual researcher experiences not only the soul activity, as I have described it, like a dream memory from sleep, but as if he was not dependent on the instrument of the body, so that he then can perceive an activity which only happens in the spirit. He can then tell himself: ‘Now you are not thinking with your brain, but you are now thinking in a completely different manner; now you are thinking in pictures, independent of your brain.’

The spiritual researcher can only experience something like what has been described earlier, when he experiences that everything that envelops him as something nebulous when he falls asleep does not disappear. Instead, if he is able to limit and withdraw his inner activity, then the mist that is perceptible at his temples, at his joints, at his spine, becomes something that reflects what he is doing—similar to the reflection of what we experience during our physical life.

The whole difference between true clairvoyance and ordinary waking day life consciousness is that the waking day life requires a different mirror for the soul activity to come to consciousness and uses our bodily nature for this purpose. However, the activity of the clairvoyant, when it radiates as an activity of the soul, is so strong that the emitted ray will be withdrawn into itself. In this way, as it were, a mirroring on one’s own inner experience, on a spirit organism, takes place. Basically, our soul is within this spirit organism during the night, even if we are not spiritual researchers. It pours itself into it. And we will not be able to cope with our whole sleep life, when it is not clear to us that indeed our physical processes—all that anatomy, physiology is able to research—cannot bring about anything but a reflection of our soul processes; and that these soul processes always, from falling asleep until waking up, live a spiritual existence. If we think differently we won’t be able to cope at all. We must therefore speak, as it were, of a secret soul life that cannot enter at all into the consciousness conveyed through our body. Thus, when one notices in a person that ideas appear in his consciousness that he has ignored for a long time, one has to say: There is something else in a human being, apart from the conceptions of his conscious soul life, to which he has paid attention when he took them in.

I have already suggested once, that it is child’s play to refute things that are a reality for a spiritual researcher. And yet they are true. Spiritual research has to say that in regard to the human being we have to deal with a human physical body that we can see with eyes, grasp with hands, and that is also known to anatomy and physiology. In addition, we have an inner member of the human being, the astral body, the carrier of everything that the human being consciously absorbs, what he really experiences during the day life, so that he can receive it reflected by the body. Between the astral body and the physical body lies the carrier of ideas that remain ignored for years, and are then brought up into the astral body to be realised. In short, between the astral body, the carrier of consciousness, and the physical body, the etheric body of man is active. This etheric body is not only the carrier of conceptions that have gone unnoticed, but in general the builder of the entire physical body.

What actually happens during sleep? The astral body, the carrier of consciousness, lifts itself together with the Ego out of the physical body and the etheric body, so that a split in the human nature occurs. During day life when man is awake, the astral body and the Ego are within the physical body and the etheric body. And the processes of the physical body work like mirroring processes, through which all that happens in the astral body comes to consciousness. Consciousness is a reflection of the experiences through the physical body, and we should not confuse consciousness with the experiences themselves. When, during sleep, the astral body of an ordinary human being leaves, it is at first not able to perceive anything in the world of the astral. The human being is unconscious there.

What ability does the spiritual researcher now acquire when things during sleep become conscious to him, even though he does not rely on his brain? He attains the ability to perceive and to mirror his soul activity in something that for him weaves and lives between things, so that during the awake day consciousness this something can be perceived in the same way as his own etheric body. The human etheric body is woven from that through which the clairvoyant person perceives; so that for a clairvoyant person the outer world becomes reflective, just as for the soul life of a normal person the physical body becomes reflective.

Now there are intermediate states between waking and sleeping. One such intermediate state is the dream. With regard to its origin, spiritual research shows that indeed dreaming is based on something similar to clairvoyance, whereby the latter is something trained, while dreaming is always imaginary. When a person leaves with the astral body, he loses the ability to obtain a reflection of his soul life through the physical body. However, under certain abnormal circumstances, which occur for everyone, he can obtain the capability to receive his soul experiences reflected through the etheric body. Indeed we must consider not only the physical body as a mirroring device, but also the etheric body. As long as the outer world makes an impression on us, it is indeed the physical body which acts as mirroring device. However, if we become still within ourselves and digest the impressions the outer world has made on us, then we work within ourselves and yet our thoughts are still real. We live our thoughts, and also feel that we are dependent on something more subtle than our physical body, namely on the etheric body. Then the etheric body is that what reflects itself in us in solitary pondering, which is not initially based on external impressions. But we are within our etheric body during our awake day consciousness; we perceive what is mirrored, but we do not perceive directly the activity of the astral body. In the intermediate state between waking and sleeping, we do not have the ability to receive external sensory impressions. But because we can still receive something that is connected to our etheric body in some way, the etheric body can mirror what we experience in our soul with our astral body. This then are the dreams that show irregularity because the human being is in a completely unusual situation during this process.

If we contemplate this, then much in our dream-world will become clear that would otherwise remain mysterious about it. We must therefore imagine the foundations of the soul life as being closely connected with the dream life. While the physical body is the mirror of the soul life and our daily interests have an impact on this, we are often connected in the remotest way through the etheric body to experiences, which we have long since left behind, and of which we become only dimly aware because the day life has a strong impact on us. Thus they remain something extremely unknown to us. However, if we are examine dreams that are based on really good observation, many peculiar things can be shown to us. For example, a good composer experiences an image, where a somewhat diabolical figure plays a sonata to him. He wakes up and is able to write down the sonata. Something became active in him that has worked like something foreign. And this was possible, because there was something in him for which the composer’s soul was ready, but which could not become effective during the awake day life, because physical life was only an obstruction and not suited as a mirror. Here we can see that the bodily life is an inhibitor and in this lies its significance. In our daily life we are only able to experience that for which the bodily life, figuratively speaking, is ‘oiled like a machine.’

The physical life is always a hindrance to us, but we manage to use it to a certain extent. After all, one does need ‘inhibitions’ everywhere. When a locomotive rides over the tracks, it is the hampering, the friction, through which it can drive, because the wheels could not turn without friction. In reality, our bodily processes are what confronts our soul life in a hampering way, and these frictional processes are at the same time mirroring processes. When we are ready in our soul for something but have not yet managed to oil our machine well, then the awake day life is a good ‘brake shoe’. But when we leave our physical body, then our etheric body is able to bring what lives in our soul life to expression—and this will appear to us as something quite foreign as it is of a more subtle nature. Then, once it is strong enough, it forces itself into the dream life, as was the case with the composer. This has less to do with the daily interests than with the hidden interests, that lie more remote in the subtle foundations. For example, in the following—note, that I am just telling you something that has actually been observed—A woman dreams, and although she has children whom she loves very much, and a husband, who loves her extraordinarily, she experiences with great joy that she gets engaged for a second time and all related events she goes through. What does she dream? She dreams experiences that are very far from her current life, that she has once gone through but cannot recognise, because the normal interests of the day are only connected with the physical body. And, what has continued to live on in her etheric body will now, perhaps because a joyful emotion has triggered the dream, be mirrored by the etheric body through another event.

A man dreams that he goes through childhood experiences, and these childhood experiences are wonderfully mirrored. One of these, especially important to him because it went close to his heart, causes him to wake up. At first the dream is very dear to him, but soon he falls asleep again and dreams on. A whole sum of unpleasant experiences now pass through his soul, and a particularly painful event wakes him up. All of this is extremely far from his present experiences. He gets up, and because he feels very shaken by the dream, walks around in the room for a while, but then he lies down again and now he has dream experiences, which he has not yet had. All events that he went through get muddled up, and he now experiences something completely new. The whole turns into a poem, which he can even write down and set to music afterwards. That is a very real fact. Now it shouldn’t be too difficult, with the concepts we have already gained, to imagine what has happened there. For a spiritual researcher it is thus; at a very specific moment in his life the man suffered a kind of break in his development—he had to give up something that lay in his soul. But even if he had to give it up, it did not disappear from his etheric body as a result of that. It was just that his ordinary interests were so strong that they pushed it back. And, where it was strong enough through inner elasticity, it forced itself out through the dream, because there the human being is freed from the hindrances of the awake day life. This means, that the respective man was truly once very close to reach what was expressed in the poem; but then it had been deadened.

Thus we can see illustrated in our dreams the independence of our soul life from our outer bodily life. We must realise that this is proof that the idea of the mirroring of the soul life in the physical life is entirely justified. In particular, the circumstance that the interests in which we are involved do not engrave themselves in a straight line in our direct experience, shows us that apart from the life, as it is lived on a daily basis, there is another life running alongside, that I have called, for a more conscious, finer observation, a kind of awakening. In it lives everything that for our spiritual life is already abstract, immaterial like our conscience that is independent of physical life—everyone can feel this. Yet during our day life this other life turns out to be very limited by our daily interests. During sleep, our soul also reveals itself as being completely filled with its moral quality. There is a real living into the spiritual, what we can describe as a jolt, as an inner movement. What we call Spiritual Science research will result in something for us through which we can consciously settle into the world that the normal human being unconsciously settles into every time he falls asleep.

People must gradually familiarise themselves with the fact that the world is far wider than what we can grasp with our senses and follow with our intellect; and that the sleep life is an area that we need because just our noblest organs, which serve our imaginative life, are worn out by our daily life. During sleep we restore them, so that they can face the world strong and vigorously and are able to mirror our soul life for us in the waking day life. Everything that is characteristic of the soul life could become clear to us through this. Who wouldn’t know that one feels wearied and tired after a good, deep sleep? People often complain about this; but it is not a symptom of an illness at all and is actually quite understandable. After all, the complete recovery through sleep only occurs an hour or an hour and a half later. Why? Because we have worked well on our organs, so that they are not only able to cope for a few more hours but for the whole day. And immediately after waking up we are not yet ready to use them, we first have to “grind them in.” Only after a while we can use them well. One should speak about a particular type of weariness in a certain way, saying that one could be happy that one can settle back into the reconditioned organs in an hour and a half. Because from sleep comes to us what we need—the architectural forces for the organs that have been worn out and used up during the day.

So we may now say that our soul life is a life of independence, a life of which we have something like a reflection through our consciousness during our waking day life. Consciousness is a reflection of the interactions of the soul with its environment. During the waking day life we are lost to our surroundings, to something foreign, are devoted to something that is not ourselves. But during sleep—and this is the nature of sleep—we withdraw from all outer activity to work on ourselves. The comparison is apt; the ship which has served shipping while it was at sea will be rebuilt and repaired when it arrives in port.

Someone who believes that during sleep nothing happens to us, could also think, that nothing needs to be done to the ship when it returns to port from a voyage. But when the ship sails again, he will see what happens, if it has not been repaired. This is how it would be if our soul did not work on us during sleep. We are brought back to ourselves when we sleep, while during the day life we are lost to the outside world. A normal human being is just not able to perceive what the soul is doing during sleep in the same way as he perceives the outside world during the day.

In the lecture How to attain Knowledge of the Higher World? we will see that also in the spirit a mirror image can be attained as a realisation, through which man can then come to perception in the higher worlds. All this illustrates that the soul, just when it is not conscious of itself and knows nothing of its own activity, but is busy with itself, works on itself, and independently of the physicality, obtains those forces which serve precisely to build up the body.

Thus we may summarise what we have said, and characterise the nature of the soul with words that from the knowledge of the nature of sleep can build a kind of foundation for many things in Spiritual Science:

The soul itself restores
Enveloped still in sleep
Flees into spirit worlds
When senses constrictions
Oppress it! ³

• 1. GA 60 Lecture 7. How Does one Attain Knowledge of the Spiritual World?, 15 December 1910, Berlin.
• 2. William Hanna Thomson, Brain and Personality, 1907, published in Germany under the title Das Gehirn und der Mensch, Verlag K R Langewiesche, Düsseldorf, 1910.
• 3. Poem translated by Norbert Mulholland.

“Spiritual science aims to show what can be gained in widening one's spiritual horizons. It can be said that for the purpose of gradually entering into the whole outlook inherent in spiritual research, anyone immersing himself in Herman Grimm?s spirit has the finest precepts.”—Rudolf Steiner, GA 62

This is a lecture, given by Rudolf Steiner, entitled Die Weltanschauung eines Kulturforschers der Gegenwart, Herman Grimm, und die Geistesforschung and contained in the volume Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung (Results of Spiritual Research) GA 62. The series in which this lecture was given at the Architektenhaus in Berlin, may be said to underline its overall importance for Rudolf Steiner: Held January 16th 1913 subsequent to a lecture January 30th on Raphael. Also known as, Herman Grimm, Contemporary Culture and Spiritual Developments, and Anthroposophy.

This single lecture is the 8th of 14 lectures in the lecture series entitled, Results of Spiritual Investigation, published in German as, Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung. Translated by Peter Stebbing

Translated by Peter Stebbing

It could easily appear as though what is set forth here as spiritual science stood in isolation to what is otherwise proclaimed and of a tone-setting nature in the cultural life of the present. However, it can only appear so to one who conceives of this spiritual science in a somewhat narrow-hearted sense, seeing in it nothing more than a sum of teachings and theories. On the other hand, whoever recognizes it as a spiritual stream open to new sources will become aware that parallels can be drawn to modern cultural life in various ways. It will be seen that this manner of viewing life called spiritual science can be applied to other, in some degree related directions. A direction of this sort is the subject of today's considerations—as represented by a prominent personality of modern cultural life, the art historian and researcher Herman Grimm.

Herman Grimm [the son of Wilhelm Grimm of the Brothers Grimm] was born in 1828 and died in 1901. He appears indeed as a quite characteristic figure of modern life, and yet he is, at the same time, so distinctive and unique as to stand apart. Today's considerations can connect especially well onto this personality. To anyone having occupied himself with Herman Grimm, he appears as a kind of mediator between all that relates to Goethe, and to our own spiritual life.

By reason of his marriage to the daughter of a personality, who stood close to the circle of Goethe, namely the sister of the romantic poet Clemons von] Brentano,[ Bettina Brentano [1785-1859], Herman Grimm was connected in a quite special sense with everything associated with the name of Goethe. Herman Grimm was related to her in that she was his mother-in-law, the same Bettina Brentano who had brought out Goethe's remarkable exchange of letters with a child. Bettina Brentano's unique memorial shows us Goethe enthroned like an Olympian, a musical instrument in his hands, while she presents herself as a child grasping at the strings. From the Frankfurt circle of La Roche, in her relation to Goethe she was able (like few others) to enter into Goethe's spirit. Even if some things as presented in the letters are inexact, being colourfully mixed together in various ways—a combination of poetry and truth—it still has to be said: Everything in this remarkable book, Goethes Brefwechsel mit einem Kinde [Goethe's Exchange of Letters with a Child], grew in a heartfelt manner out of sensing Goethe's whole outlook. In a wonderful way, it grants us an echo of his wisdom-imbued worldview. Bettina Brentano was married to the poet Achim von Arnim [l781-1831], who had contributed to bringing out the fine collection of folk poems called Des Knabens Wunderhorn [1806] [The Boy's Magic Horn]. By virtue of the connection with this circle—as mentioned, Gisela Grimm, Herman Grimm's wife, was one of the daughters of Bettina von Arnim—Herman Grimm grew up from youth onwards, as it were, amid personalities who stood in close proximity to Goethe. In all that he took up in his education, Herman Grimm absorbed something of an immediate, elemental spiritual breath of Goethe. Thus, he felt himself as belonging to all those who had stood personally close to Goethe, even though he was still a child the time of Goethe's death [in 1832J, rather than one who had “studied” Goethe and Goetheanism. Herman Grimm counted as having taken into himself, in a direct and personal way, something of Goethe's essential being, his magical power, his natural humanity.

With inner participation, Herman Grimm experienced the development of German cultural life during the decades of the mid-nineteenth century. In doing so, he established, so to say, his own “kingdom” within this German cultural life. He can be called a spirit who, in an individual manner, starts out from whatever stimulated him, that furthered the development of his own powers. In this way, out of the whole range of cultural life, a realm subdivided itself for Herman Grimm that suited his aims, a realm in which he felt at home. Within this domain in which Herman Grimm felt himself at home, he understood himself to be, lo to say, the spiritual “governor” with respect to Goethe. Goethe's spirit appeared to him as though it lived on. And in seeking out what derived from Goethe and what was compatible with him in cultural life, entering into this, it was always the essence of Goethe that he sought. This then became a yardstick for him in evaluating everything in cultural life.

These were decades of struggle in German cultural life, decades in which everything to do with Goethe receded, following his death. So much else of immediate everyday concern stood in the forefront, rather than what proceeded from Goethe. During that period, numerous other things asserted themselves in the cultural life of Germany, while little was heard of Goethe. On account of his connection with Goethe, Herman Grimm regarded himself as one whose task it was, quietly yet actively to cultivate and carry over Goethe's ethos to a future time that he certainly hoped would come, a time in which Goethe's star would shine out once more in the European spiritual firmament.

In that he regarded himself as, so to say, the “governor” of Goethe's spiritual domain, Herman Grimm stood somewhat apart in his relation to cultural matters. It seemed appropriate, if not self-evident to see him as having the air of a “lord.” Even in his stature, his physiognomy, his gestures, in his conduct, there was something about him suggestive of an aristocrat. And, it can be said: For anyone not accustomed to looking up to someone as to a lordly personality, Herman Grimm's whole demeanour as though compelled acknowledgement of the aforementioned status. I still fondly recall being together with Herman Grimm in Weimar, which he often liked to visit. On one occasion, he invited me as his only guest to a midday meal. We spoke about various matters that interested him. We also talked—and I was pleased that he wanted to have this conversation with me—about his comprehensive life-plans. And when a certain time had passed after the meal, he said, in his inimitable, humorous and quite natural manner, such that one accepted it from him as something innate, “Now, my dear Doctor, I wish graciously to dismiss you!” As though a matter of course, it actually made a self-evident impression on me. And it accorded with Herman Grimm's whole manner of conducting himself, so that, one granted him a certain air of lordliness.

Herman Grimm's whole lifework bears something of the same attribute. One cannot take up one of his major or minor writings, with their harmonious and so succinctly constructed sentences without feeling: all this affects one as though the author's personality stood behind it, regarding one with soulful participation. This contributes to the wonderful quality in Herman Grimm's writings. In every respect they are the product of his soul-imbued personality and have their immediate effect as such. In this way, his style takes on a certain justified, noble pathos. However, this noble pathos is mitigated everywhere by the individual, human element that breaks through. One accepts his style despite its elegance. Everywhere, one senses his origins in having sincerely absorbed Goethe's spirit. Yet this is not all; it becomes apparent that with him the Goethean element has undergone something of the development of German Romanticism. We sense in Herman Grimm's style a liberation from all that can broadly be termed “commonplace” or “customary.” We have the impression of a singular personality secluded within himself.

Herman Grimm's orientation could possibly have led to a certain one-sidedness, had something else not played a part, binding him closely to tradition; Herman Grimm was, after all, the, son of Wilhelm Grimm and the nephew of Jakob Grimm. Known for inaugurating modern linguistic research, these two collected the German fairy tales that have in the meantime profoundly permeated German life. They listened to the sagas and fairy tales told them by simple folk, that were almost forgotten and remembered by only a few remaining souls. Brought to life again by the Brothers Grimm, they now live on.

Despite a refined style in everything he produced, Herman Grimm also had close ties to popular tradition, combining this with what might otherwise have been a one-sided direction. We still have to stress something further by which he appears harmonious and complete. In taking up the works of Herman Grimm, we encounter something of his adaptability—a capacity to connect with the various spiritual phenomena in which he immersed himself in the course of his life. A certain isolation is required for someone to submerge themselves fully in the phenomena and facts of past centuries. This adaptability, this quality of “softness” with regard to Herman Grimm acquires its “skeleton,” however, its necessary “hardness,” by reason of something else that intervened in his upbringing. Both his father and his uncle belonged to the “Göttingen Seven,” who in the year 1837 submitted their proclamation protesting the abolition of their country's constitution. They were consequently expelled from the University of Göttingen. Thus, already as a child, Herman Grimm experienced a significant event and its aftermath. For there were consequences both for his father and his uncle, in that they not only lost their positions, bur their daily bread as well, at the time. Herman Grimm often referred to how he had experienced historical change in this way, even already as a nine-year old boy, and not merely via book-learning.

At a time when little was said of Goethe in Germany, attention having been diverted to other things, Herman Grimm viewed himself as a representative of Goethe's ethos. But he did experience a resurgence of interest in Goethe and was himself able to contribute to it. At the beginning of the seventies of the nineteenth century, he was able to hold his famous Goethe lectures [“Goethe-Vorlesungen” 1874-75] at the University of Berlin, also published in book form. Anyone getting hold of it as a young person, and able to find the right relation to it, will undoubtedly speak of it in later years as being of special significance. And, as set forth in this book, Herman Grimm clearly shows himself as someone who knew the various ramifications of Goethe's soul life.

We gain a clear sense of how Herman Grimm viewed a personality such as Goethe. We find nothing of a small-minded biographical compulsion—to flush out all manner of more or less indifferent traits. Rather do we find an immersion in everything that was important for Goethe's development—the endeavour to pursue what Goethe experienced in life, what lived in his soul, and how this re-constituted itself, taking on form to become a creation, of Goethe's phantasy. How, he asks, in forgetting everything of a particular life experience, did this re-arise for Goethe to become the product of creative phantasy—a new experience?

Thus, in Herman Grimm's interpretation, Goethe raises his life-experiences a stage higher, to a sphere of pure spiritual contemplation. We see Goethe ascend to spiritual experiences. Herman Grimm demonstrates this with regard to each of Goethe's works. And we gladly follow him in pursuing this course, since with Herman Grimm nothing intrudes that can otherwise so easily enter into such a portrayal—that a single soul-force, e.g., reason or phantasy, becomes paramount, as it were, and one no longer feels the connection to immediate life. Herman Grimm goes no farther than he can go as an individual in contemplating Goethe's work. In the end, we are led by Herman Grimm to the point where the work takes its start from Goethe's life experience. One feels oneself transported everywhere into unmitigated spiritual life. Goethe becomes a sum of spiritual impulses. This breath of the spiritual extends throughout Herman Grimm's Goethe book.

What Herman Grimm ascribed to Goethe in this way has its roots deep in Herman Grimm's spiritual configuration. Long before commencing these considerations that led to his lectures on Goethe, a grand, a colossal idea had stood before him—the idea of viewing occidental cultural life as a whole in the same way he had done, individually, with regard to Goethe. The idea stood before his mind's eye of following three millennia of western cultural life so as to reveal everywhere how human sensibility transforms everyday events in the physical world to what the human soul experiences upon ascending to the realm of “creative phantasy,” as Herman Grimm called it. Thus, he becomes a unique kind of historian. For Herman Grimm, history was, so to say, something altogether different from what it is for other modern historians.

History is, after all, customarily studied in that documents, materials, are first collected, and from these the attempt is made to present a picture of humanity's development. Although materials, external facts, were of enormous importance for Herman Grimm, they were nonetheless not at all the main thing. He often entertained the thought: Could it not be that for some epoch or other precisely the most significant documents, the decisive ones, have disappeared without a trace—lost, so that one actually passes by the truth most of all in focussing too conscientiously and exactly on the documents? Hence, he was convinced that, in abiding most faithfully by external documents, one is least of all capable of providing a true picture of human development. Only a falsified picture could arise in keeping strictly to external documents alone.

However, something else has arisen in the cultural life of humanity. What took place outwardly, what happened has, thanks to leading individualities, undergone a spiritual rebirth. This is evidenced by personalities who have transformed it artistically, who have utilized it for cultural purposes. Thus, in looking back for instance to the time of ancient Greece, Herman Grimm said to himself: Some documents exist concerning this Greek age, but these are insufficient to enable one to understand the Greek world. Yet what the Greeks experienced has found its rebirth in the works of Greek art, has been re-enlivened by significant Greek personalities. Immersing oneself in them, letting the Greek spirit affect one, a truer picture of the Greek world is attained than in merely assembling external facts. In this way, the facts themselves disappeared, so to say, for Herman Grimm. One is inclined to say, they melted away from his world-picture. What remained in his world-picture was a continuous stream of what he called the creations of “folk-phantasy.”

In contemplating Julius Caesar, for example, he not only took account of the historical documents, he considered what Shakespeare had made of Caesar as of equal significance, comparable to what is contained in the existing documents. Through characteristic human beings he looked back at the age in question. For Herman Grimm, the course of humanity's development became something always handed on from one personality to another, seeing it as a spiritual process encompassed by what he termed creative phantasy. Proceeding from this point of view, he sought to gain a picture of the creative folk-phantasy at work in western culture—a sense of the actual course of events in the development of humanity, so as to be able to say: The epochs of western culture follow one upon the other, supersede each other—from the earliest epochs up to the present, i.e., from the oldest times to which he wished to return, up to his own period, the age of Goethe. They therefore represent an ongoing stream, the influence of folk phantasy within western cultures.

Starting out from this urge, he turned his attention early on to that grandiose phenomenon of western cultural life, Homer's “Iliad.” This occupied him for a period of time during the 1890s, leading to his truly exemplary book, Homer. One gladly takes up this volume again and again in wanting, from a modern viewpoint, to immerse oneself in the beginnings of the Greek world. Adopting his general standpoint, it shows us Herman' Grimm from another side. His gaze is directed to the world of the gods as depicted in Homer's “Iliad”—to the battling Greek and Trojan heroes, and the question arises for him: How do matters actually stand with regard to this interplay of the world of the gods with the normal human world of warring Greek and Trojan heroes? This becomes a question for him. It is indeed striking, what a tremendous difference there is in the Homeric portrayal, between the humans walking around and the nature of those beings described as immortal gods. And Herman Grimm attempts to present the gods in Homer's sense as portraying, so to say, an “older” class of beings wandering on the earth. Even if Herman Grimm, in his more realistic way, sees these beings as “human beings,” he does look back into a culture that in Homer's time had long lost its significance, a culture that had been superseded by another, to which the Greek and Trojan heroes belong. Thus, Herman Grimm has an older and a younger class of humanity play into one another in Homer's “Iliad;” and what has remained over of real effects of a class of beings that had lived previously, enters for Herman Grimm (in Homer's sense) into what takes place between Greece and Troy.

Herman Grimm saw the further progress of humanity in this way—as a continual supplanting of older cultural cycles by newer ones and an interplay of older cycles with newer ones. Each new cultural cycle has its task, that of introducing something new into the general development of humanity. The old remains extant for a while and still interacts with the new.

It can be said that what Herman Grimm investigated, to the extent possible in the last third of the nineteenth century, has now to be set forth once more from the point of view of spiritual science. He did not look further back than the Greek age. For this reason, he was unable to arrive at what recent spiritual research describes in looking to the lofty, purely spiritual beings of primeval antiquity, exalted above the human being. He did, however, frequently touch upon results of recent spiritual research—as nearly as anyone can without conducting such research themselves.

In going back to earlier stages in the development of humanity, we attempt, in spiritual research, to show that we do not arrive at the animal species in the sense of the Darwinian theory that is interpreted materialistically nowadays. Rather, we attempt to show that we come to purely spiritual ancestors of the human being. Prior to the cycle of humanity in which human souls live in physical bodies, there is another cycle of humanity in which human beings did not yet incorporate themselves in physical bodies. Herman Grimm leaves the question undecided, so to say, as to what was actually involved with the “gods,” before human beings stepped onto the earth. However, he does recognize the ordered sequence of such cycles of humanity. And this results in an important point of contact with what spiritual science presents. That he takes account of such regular periodic stages taking place ~~ brings him especially close to us.

He attempts to extend his spiritual observations over three millennia. The first millennium for him is the Greek millennium. With Herman Grimm, one is inclined to say, there is something like an undertone in his manner of characterizing the Greeks, as though he were to say: In looking to the Greeks, they do not appear constituted like human beings of today, particularly in the oldest periods. Even someone like Alcibiades [ca. 450-404 B.C.] appears to us like a kind of fairy-tale prince, it is as though one beheld what is superhuman. Still, out of this Greek world that, as already mentioned, Herman Grimm presents as being altogether unlike the later human world, there towers ell that arose in the subsequent Greek world end in what follows, becoming the most important constituent of our cultural life. And finally, at the end of the first thousand years contemplated by Herman Grimm, the most significant impulse in humanity's development stands before his soul: the Christ impulse.

Herman Grimm is sparing in what he has to say about the figure of Christ, just as he is restrained in various other matters. But the occasional observations he makes show that he would as little go along with those who would “dissolve” Christ, as it were, to the point of a mere thought impulse, as he would go along with those who want to see Christ Jesus only in human terms. He emphasizes that two kinds of impulses actually proceed from the figure of Christ—one of colossal strength, that continues to work on throughout the further development of humanity—and the other impulse which consists in immense gentleness. Herman Grimm sees the entire second millennium of western cultural development taking shape in such a way that the Greek world is as though absorbed by the Christ impulse and the resulting mixture of Christianity and Greekness is incorporated into the Roman world, overcoming it. Out of this something quite unique arises. That is his second millennium, the first Christian millennium. The Roman element is not the main thing for him, but rather the Christian impulses. Everything of a political or external nature disappears for Herman Grimm in this millennium. He looks everywhere at how the manifold Christ impulse makes itself felt. His conception of Christ is neither narrow. nor small, but broad. When a book on the life of Jesus, La Vie de Jesus [1863], by Ernest Renan was published, Herman Grimm referred to it in the periodical he edited at the time, “Künstler und Kunstwerke” [Artists and Works of Art]; he attempted to show how pictorial representations of the Christ figure had undergone changes over the centuries both in the visual arts and in literature. He sought to demonstrate how the Christ impulse undergoes changes. He pointed out that people had always conceived of the Christ impulse according to their own outlook. In Ernest Renan he saw an instance of someone in the nineteenth century who conceived of Christ once again in a narrow sense only.

In Herman Grimm's view, Christianity needed about a thousand years to send its impulses into the rivulets and streams of western spiritual life. Then came the third millennium, the second Christian one, in which we still find ourselves today. It is the millennium at the dawn of which spirits such as Dante and Giotto arose, as also artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and so on, followed by the works of Shakespeare and Goethe. These cycles in the development of humanity, an ongoing stream_, he spoke of as an expression of the being of creative phantasy. Again and again Herman Grimm sought to present in lectures give to his students, this rhythmically subdivided, ongoing stream of humanity's development. Herman Grimm aimed to show how single creations had their place within the unbroken flow.

Thus, for him, Michelangelo, along with Raphael, Savonarola, Shakespeare and others, such as Goethe, were in a manner of speaking the spiritual constituents that become explicable on seeing them against the background of the ongoing stream of creative phantasy. For Herman Grimm this was especially apparent at the source, in the ninth or the tenth century before our era, with Homer. Thus, Herman Grimm addresses himself in an immediate way to the human soul, in drawing our attention to a specific work of art—be it Raphael's “'Marriage of Mary and Joseph,” a painting, of the Madonna, or one of the creations of Leonardo da Vinci, or. later, of Goethe. He grants us the feeling of standing as though directly within the unique qualities of the particular work. In considering with him the arrangement of colours, the figures and their gestures, while standing inwardly before the work of art, there emerges for us something like a tableau of the entire progress of humanity—now called forth by a single entity in that onward-flowing, all-encompassing stream of creative phantasy—over three millennia.

Thus, with Herman Grimm, one is first conducted into the intimate aspects of the work of art in question and is then led up to the summit from which the total stream can be surveyed. However, that is not something he considered in a theoretical manner. It seemed entirely natural for Herman Grimm to look at the totality of the onward flowing spiritual stream of humanity's development in this way. As he explained it to me, as mentioned at a midday meal, with his whole soul. he actually lived, as a matter of course, within this spiritual stream, and he could not look at a single phenomenon in any other way than as though it were excerpted from this mighty stream of humanity's development.

The whole of western cultural development, seen as folk phantasy, stood before his soul, though not as a general abstract idea, but filled with real content. He saw himself as inwardly connected with this luminous content extending over millennia, such that everything he wrote appears to one as individual segments of an enormous work. Even in only reading a' book review by Herman Grimm, one has the impression as though it were cut out from a colossal work setting forth the whole development of humanity. One feels oneself positively placed before such a colossal work, having opened it, and as though one were reading a few pages in it. It is the same with an article or an essay by Herman Grimm. And one comprehends how Herman Grimm could say of himself, in the evening of his life, in writing the preface to his collection of Fragments, that the idea had floated before him of a portrayal of the ongoing stream of folk phantasy, and that therein the whole of western culture had appeared to him, A particular subject he had pursued appeared as if it had been taken out of a finished work. However, he placed no more value on what had been printed than on what he had only written down, and on what he had written down, no more value than on what lived in his thoughts.

In referring to this, one would like to add a further impression, without putting it into an abstract formula—having been fond of Herman Grimm, remaining so, and in valuing his work and the kind of person he was. Herman Grimm was never able to reach the point of actually carrying out what stood before his mind's eye as something so beautiful, so colossal, so magnificent that even his works on Homer, on Raphael, on Michelangelo, on Goethe, appear to us as fragments of this comprehensive, unwritten work. We read the lines of the introduction to the Fragments mentioned above with a certain feeling of wistfulness. He states there that, though it would most likely not come about, it would perhaps be feasible to rework into a book what he had to say to his students year after year—and newly revised every year—concerning the progression of European cultural life in the last form these lectures took. One reads these lines today the more wistfully, as it did indeed not come to such a rewriting. We had to see Herman Grimm pass away, knowing what lived in his soul intended for present-day culture—having this sink with him into the grave.

We have characterized the sweeping cultural horizons underlying Herman Grimm's written works. Spiritual science intends to show what can be gained in widening one's spiritual horizons. It can be said that for the purpose of gradually entering into the whole outlook inherent in spiritual research, anyone immersing himself in Herman Grimm's spirit has the finest precepts. Apart from the breadth of his horizons, we see how he approached the phenomena, how his thoughts and feelings led him to everything he wrote in his comprehensive works on Homer, Raphael, Michelangelo and Goethe. And, bearing in mind what is set forth in his other writings, one sees that Herman Grimm distinguishes himself in significant ways from other spirits, in possessing attributes belonging to the kind of soul-deepening we have spoken of in describing the path the soul has to take in order to enter the spiritual worlds.

We have stressed that for the spiritual path, the intensity of soul-forces has to become greater. Deeper soul-forces are to be called forth that otherwise slumber. Inner strength, inner courage and boldness are required to a greater extent than in ordinary life; concepts are to be grasped more sharply. The soul needs to identify itself more fully with its own being, with the forces of thinking, feeling and willing. Initial signs of this are evident everywhere with Herman Grimm, by which he was, for example, in a position to describe works of art in such an intimate and personal way, as in the case of Raphael and Michelangelo. This is a precursor, however, to further illuminating the spiritual world. The basis of Herman Grimm's historical research does not lie in what is nowadays called “objectivity,” but in his allying himself with the cultural phenomena he portrays, as accords with the spiritual world. In this way, wholly forgetting itself and yet in a rare sense conscious of itself, the soul immerses itself in the corresponding cultural manifestation.

This becomes particularly evident when he directs his attention to a single cultural phenomenon, such as Raphael, elevating this to the overall stream of human spiritual life. His impressions then become bold, powerful ideas—and what others do not venture to say with the same shade of feeling, or with the same subtlety of ideas, Herman Grimm does venture, becoming in this way a representative of the spirit. And he then stands before us with such boldness that we are sometimes reminded of the Gospel writers. It is just that they wrote more in keeping with mysticism, while Herman Grimm wrote in the sense of a modern spiritual discourse. Just as the Gospels reach upward to attain the horizon of mankind as a whole, so Herman Grimm reaches upward with his Raphael book to the horizon of mankind as a whole.

It is miraculous when, in his audacious way—seemingly tearing his soul out of himself and striding as though alongside Raphael—as in an overall stream of evolution—he erupts in words that can truly tell us more than any mere presentation of world history: “Raphael is a citizen of world-history; He is like one of the four rivers that according to the belief of the ancient world flowed out of Paradise.”

In letting such a sentence duly affect one, Herman Grimm's perception of Raphael takes on an altogether different character, compared to what other authors have to say. Hence, for Herman Grimm, the various personalities of history merge into the overall stream of spiritual life. It could also be said, he brings the highest spiritual spheres down to the personal element. And in speaking the following heartfelt words, Herman Grimm further expresses his relation to leading cultural figures:

“If, by some miracle, Michelangelo were called from the dead, to live among us again, and if I were to meet him, I would humbly stand aside to let him pass; if Raphael came by, I would follow him, to see whether or not I might have the opportunity of hearing a few words from his lips. With Leonardo and Michelangelo one can confine oneself to reporting what they once were in their day; with Raphael one has to start from what he is for us today. Concerning the two others, a slight veil has passed over them, but not over Raphael. He belongs among those whose growth is as yet far from being at an end. we may imagine that Raphael will present ever new riddles to future-generations of humanity.” [Fragments, Vol. II, p.170]

This counts as a characteristic mood, rather than as something normally objective in the sense of what is normally demanded nowadays. But if does describe matters in such a way that we feel ourselves transposed, in an immediate way to what had lived in Herman Grimm's soul in writing- such sentences. It becomes understandable that such a spirit had to struggle in coming to terms with such a world-historical figure as Raphael. Oddly, as he himself relates, it was quite different for him, in describing the life of Michelangelo. The portrayal of the life of Michelangelo by Herman Grimm is a marvellous document, though in some respects perhaps, it counts today as having been surpassed. Seen against the background of the life of that time, the figure of Michelangelo stands out significantly from other figures—as also from the unique description of the city of Florence. Herman Grimm places a tableau before us in contrasting two spiritual entities, Athens and Florence. With that, the weaving together of three millennia as characterized by Herman Grimm, appears as a mighty background upon which Dante and Giotto appear, along with other painters of that time—followed by figures such as Savonarola, and finally Michelangelo himself, evident.

It becomes evident that Herman Grimm responded differently to Raphael and his surroundings than to Goethe, while presenting everything with no less familiarity. In the case of Herman Grimm's Goethe portrayal, we sense everywhere that he had grown up as a spiritual descendant of Goethe. With his Michelangelo portrayal, we feel how he enters into everything personally, wandering the streets, visiting every palace in Florence. ... other matters, as it were. Besides personally acquainting himself with other matters, he succeeds in standing as it were, before Michelangelo, and in depicting his actual manner of working. All this is as though cast from the same mould.

This differs from what he presents concerning Raphael. There we sense a wrestling with the material, with the spiritual image of Raphael. It is as though Herman Grimm were never able to achieve satisfaction. He describes having taken up the material again and again, while nothing appeared adequate to him of what he had already published. That was true even of his last works—of what he finally attempted as a portrayal of Raphael's personality. This remained a fragment, appearing in the collection of essays entitled Raphael as a World Power, from which the sentences derive that were just read out.

Why did Herman Grimm struggle with the material, precisely in the case of Raphael? It is because he could only present something to his own satisfaction in uniting himself completely with the material. In Raphael, however, he saw a spirit characterized in the words quoted: “Raphael is a citizen of world-history. He is like one of the four rivers that, according to the belief of the ancient world, flowed out of paradise.” And thus, with every statement applied to him, Raphael grew to giant size. Herman Grimm could never be satisfied, since he could not capture this “world-power” in a book. If the comprehensive breadth and grace of his spirit is evident in the portrayals of Homer, Michelangelo and Goethe with his Raphael discourse we see the profound uprightness, the profound honesty of Herman Grimm's personality.

Whoever takes up his book on Homer will possibly find it not scholarly enough. But Herman Grimm states on the very first page, that this book is not meant to be a contribution to Homer research. As already set forth; here, Herman Grimm could conduct himself in this and similar matters much like a spiritual “lord.” Thus, it appears quite natural that, in collecting his ideas on Goethe for publication, he boldly started out from the view that every other book he had come across concerning Goethe fell short. What seems like brazenness to some, can be taken for granted in the context of his literary and artistic abilities.

That is how he relates to everything in cultural life. Hence for those who adhere to the standpoint of erudite scholars, Herman Grimm's Homer book may seem intolerable. All the many questions that have been raised concerning Homer—whether or not he actually lived, whether the “Iliad” was put together from so and so many details, and so forth—all that did not concern him. He took it as it was. In this way, however, it became clear to him how wonderfully it is composed, how what comes later always refers to what preceded it. Everything that shows this inherent composition appears to us inwardly coherent. But apart from that, what appears most salutary for a spiritual researcher, is his immersion in the soul-life of the Homeric heroes. Everywhere, we see Herman Grimm's soul-imbued style extend to the soul-life of Homer's heroes. Everywhere we see the Achilles-soul comprehended, the Agamemnon-soul, the Odysseus-soul, and so on. As a description of souls, this book is overpowering in its effect, in spite of the familiarity of the stylistic presentation! We are led not only to the heights of historical contemplation, but also deep into the souls of the single Homeric figures, some scholars will inevitably say, Herman Grimm has taken the “Iliad” at face value, with disregard for the whole of Homer research and all preliminary study, accepting it verse for verse! Indeed, he does so—quite “amateurishly”—and the dry conclusion could then be: There someone has written a book without any preliminary study.

Did Herman Grimm in fact write this book without any preliminary study? Anyone concerning himself with the works of Herman Grimm will find the preliminary studies, only they look different from the preliminary studies of the usual experts. The preliminary studies of Herman Grimm lay in soul studies, in immersing himself in the secrets of the human soul. And one can convince oneself that no one could have shed such light on the Homeric heroes without those preliminary studies. Herman Grimm looks for what held sway in Homer's Phantasy. But what he says reveals him to be the finest knower of human souls. We may expect remarkable things of him in considering the way viewed Homer's heroes—from Achilles to Agamemnon to Odysseus. How did he find the words to write, in his Homer book and other works, what can seem to the researcher so uncommonly spiritual? He was able to do so on account of quite definite preliminary studies. And these are to be found among the works of Herman Grimm's first period.

Above all, we have the wonderful collection of novellas [1862] that is perhaps less read today than other modern products of its kind. However, these should be read by those who take an interest in spiritual things. As a collection of novellas, it is an intensive attempt to get to know human souls, to fathom human secrets and the soul's activity beyond the physical plane. The first of these novellas, “The Singer,” belongs to Herman Grimm's earliest phase as an author. In this work it is shown how a man acquires a deep, passionate yearning for a woman of a broad spiritual nature. However, these two personalities are never able to come together. The woman sends this ardent man away from her social circle, while everything lives on in the man's soul in the way of impulses that drew him to her. On the other hand, what proceeds from his soul saps at his bodily strength. Set forth as corresponds to spiritual research, we see him gradually destabilized in his soul. He is taken in by a friend to live on his estate, becoming, however, entangled again in the woman's “net.” The friend recognizes that it is high time to fetch this person his friend adheres to so completely. She does come—but too late. Whereas she is in front of the house, the individual concerned shoots himself.

And now comes something, taken up unreservedly in spiritual research, which Herman Grimm so often touches upon in artistic expression, but allows to devolve into indefiniteness. Briefly and succinctly he describes how, in the singer's imagination the deceased lives on. The scene is unforgettable in which, feeling her entire guilt in the death of this man, she sees him approaching from the realm of the dead, night after night. This now fills the content of her soul. It is not described as being a mere figment of her imagination, but in the sense of someone who knows there are secrets that reach beyond the grave. It is a wonderful description, that tells how the friend plants himself in front of the woman when she says the deceased comes to her—continuing right up to her final letter to the friend, in which she expresses that she herself now feels close to death. For her, the deceased, to whom she was so closely bound, had drawn her towards him from the realm of the dead. Probably no modern author has found the right tone, in touching on the spiritual world with such sincerity.

In spiritual research we present how, in going through the portal of death, what otherwise always remains united with the human being—also in sleep—the so-called etheric body, raises itself along with the higher soul-members, out of the physical body, passing over into the spiritual world. In the field of spiritual research, we draw a picture of how the corpse-remains behind and how the human being with his ether body loosens himself, step by step, one member after the other, from the physical body. The etheric body is then for a time the enclosure for the higher soul-members of the human being. That is an idea with which those who approach closer to spiritual research can become more and more conversant. In what follows we shall be able to consider in what an admirable way the artistic soul of Herman Grimm touches upon these facts of the spiritual world. This will lead us again to the question as to why, for deeper reasons, Herman Grimm did not develop his cultural discourse into a comprehensive work.

Apart from his novella, Herman Grimm wrote a further work, a novel, Unüberwindliche Mächte [1867], [Insurmountable Powers], in which, as with his work in general, his refined style leads us to a contemplation of the world and of life. Particularly remarkable is what might be called the clash of two cultures in miniature. The one world adheres to title, status and rank. Deriving from an old lineage, an impoverished count lives in the afterglow of his hierarchical status. Wonderfully contrasted in this novel is the way in which the world of old prejudices and rankings encounters the New World. The quite different views and notions of America play into this. The individual identifying himself with hierarchical prejudices, whom Herman Grimm calls Arthur, encounters Americans. He meets Emmy, the daughter of Mrs. Forster, who has grown up with American values. We see this count passionately enraptured by Emmy.

It would be impossible even to outline the rich content of this novel adequately. We encounter the whole contrast of Europe and America. In addition, there is the contrast of the old Prussian milieu and the newly constituted Prussian milieu arising as the outcome of wars. It is a tremendous cultural “painting” in which the characters are featured, and from which they emerge. Only this much can be indicated: that, as a result of the confluence of these streams, Arthur, the count, dies a tragic death right before he was to marry Emmy. A deluded relative considers himself the rightful heir to the count's lineage, seeing the count as a bastard. Stung with envy and jealousy, he opposes the count, and on the eve of his marriage, the count is shot down by this individual.

Someone wanting to contemplate this novel merely rationalistically might consider it as concerned with the unbridgeable prejudice outstanding, However, the expression “insurmountable powers” can perhaps hardly seem more justified than when Herman Grimm, unintentionally indicates the idea of karma, the idea of the causal connection of destinies in human life—as though knotted together one after another. We see him depict forces at work in destiny that can only come into play in working over from earlier embodiments—from previous earth-lives. He does not describe this in speaking theoretically of “forces” or of “karma,” but in simply letting the facts speak for themselves, giving expression to these powers that, then appear in a certain way corresponding to the ideas of spiritual research. We see a karmic destiny unfold; we see insurmountable karmic powers come to expression. And we see something further:

Emmy remains behind. The final glance that fell into Arthur's eyes as he lay there, his heart shot through, was when she bent over him and their eyes met in a certain expression. An utterance of Herman Grimm remains unforgettable, in saying, the spirit gave way at the moment his eyes assumed the peculiarity of appearing as no more than physical instruments. But now we encounter once more Herman Grimm's penetration of worlds that lie beyond death—what one would like to call his chaste penetration of worlds out of which souls work on, in remaining real once they have gone through the portal of death.

In a brief concluding chapter, Herman Grimm shows us Emmy gradually becoming infirm. It is entirely characteristic of his close connection to matters of soul and spirit, that he describes Emmy's approaching death. She is brought to Montreux. Montreux and its surroundings are uniquely described. However, Herman Grimm does not describe Emmy's passing like authors who have no relation to spiritual matters, but rather as someone taking account of how the secrets of death, of the realm beyond, speak to the soul. I would render something incomplete if I did not add in conclusion Herman Grimm's own words on the death of Emmy:

“This was Emmy's dream.

“Between midnight and morning, she believed she woke up.

“Her initial glance at the window, through which a pale light streamed in, was free and clear and she knew where she was. She also heard her mother, who slept next to her, breathing, However, a moment later, with a sense of pressure she had never felt before, overwhelming anxiety overcame her. It was no longer the thoughts that had tormented her during the last few days, but as though a giant hand were holding all the world's mountains over her by a thin thread, and that at any moment the fingers holding them could loosen, and the whole mass would fall down on her, to remain lying on her eternally. Her eyes wandered hither and thither looking for a glimmer of light, but there was none; the light of the window extinguished, her mother's breathing no longer audible, and stifling loneliness all around, as though she would never come alive again. She wanted to call out, but could not; she wanted to touch herself, but not a limb obeyed her. All was completely silent, completely dark; no thoughts could be grasped in this frightful, monotonous anxiety: even memory was taken from het—and then, at last a thought returned: Arthur!

“And wondrously now, it was as if this one thought had transformed itself into a point of light that became visible to the eyes. And to the extent the thought grew to become boundless longing, this light grew, spreading out, and suddenly, as though it sprang apart and unfolded itself, it took on form—Arthur stood before her! She saw him, she recognized him at last. It was surely he himself. He smiled and was close beside her. She did not see whether he was naked, nor whether he was clothed: but it was him, she knew him too well; it was he himself, no mere phantom that had taken on his form.”

Thus, Herman Grimm has the one who has long since gone through the portal of death approach her, now a seeress; at the moment of her death she approaches the deceased, addressing his soul: “She did not see whether he was naked, nor whether he was clothed: but it was him, she knew him too well; it was he himself, no mere phantom that had taken on his form.”

“He stretched out his hand to her and said, ‘Cornel’ Never had his voice sounded as sweet and enticing as now. With all the strength she was capable of, she tried to raise her arms towards him, but she was unable to do so. He came still closer and stretched out his hand closer to her, ‘Come!’ he said again.

“For Emmy it was as though the power with which she attempted to bring at least a word over her lips, would have been capable of moving mountains, but she was not able to say even this one word.

“Arthur looked at her, and she at him. With only the possibility of moving a finger, she would have touched him. And now, most terrible of all: he appeared to shrink back again! ‘Come!’ he said for the third time. Sensing he had spoken for the last time, that the terrible darkness would break in again upon his heavenly gaze, filled now with a fear that tore at. Her as frost splits trees, she made a final attempt to raise her arms to him. It was impossible to overcome the weight and the cold that held her captive—but then, as a bud bursts open, from which a blossom grows before our eyes, there grew out of her arms, other shining arms, out of her shoulders, gleaming new shoulders. And lifting these arms toward Arthur's arms, his hands grasping her hands, and floating slowly backwards, drawing her after him, the whole magnificent figure with him, rose out of Emmy's.”

The emergence of the etheric body out of the physical body cannot be described more wonderfully, in having been undertaken by a pure artist-soul. That was a spirit, that was a soul that lived in Herman Grimm, of which we may say that it came close to what we seek so eagerly in spiritual research. Herman Grimm provides evidence that, in approaching the -twentieth century, the modern human being sought paths to spiritual life.

So we turn gladly to Herman Grimm, wanting only to continue further on the same path. We see him elevate the creations of Raphael, the creations of Michelangelo, the experiences of Goethe, the Greek-soul of Homer, to the stream that he sees flowing onward as “creative phantasy” through millennia. We then know how close Herman Grimm was, in his entire feeling and perception, to what lives and weaves as the soul-spiritual behind all physical reality. For when Herman Grimm refers to his “creative phantasy” we are not dealing with total abstraction. In so far as it is still perhaps a matter of residual abstraction, to that extent it can seem necessary to break through the thin wall separating Herman Grimm from the living spirit, effective not only as creative phantasy, but living as immediate spirit_s effective behind the entire sense world. It could appear a form of unwarranted restraint, to say no.- more than Herman Grimm in speaking of the continual onward working of the phantasy of humanity. After all, as an artist, he touched so intimately on the still living soul that has gone through the portal of death. Hence, it will not be difficult for us, where Herman Grimm speaks of creative phantasy, to see the living spirit that, as spiritual researchers, we seek behind the sense world.

Perhaps it will not seem unjustified if it is even asserted that-, for a spirit that struggled so honestly and uprightly for truth—wanting to approach this creative phantasy ever and again—it was, after all, too much of an abstraction for him. It urged him to grasp the living spiritual element, and for that reason the great work he intended could not come about—since if it had been written, it would have had to become a work that portrayed the spiritual world not merely as creative phantasy, but as a world of creative beings and individualities.

Spiritual research has not been placed into the modern age arbitrarily. It is demanded by seeking souls of our time—seeking souls to whom, as we have seen, Herman Grimm.so-clearly and. characteristically belongs. In this way we can become aware that with spiritual research we do not stand as alien and isolated in modern cultural life. We have been able to look to Herman Grimm as to a related spirit. Even if he does not share the same standpoint completely, we do nonetheless stand—or can at least stand, immeasurably near to him. It is better to contemplate such a figure as a whole, rather than scrutinizing every detail—to look at the harmony of soul with which Herman Grimm can affect us, its mildness and then again keenness and strength of soul, with which he can likewise affect us. We may treat this or that question differently from Herman Grimm, but I know that it is not altogether out of keeping with his style, if I summarize what I actually wanted to say in the following words; One could arrive at the thought—let us call it for that matter a delusory thought, one that could be entertained as a beautiful illusion: If higher spirits, other-worldly spirits wanted to acquaint themselves prefer with what happens on the earth by means of reading, they would prefer most of all to read such writings as those in which Herman Grimm depicts the earthly destinies of human beings.

This feeling can reverberate as though from almost every line of Herman Grimm's writings, lifting one upwards to a sphere beyond the earth. One then feels so akin to this personality that, if one were to characterize what has been said today concerning Herman Grimm, a beautiful saying could come to mind that he himself employed in eulogizing his friend Treitschke [Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian, 1834-56] whom he valued so much.

“With what existential joy did this human being stand in life. What courage he showed in battle. What a gift lie had for language. How new his latest book. How little could those take exception to his ‘elbows’ in the general exchange of ideas. They too will join in declaring: ‘Yes, he was one of ours!’”

These words are at the same time the last words that Herman Grimm wrote and had printed, as we know from the publisher of his works, Reinhold Steig. And I should like also, in conclusion, to summarize this evening's considerations with the words: With what existential joy did Herman Grimm stand in life; how mild—and yet how individual! How little can even those distance themselves from him, if they but understand themselves aright, who differ from him in their ideas and in other ways! And, proceeding from whatever field of investigation, how closely allied to him must those feel who seek paths to the spirit! What kinship to him must they feel, when his mild figure appears before them—prompting them to break out in the words: Yes, he was one of ours!

Dear attendees,Those who seriously want to talk about topics such as those on which this evening's and February 28th's reflections are based must be aware that there are quite a number of souls in the present who, on the one hand, are striving for new ways of searching for the soul and, on the other hand, are striving for new directions for our entire public and social life. For a foundation for a new soul-searching and a foundation for new social directions in life is what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science would like to provide, and these two considerations will be based on this.

On the one hand, humanity has undergone a significant intellectual development in the course of the last three to four centuries, particularly in the natural sciences. Those who speak today of a new search for the soul must not ignore the great and powerful triumphs that have emerged from scientific research. But this scientific research has also produced tremendous results in practical life. Everything that surrounds us today as magnificent technical achievements, which we encounter at every turn in life, is fundamentally the result of scientific thinking.

On the other hand, however, it should not be overlooked – and as I said, many souls are already aware of this today – that in the face of these great achievements of scientific research, in the face of the tremendous technical achievements, a deep dissatisfaction runs through modern spiritual life and that it can be seen quite clearly – it can be seen quite clearly from the catastrophic events of recent years – how humanity needs new directions. And so there are really many people here today who want to look up to a spiritual realization, a spiritual insight, after science has told them so much about the world and about man. And there are many who are clear about the fact that these scientific views and these momentous technical achievements have indeed penetrated the outer life in an intensive way, but that something is needed that can permeate our moral, our soul life in a similar way in relation to the widest circles of humanity. And so some people want to look up from the abundance of individual sciences to a comprehensive view of the world. And so some appeal to that which can only have its seat in the deepest moral interior of the human soul, in order to gain those social impulses which, as it must already be clear to many today, cannot be gained without the deepest inner - spiritual and moral - impulses.

But on the other hand, we also see how, within the abundance of modern intellectual life and within the catastrophic chaos that has occurred in recent times, the inner courage is lacking for an inwardly active intellectual life, for a new creation in intellectual life. Therefore, we must note how numerous people are today who cannot yet rise to enthusiasm for such a new creation and who look back to ancient times of humanity when the human soul still had a knowledge that may seem childish to us now, but which was still intimately related to the whole of human nature, which could still build bridges above all to artistic creation and to religious feeling and action. Art, religion, science have fallen apart for the modern man, but he wants to build bridges between these three areas of life, which nevertheless - if man is to be satisfied in the long run, if he is to come to a fruitful social creation, if he is to be efficient for a life practice in general - which nevertheless must connect to a harmonious wholeness within the human being.

But we also see many looking back with great respect, and certainly from a certain point of view rightly so, with great respect to ancient Oriental wisdom, as if we could today, from the mysticism of the Orient or from similar spiritual currents, regain that deepening and elevation of the spirit at the same time, which the breadth of scientific and technical thinking cannot give us. If one develops such a longing for the old, then one only overlooks the fact that the development of humanity as such has a meaning, that it is impossible to follow the same paths of the spirit today that were taken thousands of years ago.

But on the other hand, much of the powerful human impulses have come down to the present day through the external science of observation; much of what connected our ancestors spiritually and emotionally with the depths of the world, connected them with the depths of the world in their own way. This has given rise in people to a longing to understand something of how our ancestors went their spiritual ways, how these our ancestors, in order to satisfy the innermost needs of the soul, strove for a knowledge of the eternal, the supersensible in the human soul. One can have respect for this striving, but ultimately one can only orient oneself by that which today, nevertheless, as a completely new creation, must arise from within the human being through an inner calling of the deepest soul forces. One can orient oneself. And so, dear attendees, in order to prepare what I actually want to express, allow me to say a few orienting words, just for comparison, so to speak, about the way in which our ancestors sought the paths of the soul and of the spirit.

Above all, we must look at the feelings that our ancestors experienced thousands of years ago in ancient India, but even as far back as the older Greek times, when they were shown the path to the spirit by the leaders of the wisdom schools of the time, which can also be called mystery schools. The students were to be prepared energetically and conscientiously. For these people were clear about something of which we are no longer strongly aware in our general education today: that man cannot ascend from the knowledge he can attain from the external sensual world to the actual heights of a satisfying knowledge of the eternal and of the connections between man and the divine, guiding forces of the world without tremendous inner struggles, without tremendous changes in his entire soul life. The soul should undergo thorough, intensive preparation before it is even given the opportunity to gain supersensible knowledge. And they spoke of something, my dear audience, that sounds almost fantastic today. They spoke a word, but today, too, one should gain an understanding of it in the face of a serious spiritual search; they spoke the word from the threshold into the spiritual world, from the guardian of the threshold to the spiritual world.

What was this threshold for our ancestors? What was this guardian of the threshold to the spiritual world? Oh, these were truly real, substantial experiences that a person underwent who became a disciple of the ancient wisdom, at the threshold and when passing the guardian of the threshold. What did our ancestors say to each other? Between what a person can go through in his ordinary, everyday state of consciousness, what he can learn about himself and the world through this state of consciousness, and between the actual knowledge that gives us insight into the nature of our soul and tells us about the most significant life forces – between There is an abyss between us and this knowledge, and man cannot cross this abyss without reflecting on the soul's inner struggles, without engaging in the most intense inner struggles, without, in other words, becoming a completely different person in spiritual and psychological terms.

The preparation that the teachers of the old wisdom schools gave their students consisted essentially of a certain education of the intellect and an education of the will. Above all, the will of the one who was to be initiated into the supersensible as a disciple of wisdom was to be made more energetic and intense. Why should this will be strengthened? Why should the disciple of higher wisdom, so to speak, unlearn the fear of the unknown? Therefore, the disciple of higher wisdom should be inwardly equipped with powers of courage that one does not have in ordinary life. Therefore, it should be made clear to him that if he has not unlearned the fear of the unknown , if he has not cultivated this inner courage in his soul, then, by crossing that threshold beyond which he could receive supersensible knowledge about the nature of the soul, he would have to fall into the abyss.

We can best understand what was there as intuition and what has changed so dramatically into our times by remembering something quite ordinary in the history of science. Today, we see our planetary world, our Earth in its relationship to the Sun, in the way that the Copernican worldview has entered the visual life of humanity and how it has developed from this Copernican worldview. We know today that we are not able to think of the earth as being at rest and the sun as moving around it in the same way as medieval man did; that we are not able to think of the different planets in the same movements as this medieval man. We know, looking back to those earlier times when the outer phenomena of the external astronomical world picture were also taken as a basis, the scientific spirit out of which the Copernican world picture arose, with all that followed. But we see something very remarkable: we see in Greek thought, for example in Aristarchus of Samos, something similar to what we profess today, with some variation, of course, corresponding to the old world view, a heliocentric world view. When we read in Plutarch how Aristarchus of Samos places the sun in the center of our planetary system and has the Earth revolve around it, then we find hardly any difference in the main features of how people thought, between what this Aristarchus — and anyone who studies such things knows that all so-called initiates have thought as he did — what this Aristarchus thought about our planetary system and what we ourselves think, except for the results of our extremely well-developed observation.

What do we have here? In ancient times, a worldview of the external and spatial that is so similar to ours, and in contrast to it, in the general consciousness of mankind, merely a registration of the external appearance! The fact that those who were the leaders of the wisdom schools in older times carefully guarded something like the heliocentric worldview from people who were not considered sufficiently prepared for such a worldview by them. And this heliocentric world view is only one part of a general world view that is not at all unlike what modern science has brought us, at least in terms of fundamental ideas, but which was withheld from the broadest circles of humanity. Yes, the peculiar fact is that today we have views in the general human consciousness that were strictly guarded in schools of wisdom in ancient times and that students were only allowed to receive after conscientious preparation of the will to be fearless in the face of the unknown and to courageously embrace such insights.

What did the ancient sages tell each other, when they did not even allow the students to know what every educated person today knows, one may [ask]. Why was it considered dangerous for people in those ancient times to know what every person knows today? Yes, there was thought to be a gulf between the general human consciousness and the knowledge of our world view that the ancient sages possessed, and the sentinel of that gulf, that is to say the experience that one could have when one had gone through that inner struggle, when one had educated oneself to fearlessness and to the courageous comprehension of what we learn in school today, what is general human consciousness today. So in those ancient times, people were virtually demanding preparation for what we are not prepared for today, what is simply poured into our ordinary consciousness. So times have changed, my dear audience. And basically, every historical consideration is a mere external one that takes no account of such a transformation of the soul experience in the course of human development.

The ancient sages said to themselves about the state of mind that humanity had at that time: If man knew something of the heliocentric world view and of that which stands on the same level with it, he would not be able to bear it, he would fall into a kind of spiritual faint, his ordinary consciousness would be clouded. Therefore, they wanted to steel the will through all possible pedagogical-didactic art; they wanted to create a courageous grasp of the supersensible, they wanted to create fearlessness. Because they said: Without the education of these willpower qualities, man will lose consciousness when, for example, he really thinks with the intensity with which one thought in ancient times and of which modern man no longer has a proper idea, that the earth moves with the sun through space at a tremendous speed. In the truest sense of the word, this meant losing one's footing for the student. One did not want to expose the person to this by leaving him in his ordinary consciousness. One said to oneself: He loses self-confidence.

In my book “The Riddles of Philosophy” I have tried to show how, in fact, self-confidence of humanity has changed substantially since relatively recent historical times, how, for example, self-confidence in ancient Greece was quite different from what it is today. It is truly not just an external fact that with Copernicanism, with Galileanism, the intellectual comprehension of the world has come about, that since those times human beings have developed an unprecedented strength of abstract thinking. In this abstract thinking, in this intellectualism, not only was external scientific knowledge gained, but something was also gained for the inner being of the human being. A strengthening of self-confidence was gained for this inner being of the human being.

My dear attendees, what we have today, when we simply go through our school as children and learn in the way we learn today, being prepared for abstract thinking and intellectuality, as happens today, then self-confidence in the human being is cultivated in a different way than it was cultivated even by the most developed Greeks. Unfortunately, far too little attention is paid to such very significant facts of the world-historical development of humanity today. But one senses it, one feels it, and therefore has a longing to once again bring the deeper reasons for all human development to mind. Today, there is no danger of succumbing to spiritual impotence when we receive the external scientific results with a general average education. But to what we are given today with general education from childhood on, the adult human being in the ancient times had to be prepared through very special pedagogical-didactic measures. Then he was introduced to what fulfilled the famous Greek saying: “Know thyself”. For the ancients, however, all knowledge was such that at the same time a certain knowledge of the world arose from their instinct. They did not yet have the developed self-awareness that today's people have. They were exposed to the danger of falling into spiritual powerlessness in the face of the heliocentric world system, but they had an intuitive knowledge of the cosmos based on their instinct. When this intuitive knowledge was then passed on to humanity in myths, the wise men were always there to receive these myths as inner experiences. We must not perceive these as symbolic interpretations of the myths, but we must feel them as an inner sharing of the secrets of the world in the human soul itself. World knowledge was given to the ancients in their, compared to our, weak self-confidence with the soul life at the same time.

You can see for yourself when you take relatively late works of literature into your hands. Today, one may think as one likes about the natural science writings of the tenth to thirteenth century, if one wants to call them that at all. Basically, one cannot read them today if one is not particularly prepared, because they use a language that is no longer used in ordinary scientific life today. But in what is found in these works, what the human being experiences inwardly in his soul is everywhere not separate from what he beholds outwardly. Soul is in him and body is in him. Outside is the physical-corporeal nature, but everywhere he also sees soul in the outward physical nature. We may call this nebulous or false mysticism today and we may be right about it; but the man of earlier times had what carried his soul, what inwardly filled his soul, what consciousness taught him: I am connected with the eternal powers of the world and as the eternal powers of the world develop their powers from beginning to end, I develop my powers with them.

Today we have the opportunity to carry our strengthened self-awareness into what natural science knowledge gives us. We have a broad specialization in the natural scientific worldview, and from this specialization we are told a great deal about the physical body of the human being. But as a rule, the threads break when we seek to understand the relationship between this physical body of the human being about which science tells us so much, and that which we experience inwardly in our souls and in relation to which we cannot but ascribe a different origin to it than can be ascribed to external natural facts and natural forces and natural laws.

And so it has come about, my dear attendees, that modern man, especially when he is steeped in what natural science offers him in a fully justified way – for the spiritual science represented here fully recognizes the triumphs of modern natural science – comes to nothing else, especially when he is conscientious, but to the limits of knowledge. And basically it was precisely the best natural philosophers who spoke of such limits to knowledge, of the ignorabimus that is fatal for the life of the soul: we cannot know anything beyond the limits of what our senses provide us with and what the combining mind can extract from these sensory experiences. One only has to go along with such theories about the limits of knowledge with an intensely developed soul life and one must be able to unload the outdatedness of traditional religious views onto this soul life, which in turn are connected with the old knowledge of the beyond of the threshold. And one will feel the whole inner misery of the modern soul life.

One cannot but say to oneself, my dear audience: We have learned something in the last three to four hundred years with regard to scientific conscientiousness and scientific methods, and what has emerged from this ground as results has become popular and is already shared by all those who claim some kind of education. But at the same time, all of this gives rise to a certain lack of knowledge about what the human soul, out of its deepest longing, wants to know about the eternal destiny of this human soul and about its connection with the eternal powers of the world. After the contemplation of the ancients, we stand on the other side of the threshold. They first tried to prepare themselves for the knowledge that is now quite commonplace and familiar to us. But with their less intense self-confidence, which was therefore fearful of the supersensible world, they developed a pronounced world-consciousness that satisfied them and felt no limits. We have gained a more intensely developed self-confidence, but we have lost our world-consciousness. We feel limits everywhere in the breadth of our knowledge. We feel that we cannot enter into the actual depths of the world. We have gained self-awareness; we must first regain world awareness, otherwise we stand as hermits with our developed soul, admittedly beyond the threshold of the ancients, but not beyond that threshold, which we today call the limit of knowledge of nature or the like.

This is where anthroposophically oriented spiritual science comes in, where this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science wants to give modern humanity something that in turn leads it over the threshold that has been set for it. However, we cannot stop at a renewal or a rehashing of some old or oriental wisdom. We can no longer unite all this with our consciousness. Today we have to create anew out of the elementary nature of the human soul, but we have to bring it forth from a depth of consciousness that is just as profound as that of the ancients in their own way. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is still rejected by many today out of a certain intellectual laziness, or because it seems to contradict what scientific knowledge has brought forth in modern times.

My dear attendees, one does, of course, run the risk of being misunderstood and, in particular, of being found immodest if one chooses such a comparison as I now want to use to characterize the relationship between the humanities and the natural sciences. But one can safely leave it to those who like to sneer and scoff. I am not claiming that what I am using as a comparison in terms of world-historical significance should be applied to what I am about to say, but the comparison will explain some things.

When Columbus set out to discover America, there was absolutely nothing in his consciousness that he would discover a new world, a previously unknown world. They believed that they would cross the ocean and land on the other side in India. They only believed that they could come to something known by an unknown path. This is roughly how it is for those who approach the modern scientific world view with the utmost conscientiousness and an inner, invincible desire for knowledge. They find that natural science is actually in the same position as Columbus initially. They want to use it to search for the secrets of the world and of life. They want to go down unknown paths. But either they step back discouraged and stay at home, as the others except Columbus did, or they try to venture out into the unknown. But then they only enter a world that they describe as something quite familiar. What is all that which is described beyond the limits of natural knowledge as moving atoms and molecules, ions and electrons, and all that which is supposed to be behind the curtain of the sensory world that is spread out before us? We search for the underlying principles of nature by unknown paths, and then describe what we encounter as something familiar.

But I would like to say that anyone who approaches things differently, who approaches them with a more lively soul life, especially in the face of this scientific world view, will indeed come to something different, to something comparable to Columbus's experience. He conducts research scientifically, he develops all the conscientious methods, all the intensive responsible thinking, through which one has come to the modern astronomical world view, to the modern biological world view, and then he reflects: What are you actually doing, how do you develop your soul life by experimenting externally, by using the microscope, the telescope, the [spectroscope], the X-ray apparatus, and thereby come to a summary of world phenomena? What is going on in your soul life? What do you discover by devoting yourself to living soul life?

The unknown becomes spiritually known; it is not material atoms and molecules that are discovered, but spiritual experience. Of course, it is rare for anyone to have the direct experience of happiness in natural science, to see the spirit within oneself, which pulses and undulates through the world from beginning to end, from top to bottom. But everyone can recognize the inner path of thinking in modern natural science. And then it can be further developed. And, you see, this further development, this taking up of a new path in the experiences one is having with natural science, that is anthroposophically oriented spiritual science! And what I have described in my books 'How to Know Higher Worlds' and 'Occult Science', is basically, despite the fact that some of the expressions and perhaps all of the terminology still seem adventurous to ordinary human consciousness today, it is nothing other than the higher training of the paths of knowledge that are cultivated by modern scientific research itself. But we must go further than the elementary experiences and develop special methods of knowledge of a purely spiritual nature. Then we shall be able to satisfy, in another way, the spiritual yearning that lives in many souls today, and which leads those who want to come to the spirit but who want to remain in the material world to spiritualism or similar superstitious things, instead of to real spiritual research. Only the intimate paths of the soul's inner life lead to true spiritual research. However, they are uncomfortable because they are different from the usual paths of science, although they are nothing more than a continuation of these usual paths of science.

When we enter life today, at whatever stage of development we do so, we have what we have as inherited qualities, developed through ordinary or higher school education. The results of school education are absorbed into the soul of educated humanity. But one has the awareness that one could remain at a certain stage of life. Today, people stop at a very specific stage of life. They are accepted into our highest scientific schools. There, they are not required to further develop their cognitive faculty, to add to the cognitive powers they have already developed, the cognitive powers that still lie dormant in their souls. They stop at the ordinary cognitive faculty. We observe natural phenomena, we make our observations, our experiments, we use the finest instruments, but we stop at the state of mental life, which is simply the general consciousness.

Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must proceed differently. It must start from a very specific feeling. I would characterize this feeling by the word “intellectual modesty”. And I cannot express myself about this intellectual modesty other than in the following way: Let us assume that a five-year-old child gets hold of a volume of Shakespeare. What will it do with it? It will play with it, tear it up. But when the child has grown ten or fifteen years older, it will behave in a different, more appropriate way. Its inner soul forces have been developed. That which was predisposed has been developed in these soul forces. Just as the soul forces of the child have developed through external educational influences or are being developed through the world, so something in the soul of the adult can still be developed today if he only says to himself: I must be intellectually modest. I must assume that I face the phenomena of nature in their totality in a way that this facing can be compared to the behavior of a five-year-old child towards a volume of Shakespeare. There is still something in the soul that can be developed in me just as the soul power of the five-year-old child can be developed up to the age of fifteen or twenty.

We must start from this feeling, which thoroughly encompasses the soul life in intellectual modesty. And then, then these forces slumbering in the soul must really be developed. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science aims to do this for its students, for those who are suited to it and have enthusiasm for it. It is not something like a miracle of the soul or the like; it is the continuation of what ordinary soul life is, but a real continuation.

There are two soul powers, my dear audience, which are necessary in ordinary life, but which are different in ordinary life than in the soul life of the developed spiritual researcher in the field of anthroposophy. One of the soul powers is the ability to remember. This ability to remember must, as we say, be developed in a normal way in every human being; for if our ability to remember is somehow interrupted for any length of time, we are mentally ill. It is a serious mental illness when the thread of memory breaks; our sense of self is destroyed. You can read about how these symptoms manifest themselves in the relevant literature. But what do we only achieve in ordinary life through this ability to remember? We attain that which we have experienced, by which we were connected with the world of facts with our soul. This emerges in memories with greater or lesser vividness. We have to live in them. The stream of memories must reach back to a certain point in early childhood for our soul life to be normal. That which would otherwise flash by is given permanence in the soul life through the power of memory.

This is where spiritual scientific schooling comes in. What is called meditation and concentration in the books already mentioned is nothing other than a higher stage of what, at a lower level, is the ability to remember in the human being. When we – without being deceived by auto-suggestion, without being led astray by reminiscences of life – have images presented to our soul that we have been given by an experienced spiritual researcher or that we have been able to learn in some other way, but which must be fully comprehensible so that we can survey them with our consciousness – when we bring such ideas into the center of our consciousness and now rest on them quite arbitrarily, when we give duration to the ideas, which otherwise only follow external events and flit by, then something in our soul is developed in the same way as muscles are developed when they are used in work. This meditation, this constant resting on easily comprehensible ideas, in which nothing of auto-suggestion or reminiscences may be mixed, that is modern meditation. As an inner soul method, it is truly no easier to carry out than the modern scientific work in the observatory, in the chemical laboratory or in the clinic. For years, this resting on such ideas must be carried out.

But then we make the inner discovery that, on the one hand, the ability to remember naturally remains as healthy as a normal person needs it to be, but that, on the other hand, something else develops from this ability to remember for supersensible knowledge. The ability develops, at first in our lives, because that is where supersensible vision begins, not only to survey our lives in memories — for they are indeed pale, however vivid they may be — but to survey it pictorially, as I call it, “in imaginations”. We develop an imaginative view in a moment of everything that otherwise runs in the stream of memory. We survey our life from the point we have reached between birth and death back to childhood, as in a large tableau of life. Here one can say: Time becomes space. No longer do individual memories emerge from the stream of life, but a coherent and unified overview of what we have lived through. This is the beginning of supersensible knowledge through the developed faculty of memory. In a certain respect, the faculty of memory breaks away from bodily conditions; we experience purely in our soul what we have experienced in the outer world.

But as a result, something specific happens in the human being. By first coming to such heightened self-knowledge through an increased ability to remember, he finally comes to understand what it means to live with his soul outside the body. This is the significant event that occurs on the path to supersensible knowledge: living with one's soul outside the body. One reaches a consciousness where one experiences soul-spiritual, first one's own soul-spiritual, then an expanded soul-spiritual, with such clarity, with such an interweaving of inner arbitrariness, as one otherwise only experiences geometric, mathematical conceptions. I would like to say: In this way, one best learns for supersensible knowledge what is given as mathematical presentation; once one has learned to present mathematically, geometrically, to form inner views in contrast to this, so that, when one has a doctrine, one can say: If I know its teaching, then I see through its truth, no matter how many people speak against it. When one has gained the totality and essence of the inner vision, one can inwardly fulfill it and compare it with what one experiences quite differently as more vivid through the developed memory. One finally comes to gain new ideas about certain things that play into life.

One arrives, I said, at connecting a concept to what it means to live outside of the body. But then, the moment of falling asleep, the time between falling asleep and waking up, and waking up itself, becomes something else. For the ordinary consciousness, awareness is dulled when falling asleep and rises again when waking up; it is interrupted between falling asleep and waking up. Through a culture of memory life and the ability to remember as I have described it, the human being becomes aware of himself outside of the body and learns to recognize through direct observation how he leaves his physical body in his soul and spirit. It is not to be understood spatially, but dynamically. But it is correctly spoken: He learns to recognize how he goes out of his body; the spiritual researcher rises into states in which he is completely independent of his body, just as one is unconsciously independent of one's body when asleep. But he experiences himself in states of consciousness where, although his eyes do not see, his ears do not hear, he does not even feel the warmth around him, he is permeated by inner soul life. What he then experiences is as if, by sleeping, a person would experience a new world, a world beyond the physical-sensory world, and would again submerge, as if emerging from a spiritual sea into the ordinary sensory world upon waking.

Then, when one has such experiences, one can now move on to something else that must prepare one for the modern crossing of the threshold, as the old sage prepared his disciples for the unknown through fearlessness and courage. Then another power of the soul must be developed; another power must be transformed into a power of knowledge. Many a person wants to accept, out of modern consciousness, that the ability to remember can be transformed into an independent power of comprehension, because it is related to the intellect, and modern man loves the intellect. He accepts the intellect in the scientific field. But the other soul power, which the one who wants to cross the threshold today must also develop within himself, is not accepted as an objective power of knowledge. Yet it becomes an objective power of knowledge when it is developed in the right way, that is the power of love. Love in knowledge is not accepted; one says: Where love appears, cognition must lose objectivity. But you can read in the books mentioned, “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds” and “Occult Science”, how you can actually make this love independent of what love is otherwise bound to in ordinary life.

Dear attendees, in ordinary life, love is bound to the bodily instincts, to that which a person is as a physical being. When you develop within yourself, just as I have explained before about meditation and concentration of thought, a certain way of looking at how to rise from level to level in life – after all, we basically become a different person every day; you just have to look seriously and honestly to consider what his view of life is today, what the purpose of his life is, what his soul's content is. One need only compare what he was nine or ten years ago with what he is today and he will have to admit that without the will's intervention in the course of life, he becomes another.

A certain schooling must take place in the spiritual researcher. He must learn to take full control of his self-education with complete arbitrariness. Self-discipline must become the education of life. And he must always be clear about what intervenes in his life. He must gain the possibility of confronting his own development of will as its own spectator. That this is necessary to attain a true consciousness of freedom is what I have tried to show in my Philosophy of Freedom, which I published in 1893 as a fundamental socio-ethical view and which has now appeared before humanity in a new edition. There I already dared to say, albeit in relation to ethical-liberal cognition: Love does not blind — but true love, which the human soul wins for merging with the object, educated to do so through faithful self-observation —, it makes seeing. This love makes man free. For by no longer acting out of instincts, out of impulsive drives, but by becoming absorbed in love in the outer world, and allowing himself to be guided only by what is necessary in the world of facts, he becomes free. Selfless love makes man free; but selfless love can also be educated to become a power of cognition. Then we can imbue what we have gained through the developed power of remembrance with what love becomes. And while the developed power of knowledge gives us an idea of how the human being is with the soul forces outside the body, the developed ability to love gives us a correct idea of the soul and spirit within. And when what one gains through the power of love connects with what one gains through the developed ability to remember, then such concepts expand. We know that one leaves the body with the soul, but is then in the spiritual world and that one enters the body again when one wakes up. This is a concept that has a certain significance for the time between birth and death and beyond life. By developing this higher knowledge, we gain the ability to see our soul in its journey before it connects with the earthly-physical human body through birth or conception. Just as we look at the soul as something real before it awakens, where it is indeed waiting for the prepared body, so we look at the soul that dwells in the spiritual worlds before birth and which now has different powers than the merely sleeping soul. The sleeping soul has only the power to revive the soul of the body lying in bed. The soul that dwells in the spiritual world before birth has the power, with the help of what is happening in its physical hereditary current, to organize the physical body so that the human individuality can live out its soul and spirit in it. And we come to gain insight into the eternal nature of the human soul. A view of what the soul is in the purely spiritual worlds is scientifically substantiated with mathematical clarity. And from this knowledge, the knowledge of what happens when we fall asleep as a transition through the portal of death, as the going out into a spiritual world when the physical body has been discarded, also develops. In brief, we attain as a higher stage that which appears on a lower stage as the merely imaginative overview of life up to birth; we attain an extension of this overview to an overview of the eternal of the human soul and the connection of the human soul with the spiritual cosmos. We learn to look into this spiritual cosmos. We learn to know: Here we are on earth in our physical body, looking through our eyes into the physical world, hearing physical sounds, perceiving physical warmth. But what rests in our physical body and says “I” to us, what thinks and feels and senses and wills, that lived in spiritual worlds before it took on this physical body.

And now we learn something extraordinarily characteristic: as we develop here in the body, the soul is shadowy, and we develop nothing but shadowy concepts with what lives inwardly as feeling, as thinking, as will, when we develop self-knowledge. But the world outside us, we have it clearly, it lies spread out before us. When one becomes conscious of what one was before birth in spiritual worlds, there is no external world of objects; we do not see through physical eyes into an external world, we do not hear physical sounds through the external ears, we perceive something else. We perceive the human being in his inner self as a world; the human being whom we have to help create when we are embodied in the world. Here the environment is our world. Before our conception in spiritual worlds, the human being's inner being was our world. The human being is revealed to the human being as the human being simultaneously cognitively grasps his or her eternal being. And here, then, my dear attendees, is where that which is anthroposophical spiritual science expands into a genuine feeling of true human significance and true human existence.

What has modern science ultimately brought? Conscientious research into the animal series, how it stands in development from the lowest creatures up to the perfect one, then, the human being, but nothing about the human being that describes him as a being of his own. He appears only as the end of the animal series. We look to him for what we found in the animal, only at a higher level, as a final point. But in a sense, we have lost the human being in his actual inner being. We stand before the boundaries of the world, we stand before a new threshold. We cross this new threshold in the way I have just described. What the ancients wanted to explore on the other side of the threshold is our present-day general human education; but what they had in world knowledge out of instinct, we must gain for ourselves by crossing the threshold, through such spiritual scientific methods as I have described. But then this spiritual scientific method is transformed into the feeling of true human respect. How this spiritual knowledge is transformed into the feeling of true human respect, how it is transformed into the knowledge of social impulses, is what I will be talking about in more detail on the 28th of the month, when I will draw the consequences for school and educational issues and practical social life issues from what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science has to say.

When I had the honor of addressing the Dutch population here in 1912 and 1908 on the subject of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, I could only speak of it as something that, using a new method, strives for spiritual knowledge that is intended to satisfy the soul of man. I could speak of something that is sought and developed by individuals. Since that time, despite the catastrophic events that have occurred in the meantime, much has been achieved in the field of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, including external development.

We have established the Free University for Spiritual Science, the Goetheanum, in Dornach near Basel. The Goetheanum bears this name because we are aware that what appears in Goethe at the elementary level as an intuitive power of judgment, as his artistic and scientific attitude, must be further developed, as I have discussed it today; then one arrives at what we call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Nevertheless, although the building is not yet complete, we tried last fall to hold a whole series of college courses in this unfinished Goetheanum. These college courses were not held on spiritual science in the narrower sense, but were held by about thirty personalities, by scientists, specialists in the usual fields of science, specialists in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, sociology, law and so on, and so on. But men of practical life, too, who stand in commercial and industrial life, have spoken. Artists have spoken about their art. All this — besides the spiritual-scientific sifting of philosophy — has been presented by thirty lecturers in the content of the Dornach School of Spiritual Science.

What did these college courses aim to achieve? They wanted to show how everything that is modern scientific life, modern practical life and what basically forms the content of modern civilization contains many descending forces that would have to lead to chaos and decline if they remain descending, and how these descending forces can be transformed into ascending forces. It should be shown how spiritual science can illuminate and fertilize the science, the practice of life, the content of our civilization, so that souls longing for knowledge of the supersensible and for the permeation of social life with new impulses can be fulfilled.

Much has been achieved in the development of anthroposophical spiritual science during this time, ladies and gentlemen. Whether the Goetheanum in Dornach, this University for Spiritual Science that wants to intervene in a fruitful way in the life of modern civilization, can be completed will depend on whether people willing to make sacrifices continue to be found who are willing to see it through to completion, just as a great many people have already come together who were insightful enough for spiritual science as it is meant there and have brought it as far as it is today.

This spiritual science has also influenced civil life in other ways. I will discuss the principles in more detail in the next lecture and would just like to mention today how the practice of school life has been influenced by the founding of the Free Waldorf School, an initiative of Emil Molt in Stuttgart, for which I have been entrusted with the leadership of education and didactics as they are derived from spiritual science.

And a start has also been made in terms of practical life through practical economic foundations in Germany and Switzerland. I will speak about this next time too.

But what must underlie all this is the need for a rethinking, a relearning of the newer humanity in the deepest inner soul life. For we need a new self-knowledge of the human being, which can only be gained if we learn to cross the threshold in a new way, the threshold that leads us into the supersensible world in such a way that we can carry our modern strengthened consciousness into the realms that lie beyond this threshold, and gain a new spirit-filled world view to go with our strengthened self-awareness. This is the first question of civilization in the present day.

The second question is this, which confronts us wherever we look at life today. We cannot achieve a corresponding social coexistence if we are not able to recognize the human being in his essence when he comes to us; if we are not able to respect, feel and appreciate the full inner significance of the being that walks the earth as a human being. We can only truly approach people as people if we gain an understanding of people from spiritual knowledge, and true human love from that love that strives towards knowledge.

And we can only deepen all this religiously and develop it artistically if we come from mere abstract knowledge, the intellectualism of modern times, to a true spiritual insight that in turn not only takes hold of us intellectually, but as a whole human being; carries us as a whole human being into life. The science that we have had could only show us a world of nature that runs by itself, that has developed from nebulous states and produces man as an external form, and which in turn will one day fall back into the sun as slag. And on the other hand, what sits within us as ideals, what sits within us as moral impulses. But this modern science, if it is completely honest, cannot bridge the gap between a person's inner soul consciousness and the outer cosmic consciousness. By acquiring spiritual science in the sense described here, the human being regains the ability to say: “What I gain in social life is not only significant for a perishing humanity, but, in that the human being is born out of the spirit of the world, for this world spirit.”

Human deeds will in turn be recognized as cosmic deeds. That man may know himself, that he may learn to appreciate man, that he may learn to appreciate his position in the whole cosmos, spiritually as well as intellectually, these are the great civilizing questions of the present, which are more closely related to the field of knowledge. They expand into the question of schooling, into the economic and social question, into the legal and technical questions of social life, which I will allow myself to supplement today's reflection by speaking to you about on the 28th.

Answering questions

Question: Are there dangers associated with the path to the spiritual worlds?

Dr. Steiner: Dear attendees! It must of course be said that whatever a person does in life can, under certain circumstances, be associated with dangers and that there is always the possibility of avoiding dangers by taking the right path. As you will understand, it is not possible to give more than hints in a short lecture, and of course I could only give such hints today. Therefore, I could not describe the details of the path to knowledge in the supersensible worlds. If I could have done so, you would have seen that the matter of supersensible knowledge, as it is meant here in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, the life of the soul in this way, stands in a very specific relationship to what the life of the soul otherwise is. We are familiar with the ordinary life of a human being as it manifests in the waking state, in which the human being makes use of his senses, combining the perceptions of the senses with the intellect, developing them into laws of nature or of history or of social life, and so on. But there is also another possibility, which is that the soul and spirit of man are more strongly bound to the body than is the case in ordinary life. According to the materialistic theory, it is as if the soul-spiritual experiences were nothing more than a result of the physical-bodily states. One refers, if one wants to prove something like that, to the fact that parallel physical-bodily states can indeed be proven for the soul-spiritual experiences. But if one approaches it only from a spiritual-scientific point of view, and it is precisely this that is important, that one goes into the details of spiritual-scientific knowledge, the view of the connection between spiritual-mental experiences and physical-bodily experiences, as it is usually given, is a thoroughly incorrect one.

Let us suppose, for the sake of a comparison, that I walk along a path that is somewhat soggy. The person following behind will see that there are tracks in the path that have been made by a human being. Another being, which is not visible to people, would be able to believe that these tracks on the path are determined from the inside of the path, from the earth; the earth would have powers through which these footprints arise. So anyone who just thinks about the configuration of the path could come to this conclusion. The one who has come to know the soul and spirit is not surprised that the traces of the soul and spirit are in the physical and bodily, for example, in the nervous system. They are imprinted, so to speak, like the traces in the soft earth. Therefore, everything that is experienced in the soul and spirit must be found again in the physical and bodily.

To do this, a certain independence of the spiritual-mental from the physical-bodily is already present in normal life. In the morbid life, in what we know as psychopathic, which of course occurs in the most diverse forms of mental illness, it turns out that the spiritual-mental life is strongly tied to the physical life, stronger than in the normal state. It should always be noted that mental illnesses are basically physical illnesses. Due to the physical illness, the soul-spiritual feels more bound to an organ than it should be. In this respect, medicine in particular will have to be deeply fertilized. Last spring I held a course for doctors and medical students in which I showed how medicine, especially therapy, can be fertilized. But it is precisely here, when one studies medicine in a spiritual scientific way, that one has to look at the physical and bodily foundations of mental illnesses. For they consist in the fact that the human being is more spiritually and soulfully bound to the body than in the normal state. The opposite state is brought about by the kind of education I have been discussing today, but not for spiritual knowledge, for spiritual insight.

The spiritual researcher will be fully immersed in practical life. If you sleep well and are able to function well during the day in your outer practical life, you are not a clumsy, useless, inept person, and you are not a proper spiritual researcher either. These things are definitely connected. Precisely because the spiritual soul becomes independent of the physical body, the method I have described lies in the opposite directions of mental illnesses. Mental illnesses are a sinking of the spiritual into the physical and bodily, and it is precisely through this method that I have described that one can, at the same time, make human life healthy, quite apart from the fact that they are methods of knowledge. And it is slander that dangers are associated with the spiritual or physical life of a person when these methods are followed. That is not the case. It is just that all kinds of amateurish methods of soul development are cropping up in the world. These are actually always associated with dangers, because they always push the spiritual-soul into the physical, whereas what is described here as the spiritual path from an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not in any way attempt to connect the spiritual-soul with the physical-bodily in a pathological way, but to liberate it in such a way that the experience is as inwardly light-filled and clear as mathematical experience is. It is important to note that nothing that is striven for in spiritual-scientific methods is in any way mystically nebulous, but that everything is imbued with complete clarity. Therefore, there will be nothing more superficial than nebulous mysticism, which only appears to be deep but is in fact superficial. What is striven for is thoroughly intellectual and spiritual, but it is a healing of the soul, not an illness.

Pitfalls await those on the path of spiritual knowledge. Dr. Steiner's poignant depiction of self-love can be especially helpful. This love rises like a force of nature in one who follows a spiritual path. He also explores the encounter with the double, the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, the role of fear, and the polar tendencies toward phenomenology and mysticism.

Lecture 12 of 14 from the volume: Results of Spiritual Investigation The volume of the Complete Edition of the works of Rudolf Steiner containing the original text of the this lecture, among eight others, is entitled: Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung, (No. 62 in the Bibliographical Survey, 1961).

Just as it is of great significance in every realm of human endeavor and investigation to know not only the path of truth but also the sources of error, so it is especially the case in the realm dealt with by our lectures here, the realm of spiritual science, of spiritual investigation. In this realm one has to do not only with sources of error that can be eliminated to a certain extent through judgment and reasoning but with sources of error that accompany every step of the spiritual investigation of truth. One has to do with errors that must be not only refuted but overcome, conquered. Only by knowing them in such a way that one keeps, as it were, a spiritual eye on these experiences in their character as error will it be possible to guard oneself against them. It is not possible in relation to this realm to speak of individual truths or errors, but it is necessary to be clear through which activity of the soul, through which confusion of the soul, man can fall into untruth on the path of spiritual investigation.

It is easy to grasp that one wishing to penetrate to the super-sensible world first needs a healthy organ of perception, just as healthy sense organs are needed for outer sense observation. The second thing one needs, in addition to the organ of perception, is a corresponding development of clarity of consciousness, which can clearly oversee and judge the observations. Even in ordinary sense observation of life it is necessary that we have not only healthy senses but also a healthy consciousness, that is, a consciousness not befogged or confused, not paralyzed in a certain way. Both these qualities of the soul life in a higher stage come to be of even greater significance in the realm of spiritual investigation. A comparison from ordinary sense observation will help us to understand this. Suppose someone has an abnormally developed eye, for example. He will not be in a position to observe objects in as accurate and unprejudiced a way as they should be seen. From hundreds of possible examples let us consider just this one. A very significant natural scientist of our day, who is not in the least inclined to submit willingly to any delusion, had a certain eye condition, and he described in his biographical sketch how this eye condition misled him, particularly at dusk, causing him to see things unclearly and, through this unclear seeing, to arrive at false judgments. He described, for example, how he often walked through darkness and, due to his eye condition, would see a figure that he took to be real but that was nothing other than something called forth by his abnormal eye. He then related how he once went around the corner in a strange city and, because he believed the city to be unsafe, his eye induced him to see someone approaching and wishing to assault him; he even pulled out a weapon to defend himself. He therefore was not in a condition, despite complete knowledge of his organ impairment, to judge the situation correctly, to recognize that what his eye called forth was not there at all. Errors can occur in this way in all our sense organs. I bring this up only as a comparison.

In the recent lectures it was described how the human being, through a certain inner cultivation, evolution, of his soul, can develop into a real spiritual investigator, how he brings into use real organs of spirit through which he can look into the super-sensible world. These spiritual organs must be developed in the right way to make it possible to behold—in an analogy with sense perception—not caricature and untruth but the truth, the reality, of higher spiritual worlds. As we have seen, this development of the higher spiritual organs, which can be brought about by a rightly applied concentration, contemplation, and meditation, depends upon the starting point in ordinary, everyday life. Every human being who wishes to evolve upward to a view of the spiritual world must, and this is quite natural and proper, take his starting point from ordinary soul development, from what is right and normal for everyday life and also for ordinary science. Only from this starting point, by taking into the soul those mental processes (Vorstellungsarten) that we have presented as meditations and as other exercises, can the soul ascend again to an observation of the spiritual world.

The problem now is that at the starting point, that is, before the beginning of a spiritual training, the future spiritual investigator must be in possession of a sound power of judgment, a capacity for judgment proceeding from true conditions. Every starting point that does not result from a sound power of judgment, that surrenders itself to the object, leads to unsound organs of spiritual observation, which can be compared to abnormally developed sense organs. Here we are again at the point that we have often mentioned in previous lectures: the significance of what one can designate as the soul life of the spiritual investigator before he begins his development as a spiritual investigator, his training for spiritual investigation. An unsound power of judgment, lacking ability to observe objects in their reality, leads man to see facts and beings of the spiritual world as distorted or, as we shall see today, in many false ways. This is, as it were, the first important point in all development toward spiritual investigation. Spiritual scientific training makes it necessary to take as one's starting point a sound power of judgment, an interest in the true relationships of existence, even before the path to the super-sensible worlds is embarked upon. Everything that readily surrenders itself to illusion in the soul, that readily judges in an arbitrary way, that represents in the soul a certain unsound logic, leads also to the development of unsound spiritual organs.

The other starting point that is of essential significance is the moral mood of soul. The moral ability, the moral force, is as important as sound logic and intelligence, for if unsound logic, if unsound intelligence, lead to faulty spiritual organs, so will a cowardly (schwachmuetig) or immoral mood at the beginning of the spiritual training lead one ascending into the spiritual world to a certain fogginess, a “stupor”, we could call it. One thus faces the higher world in a state of what one must designate as a kind of paralysis, even a loss of consciousness (Ohnmacht). It must be noted, however, that in the stage of soul development referred to here, that which is called losing consciousness, a stupor, cannot be compared with the loss of consciousness, the paralysis, of ordinary, everyday consciousness. In ordinary consciousness, losing consciousness occurs in relation to the areas of everyday life. Losing consciousness in the spiritual world means a stupor, a fogging; it means the saturation of consciousness with all that can stem from the ordinary sense world or from the ordinary experience of the day. The spiritual investigator who is in error cannot be befogged or unconscious to the same degree as in ordinary consciousness, but he can be unconscious in relation to the spiritual world by being filled in the spiritual field of consciousness with that which has justification only through its properties and way of appearing in ordinary sense and intellectual consciousness.

By taking such elements along into the spiritual world, the spiritual investigator dims his higher consciousness. The matter can be presented in the following way. Dimming of consciousness, impairment of the ordinary behavior of soul in everyday life, is like a penetration of sleep or of the dreams into the clear, everyday consciousness. A stupor, a fogging of the higher, super-sensible consciousness, however, is like a penetration of ordinary, everyday consciousness—the consciousness that we carry around with us in the ordinary world—into that consciousness in which it no longer belongs, into the consciousness that should oversee and judge the facts of the higher, super-sensible worlds purely and clearly. Any kind of immoral or weak moral mood, any kind of moral untruthfulness, leads to such a fogging of super-sensible consciousness. Among the essential and most significant aspects of preparing for a spiritual scientific training, therefore, is a corresponding moral development, and, if you go through my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, you will find special practices for the soul through which this appropriate moral mood can be established. Of particular damage in this striving is everything that overcomes man in ordinary life in the way of vanity, ambition, the ordinary sense of self, and a particular sympathy for this or that experience. Inner tranquility, impartiality, a loving penetration of things and worlds, an attentive interest in everything life offers, but especially a certain moral courage, a standing up for what one recognizes as true, are proper starting points for a spiritual scientific training.

From what has been said in preceding lectures, it should be clear that all spiritual training consists of an awakening of certain spiritual forces that exist in the soul but that slumber in ordinary life and must be developed. The spiritual organs and the super-sensible consciousness can be developed only when forces lying peacefully in the depths of the soul, forces that are weak or not at all developed in ordinary life, are really brought into consciousness.

The following can be seen from what has been said. Two things appear when man, through appropriate meditation, through concentrating his whole life of soul on individual mental images called into consciousness by his free will, tries to draw forth these forces resting in the depths of his soul. First, a quality that is always present in the soul but that in ordinary life can be kept relatively in check will be intensified, along with the other slumbering qualities in the depths of the soul; spiritual development cannot take place in any other way than by the whole soul life becoming in a certain respect inwardly more active, more infused with energy. This quality that is intensified at the same time as the others that one is trying directly to intensify one can call human self-love, sense of self. One could say that one begins to know this human self-love, this sense of self, only when one goes through a spiritual scientific training; only then does one begin to know how deep within the human soul this self-love slumbers. As has been pointed out already, he who engages in the exercises described in past lectures, thus intensifying his soul forces, notices at a certain moment in his development that another world enters his soul life. He must be able to notice, to have the knowledge to recognize, that the first form (Gestalt) in which the new, super-sensible world appears is nothing other than a projection, a shadow image, of his own inner soul life. These forces that he has developed in his soul life appear to him first in a mirror image. This is the reason that the materialistic thinker easily mistakes what appears in the soul life of the spiritual investigator for what can appear in the unhealthy soul life as illusions, visions, hallucinations, and the like. That objections from this side rest on ignorance of the facts has often been pointed out; this distinction, however, must be alluded to again and again. The unhealthy soul life, which beholds its own essence as in a mirror image, takes its own reflections for a real world and is not in a position to eliminate these reflections through inner choice. By comparison, in a true spiritual training it must be maintained that the spiritual investigator recognizes the first phenomena that appear as reflections of his own being; not only does he recognize them as such, but he is able to eliminate them, to extinguish them from his field of consciousness.

Just as the spiritual investigator is able through his exercises to intensify his soul forces so that a new world is conjured before him, so he must be able to extinguish this whole world in its first form; he must not only recognize it as a reflection of his own being but be able to extinguish it again. If he could not extinguish it, he would be in a situation comparable to something that occurs in sense observation and that would be unbearable, impossible in an actual development of the human soul. Imagine in ordinary sense observation that a person directed his eyes to an object and became so attracted to it that he could not avert his gaze. The person would not be able to look around freely but would be tied to the object. This would be an unbearable situation in relation to the outer world. With a spiritual development, it would mean exactly the same in relation to the super-sensible world if a person were not in the position to turn from his spiritual observation and extinguish what presents itself as image to his spiritual observation. He must pass the test expressed in the words, “You are able to extinguish your image,” overcoming himself in this extinguishing; if the image returns, so that he can know his reality in a corresponding way, then only does he face reality and not his own imaginings (Einbildung). The spiritual investigator therefore must be able not only to create his own spiritual phenomena and to approach them but also to extinguish them again.

What does this mean, however? It means nothing less than the need for an immensely strong force to overcome the sense of self, self-love. Why does the abnormal soul life, which arrives at visions, hallucinations, and crazy notions, see these creations as realities and not as emanations from its own being? Because the human being feels himself so connected, so bound, to what he himself brings forth that he would believe himself destroyed if he could not look at what he himself brings forth as a reality. If a human being leaves the ordinary world with an abnormal soul life, his self-love becomes so intensified that it works like a force of nature. Within the ordinary soul life we can distinguish very clearly between so-called fantasy and what is reality, for within the ordinary soul life we have a certain power over our mental images. Any person is aware of this power whose soul has been capable of eliminating certain mental images when it recognizes their error. We are in a different situation in relation to the outer world when we are confronted with forces of nature; when lightning flashes, when thunder rolls, we have to let the phenomena take their course; we cannot tell the lightning not to flash or the thunder not to roll.

With the same inner force, however, the sense of self appears in us when we leave the ordinary soul life; as little as we can forbid lightning to flash so little can we forbid self-love from appearing, developed into a force of nature, if it is only a reflection of one's own being, that which the soul presents as an image of its own being, perceived as a real outer world. From this one can see, therefore, that the self-education of the spiritual investigator must consist chiefly of overcoming piece by piece self-love, the sense of self. Only if this is accomplished at every stage of spiritual development through a strict self-observation will one come to be able at last to erase a spiritual world when it appears as described. This means to be in the position of allowing that which one has striven for with all one's might to fall into oblivion. Something must be developed through spiritual training (one can find this presented more precisely in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds) that actually does not exist at all in man's free will in ordinary life. If man in ordinary life undertakes to do something, he wants to do it if he neglects to do something, he doesn't want to do it. One must say that in ordinary life man is in the position of applying his will impulses. To extinguish, in the way I described, the spiritual world that appears, the will must not only have the described faculties but must be able, after the spiritual world appears, slowly to weaken itself bit by bit, to the point of utter will-lessness, even to the point of extinguishing itself. Such a cultivation of the will is accomplished only when the exercises for the soul, described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, are followed systematically. When we awaken the slumbering forces in our soul, self-love, the sense of self, are intensified. This intensification leads us under certain circumstances to consider as an outer reality that which we actually are ourselves, that which lies only within us.

Another thing that is necessary when the soul undergoes appropriate exercises for a spiritual training is for man, at a certain level of this development, actually to forsake everything in his consciousness, everything that in his life up to now gave him in outer, everyday life and in ordinary science the content of truth, security in truth, everything that gave him the possibility of considering something as reality. As indicated already in previous lectures, all supports that we have for our judgments in ordinary life, all basic reference points given us by the sense world, which teaches us how we must think about reality, must be forsaken. After all, we want through the spiritual training to enter a higher world. The spiritual investigator at an appropriate stage of his development now sees, “You can no longer have a support in the world that you want to enter; you can no longer have the support of outer sense perception, of the intellectual judgment you have acquired, which otherwise guided you correctly through life”; when he has seen this, then comes the all-important, serious moment in the life of the spiritual investigator when he feels as if the ground is gone from under his feet, as if the support that he has had in ordinary life is gone, as if all security that has carried him up to now is gone and that he approaches an abyss into which with every further step he will surely fall. This must in a certain way become an experience in the spiritual training. That this experience not be accompanied by every possible danger is the primary concern of a true spiritual training today.

An attempt has been made to explain this more fully in the book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. If one undergoes the exercises offered there, one comes step by step to a point at which one feels what has just been described; one feels oneself as if over an abyss. One has already become so tranquil in one's soul, however, that one beholds the situation with a newly acquired, special faculty of judgment; therefore the fear, terror, and horror that otherwise needs must overtake the human soul in a dangerous way—not an ordinary, everyday fear—do not appear. One learns to know the basis of the fear, terror, and horror, but one has already progressed so as to achieve a mood in which one can endure it without fear.

Here we are again at a point at which it becomes necessary for the soul to recognize the truth and not fall into error, because the support that one has in ordinary life has disappeared, and the soul feels itself as if placed over an abyss. This must occur in order that, out of the emptiness, that which is fully spiritual in the world can approach the soul.

What in ordinary life is called anxiety, fear, will be intensified through such a training, expanded, just as self-love and the sense of self are intensified and expanded, growing into a kind of force of nature. Something must be said here that perhaps sounds paradoxical. In ordinary life if we have not struggled through to a certain courage, if we are cowards, we are frightened by this or that event if we have courage, however, we can endure it. In the region of the soul life we have described, fear, terror, and horror will approach us, but we must be in the position, as it were, not to be afraid of the fear, not to be horrified by the horror, not to become anxious with the anxiety that confronts us. This is the paradox, but it corresponds exactly with an actual soul experience that appears in this realm.

Everything that the human being experiences on entering the spiritual world is designated ordinarily as the experience with the Guardian of the Threshold. I tried to describe something concrete about this experience in my Mystery Drama, The Guardian of the Threshold. Here it only need be mentioned that at a certain stage of spiritual development, man learns to know his inner being as it can love itself with the force of an event of nature, as it can be frightened and horrified on entering the spiritual world. This experience of our own self, of the intensified self of that inner being that otherwise never would come before our soul, is the soul-shaking event called the Meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold. Only by having this meeting will one acquire the faculty to differentiate truth from error in the spiritual world.

Why this experience is called the Meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold is easily comprehensible. It is clear that the spiritual world that man enters is always around us and that man is unaware of it in ordinary life only because he does not have the appropriate organs to perceive it. The spiritual world surrounds us always and is always behind that which the senses perceive. Before man can enter this world, however, he must strengthen his ego, his I. With the strengthening of the ego, however, the aforementioned qualities also appear. He therefore must learn above all else to know himself, so that when he is able to confront a spiritual outer world in the same way as he confronts an objective being he can distinguish himself from what is truth. If he does not learn to delimit himself in this way, he will always confuse that which is only within him, that which is only his subjective experience, with the spiritual world picture; he can never arrive at a real grasp of spiritual reality.

To what extent fear plays a certain role on entering the spiritual world can be observed particularly in the people who deny the existence of such a world. Among such people are also many who have different reasons for denying this spiritual world, but a great portion of those people who are theoretical materialists or materialistically tinged monists have a definite reason for denying this spiritual world, a reason that is clearly visible for one who knows the soul. We must now emphasize that the soul life of the human being is, as it were, twofold. In the soul not only does there exist what man ordinarily knows, but in the depths of the soul life things are happening that cast their shadows—or their lights—into ordinary consciousness. Ordinary consciousness, however, does not reach down to this level. We can find in the hidden depths of soul hatred and love, joy and fear and excitement, without our carrying these effects into conscious soul life. It is therefore entirely correct to say that a phenomenon of hatred directed from one person to another, taking place within consciousness, actually can be rooted, in the depths of soul, in love. There can be a sympathy, a deep sympathy, of one person for another in the depths of the soul, but since this person at the same time has reasons—reasons about which he perhaps knows nothing—he is confused about this love, about the sympathy, deceiving himself with hatred and antipathy. This is something that holds sway in the depths of the soul, so that these depths look quite different from what we call our everyday consciousness. There can be conditions of fear, of anxiety, in the depths of the soul of which one has no conscious idea. Man can have that fear in the depths of his soul, that anxiety in face of the spiritual world—because he must cross the abyss that has been described before entering—and yet be aware of nothing consciously. Actually, all human beings who have not yet entered the spiritual world, but who have acquired an understanding of entering, have to a degree this fear, this terror in face of the spiritual world. Whatever one may think concerning this fear and anxiety that are within the depths of the soul, they are there, though they appear stronger with one person, weaker with another. Because the soul might be injured, man is protected by the wisdom-filled nature of his being from being able to look further into the spiritual world, from being able to have the experience of meeting the Guardian of the Threshold until he is ready for it. Before that he is protected. Therefore one speaks of the experience of the Guardian of the Threshold.

We can note that a materialistically or monistically minded person, although knowing nothing of this experience, does have this fear in face of the spiritual world in the depths of his soul. There lives in such a person a certain antipathy to confronting the abyss that must be crossed; and to help him get past this fear, this anxiety in the soul in face of the spiritual world, the monist or materialist thinks out his theories and denies the spiritual world; this denial is nothing other than a self-induced anesthesia in face of his fear. This is the real explanation for materialism. As unsympathetic as it may sound, for one who knows the soul it is evident that in a meeting of materialistic monists, or those who deny soul and spirit, there prevails only the fear in the face of the spiritual world. One could say mockingly that fear-mongering is the basis of materialism, and although it is mocking it is nevertheless true. In materialistic literature, in the materialistic world conception, the spiritual investigator recognizes everywhere between the lines fear and anxiety in face of the spiritual world. What in ordinary life appears as materialism, however, as the soul condition present when a person is a materialist or a materialistically tinged monist, can also be present when a person arrives through definite measures at a certain spiritual vision. One can go through certain exercises in the soul and develop thereby from a more-or-less unhealthy soul condition to a more-or-less spiritual comprehension, yet one need not come by this means to a real understanding of the nature of the spiritual world. In a certain way one can carry up into the spiritual something of this fear about which one knows nothing, which has already been characterized and which underlies the materialistically minded person in the ordinary world.

If one does not grasp this connection, one can carry up into the spiritual world something that is terribly widespread in ordinary life: the love of ease of thinking, the love of ease of feeling. Fear is closely akin to love of ease, to clinging to habit. Why is man afraid of changing his situation? Because he loves his ease and comfort. This love of ease is closely related to fear. We have already described the basis for hatred; in the same way one can also say that lassitude, love of ease, are closely related to fear. One can, however, carry this love of ease up into the spiritual world. No one ought to object that human beings show no evidence of fear or love of ease, for this is again characteristic; it is characteristic that the ordinary mood of soul knows nothing of these things rooted in the subconscious. If man carries fear into the spiritual world, already having developed to the point of acknowledging the spiritual world, then an error arises in a spiritual region, an error that is extraordinarily important to consider the leaning toward phenomenalism.

People who become subject to this leaning become, rather than spiritual investigators, “specterseers” (to express it crassly), those who see ghosts (Gespensterschauer); they become possessed by a leaning toward phenomenalism. This means that they want to see the spiritual world in the same way as the sense world is to be seen; they do not want to perceive spiritual facts, spiritual beings, but something similar to the beings that the sensory eye can behold. In short, instead of spirits they want to behold specters, ghosts. The error of spiritualism (this is not to say that all spiritualism is unjustified) consists of this leaning toward phenomenalism. Just as the ordinary, everyday materialist wants to see only matter everywhere and not the spirit behind matter, so does he who brings to the spiritual world the same soul condition that actually exists in materialism want to see everywhere only ghostlike, condensed spirits.

This is one dangerous extreme of error that can emerge. One must say that this tendency to carry the ordinary field of consciousness up into the super-sensible field of consciousness exists in the widest circles, even among those who fully recognize a “spiritual world” and want “proof” of a spiritual world. The error here, however, lies in considering a proof valid only if it takes place in the realm of phenomenalism; it lies in considering that everything should be like condensed ghosts. Here something arises that was called in the beginning of our study a stupor, losing consciousness in relation to the spiritual world. While losing consciousness in ordinary life is the penetration of a sleeping or dreaming condition into consciousness, losing consciousness regarding the spiritual world means wanting to give worth only to that which appears in the same way as things in the ordinary world, so that one is unconscious in relation to the spiritual world; it is demanded that proof be supplied that can be taken in the way appropriate only in the ordinary world. Just as one brings sleep into the ordinary world if one falls unconscious, so one falls unconscious in relation to the beings and processes of the spiritual world if one takes into the super-sensible world that which is only an extract of sense reality (das Sinnliche). The true spiritual investigator also knows those realms of the spiritual world that condense into the ghostlike, but he knows that everything arriving at such a condensation is merely the dying, the withering in the spiritual world. When, for example, with the help of a medium, something is brought to life as the thoughts of a deceased person, we are confronted only with what remains behind, as it were, of the deceased. We are not dealing with that which goes through the portal of death, which passes through the spiritual world and appears again in a new earthly life. We are concerned in such a case not with what is present in the individuality of the dead person but with the sheath that is cast off, the wooden part of the tree, or the shell of a shellfish, or the skin of the snake that is cast off. In the same way, such sheaths, such useless remnants, are continuously being cast off from the being of the spiritual world and then, by way of a medium, they can be made perceptible—although as visible unreality. The spiritual investigator knows, to be sure, that he is not confronting an unreality. He does not surrender himself to the error, however, that in encountering the described phenomenon he is confronted with something fertile, with something sprouting and budding; rather he knows it as something dying, withering. At the same time it must be emphasized that in the sense world, when one confronts error, one is dealing with something that must be ignored, that must be eliminated as soon as it is recognized as error, whereas in the spiritual world one cannot cope with error in the same way. There, an error corresponds to the dying, the withering, and the error consists of mistaking the dying and withering in the spiritual world for something fruitful or full of significance. Even in the life of the ordinary human being, error is something one casts off; in the spiritual world error arises when the dead, the dying, is taken for something fruitful, sprouting; one mistakes the dead remnants that have been cast off for immortality.

How deeply the best individuals of our time have been entangled in this kind of phenomenalism, considering only such proof as valid, we can see in an individual who wrote so many excellent things about the world and now has written a book about these phenomena, about these different phenomena of spiritual investigation. I am referring to Maurice Maeterlinck and his book, About Death. We read there that he acknowledges a spiritual world but as proof acknowledges only what appears in phenomenalism. He does not notice that he tries to find in phenomenalism that which can never be found in phenomenalism. Then he criticizes the “phenomena” very acutely, very effectively. He does notice, however, that all this actually has no particular meaning and that the human soul after death does not exhibit a very intense vitality, that it behaves rather awkwardly, as though groping in the dark. Since he wants to admit only this kind of proof, he generally does not acknowledge spiritual investigation but remains stuck.

We see how the possibility of error opens itself to someone who would gladly recognize the spiritual world but is unable to do so, because he does not demand spiritual investigation but rather “specter investigation” and does not make use of what reality can give. His newest book is extraordinarily interesting from this point of view.

In the leaning toward phenomenalism we thus have the one extreme among the possibilities for error in spiritual investigation. The other extreme among the possibilities for error is ecstasy, and between phenomenalism and ecstasy, in knowing both, lies the truth, or at least truth can be reached if one knows both. The path of error, however, lies as much on the side of phenomenalism as on the side of ecstasy. We have seen what soul condition leads into the wish to acknowledge only phenomenalism. It is fear, horror, which man does not admit, which he tries to conceal. Because he is afraid to abandon all sense reality and to make the leap over the abyss, he accepts sense reality, demands the specters, and arrives thereby only at the dying, at that which destroys itself: This is one source of error. The other force of the soul, intensified through the exercises often described here is self-love, sense of self; self-love has as its polarity—one would like to say—the “getting out of oneself.” This “enjoying oneself in oneself” (pardon the expression; it is a radical choice but points exactly to what we are concerned with here) is only one side; the other side consists of “losing oneself in the world,” the surrender and dissolving and self-enjoyment in the other and the corresponding intensification of this self-seeking coming-out-of-one's self is ecstasy in its extreme. It is the cause of a condition in which man in a certain respect can say to himself that he has gotten free of himself. He has become free of himself, however, only by feeling the comfort of his own self in the being outside himself. If the one who knows the soul looks at the evolution of mysticism in the world, he finds that a large part of mysticism consists of the phenomena just characterized. As great, as powerful in soul experiences, as deep and significant as mysticism can be, the possibilities of error in ecstasy are actually rooted in a false cultivation of the mystical faculty of the human being. When man strives always to enter more and more into himself, when he strives through this for what is called the deepening of his soul life, strives, as he says, to find “God in himself” this God that man finds in his inner being is usually nothing other than his own I or ego made into God. With many mystics we find, when they speak of the “God within,” nothing other than the God imprinted with their own egos. Mystical immersion in God is at times nothing but immersing oneself into one's own dear ego, especially into the parts of the ego into which one does not penetrate with full consciousness, so that one surrenders one's self, loses one's self, comes out of one's self, and yet remains only within one's self. Much that confronts us as mysticism shows that with false mystics love of God is often only disguised self-love.

The real spiritual investigator must guard himself on the one hand against carrying the outer sense world into the higher world; he must guard on the other hand against the opposite extreme, against false mysticism, the coming-out-of-oneself. He must never confuse “love for the spiritual being of the world” with self-love. In the moment that he confuses these, the following occurs, as the true spiritual investigator, who has developed himself correctly, can verify. Just as one who is compelled by phenomenalism beholds only the remnants, the dying of the spiritual world, so he who surrenders himself to the other extreme sees only individual parts of the spiritual world, not spiritual facts and beings. In the spiritual world he does not do what one who contemplates the flowers in a meadow does; rather, he does what the one does who takes what grows in the field, chops it up and eats it. This comparison is peculiar but absolutely to the point. Through ecstasy the spiritual facts are not grasped in their wholeness, their totality, but only in that which pleases and benefits one's own soul, that which the soul can consume spiritually. It is actually a consumption of spiritual substance that is cultivated in the human being through ecstasy. Just as little as one learns to know things of this sense world by eating them, so little does one learn to know the forces and beings of the spiritual world through giving oneself to ecstasy in order to warm one's own self with what feels good. One thereby comes to a definite knowledge only of one's own self in relation to the spiritual world. One lives only in a heightened sense of self, a heightened self-love, and because one takes in from the spiritual world only that which can be consumed spiritually, which can be eaten spiritually, one deprives oneself of that which cannot be handled in this way, of that which stands apart from the nourishment gained through ecstasy. What one deprives oneself of, however, is by far the greatest part of the spiritual world, and the mystic who clings to ecstasy is deprived more and more. We find with mystics who ascend to the spiritual world through ecstasy that it is exactly as if they were always indulging themselves through repeating feelings and sensations. Many presentations of such mystics appear not as objective presentations of the conditions of the spiritual world but as though the one who gives the presentation were indulging in what he presents. Many mystics are actually nothing but spiritual gourmets, and the rest of the spiritual world, which does not taste good to them, does not even exist for them.

We see again how concepts change when we ascend from the ordinary world into the higher world. If in the ordinary world we occupy ourselves only with our own concepts, we become poorer and poorer, our logic becomes ever poorer. Finally we find that we can no longer find our orientation, and anyone who knows the facts can set us straight. In the ordinary world we correct this meagerness by widening our concepts. In the spiritual world, that which corresponds to ecstasy leads to something else. By taking into us realities, and not something unreal—but taking in only isolated parts, after picking out what suits us—we receive a view of the spiritual world that is only suited to ourselves. We carry ourselves into the spiritual world just as in the other extreme, in phenomenalism, we carry the sense world into the spiritual world. It can always be shown in the case of one who arrives at a false picture of the world through ecstasy that he began from an unsound force of judgment, from an incomplete factual logic.

We thus see how the spiritual investigator always must avoid the two extremes that bring him to every possible source of error: phenomenalism on the one hand and ecstasy on the other. In order to avoid the sources of error, nothing will be more helpful than for the spiritual investigator to cultivate one particular mood of soul, through which he is in a position, when he places himself in the spiritual world, to exist in the spiritual world, to be able to observe calmly in that world. One cannot always remain in the spiritual world, however, so long as one is in the physical body; one must also live with the physical world; therefore this mood of soul that the spiritual investigator must cultivate allows him in the physical world to strive as much as possible to grasp the facts of life with common sense, without sentimentality and untruthfulness. It is necessary for the spiritual investigator, to a much higher degree than is ordinarily the case, to have a healthy sense for facts, a genuine feeling for truthfulness. All fanaticism, all inaccuracy, which make it so easy to skirt what is really there, are harmful for the spiritual investigator. One can see already in ordinary life, and it becomes clear immediately in the realm of spiritual training, that lie who lets himself indulge only the least bit in inaccuracy will notice that it is only a tiny step from inaccuracy to lies and untruthfulness. The spiritual investigator, therefore, must strive to feel himself obliged to hold firmly to the truth, to mix nothing with the unconditional truth that exists in ordinary life, for in the spiritual world such a mixing leads from error to error. In those circles wishing to have anything to do with spiritual investigation, the justified opinion should be spread that an outer, distinguishing characteristic of the true spiritual investigator must be his truthfulness; the moment the spiritual investigator demonstrates that he feels little obligation to test what he says, speaking rather of things he cannot know about the physical world, he becomes flawed as a spiritual investigator and no longer can merit a full trust. This is connected with the conditions for spiritual investigation itself.

It must be brought to our attention again and again that, when the realms of spiritual investigation and spiritual science are spoken of today, it is unjustified to claim that only the spiritual investigator can see into the spiritual world and that one who is not yet a spiritual investigator is unable to know and understand and grasp it. You can learn from the descriptions in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, and from my presentation in An Outline of Occult Science that in our era to a certain degree every person, if only he makes the necessary effort, can become a spiritual investigator, no matter what his position in life is otherwise. Nevertheless, it is also possible for a person to understand the descriptions of the spiritual world without being a spiritual investigator. It is necessary to be a spiritual investigator not in order to understand the communications from the spiritual world but in order to discover them, to investigate what is present in the spiritual world. One must be a painter in order to paint a picture, but one need not be a painter to understand a picture; it is the same with understanding communications from the spiritual world with the sound human intellect. It is in order to investigate the spiritual world that the human being is endowed with the higher organs of observation. If what is investigated, however, is brought into the concepts of the ordinary world, as is often attempted here, the sound human intellect can, if only it is sufficiently unprejudiced and does not create obstructions for itself, grasp what is brought to light through spiritual investigation.

One could say that with spiritual investigation it is the same as it is with what grows under the earth and is found only when one digs into the earth like a miner. Whatever one finds there can originate only as it exists within the earth, developing in those layers of the earth that are covered by layers above it. What is in the depths of the earth cannot develop on the surface of the earth, which is illuminated by the sun during the day. If we then make an opening in the earth, however, and let the sunlight shine in, illuminating what is underneath, everything can appear in the light of the sun. It is the same with what can be gained through spiritual scientific investigation: it can be brought to light only if the soul has transformed itself into an organ of perception for the spiritual world. If it is brought into the concepts and mental images of ordinary life, however, then the human intellect, if only it is sufficiently sound, can understand and illuminate everything as if with spiritual sunlight. All of spiritual science, therefore, can be grasped by the sound human intellect. Just as a painting is not made merely for the painter himself, so the communications about the spiritual world are not only for the spiritual scientific investigator. Nevertheless, paintings are able to originate only through the painter, and the spiritual world can be explored only by the spiritual investigator.

He who believes that what comes from the communications of the spiritual investigator cannot be grasped by means of the ordinary intellect does not perceive at all correctly the nature and essence of the human capacity for thinking. In the human capacity for thinking reside faculties that stand in direct connection with the nature of the higher world. Because man is accustomed to approach only the ordinary sense objects with his concepts, he believes that the ordinary faculty of judgment vanishes in him if super-sensible facts are presented to him. He who develops his capacity for thinking, however, can cultivate this capacity in such a way that it can grasp what is brought to light through spiritual investigation. One must not have some notion beforehand, however, of how one can grasp such matters. This should result from the study itself. If one has a definite notion of how one should grasp these things, one surrenders oneself again to a serious error in relation to spiritual investigation. This is the second aspect that is especially noticeable in Maurice Maeterlinck's new book. He is an individual who wishes to direct his gaze to the spiritual world, who has made some fine observations about various things, and who has also tried to present the mysteries of the spiritual world dramatically; it is especially telling that this individual, in the moment in which he should approach the real science of the spirit, proves himself so inadequate. He demands a certain kind of understanding—not the kind given by the things themselves but the kind he imagines (ertraeumt), which he believes must appear to provide verification. In this way the greatest peculiarity arises: Maeterlinck takes to be merely a belief that which anthroposophy or spiritual science has to say when it speaks today about “repeated earthly lives”—when it speaks with a certain outer justification (not with a merely inner conviction, which would be akin to a certain primitive belief of humanity). He calls it a belief, because he cannot perceive that what we are concerned with here does not have to do with belief but with knowledge. He thus finds that the existence of that which develops further in man, moving from life to life, cannot be proved, because he has a definite idea of what constitutes proof. Maeterlinck can be compared in this realm to certain other people. Until recently, there existed a kind of belief, a certain mathematical-geometrical belief that is summarized in the words, the “squaring of the circle”; that is, one would seek by means of a mathematical-analytical, constructive thinking for that square which equaled the area or the circumference of the circle. This task of transforming the circle into a square was an ideal, as it were, toward which one always strove: the transforming of the circle into a square. Now, no one doubted that there could be a square exactly as large as a circle. In reality, of course, it is entirely possible for such a thing to exist, but it is impossible to show with mathematical constructions or with analytical methods just what the diameter of a circle would have to be to equal a particular square. This means that mathematical thinking does not suffice to prove something that is real, that is physical. There have been countless people who have worked on the solution of squaring the circle, until recent mathematicians proved that it is impossible to solve the problem in this way. Today anyone still trying to solve the problem of squaring the circle is considered not to know mathematics in this realm. Maeterlinck is equivalent to those people trying to square the circle in regard to what he is trying to prove. One can understand the spiritual world, can grasp that what is brought to light through spiritual investigation is real; one cannot prove the existence of this spiritual world, however, if one demands out of prejudice a particular kind of proof; one can prove it in this way as little as one can prove the squaring of a circle mathematically.

One would have to reply to Maeterlinck, therefore, that he tries to square the circle in the spiritual realm, or he would have to be shown how the concepts by which he would like to prove the existence of the spiritual world disappear when man passes through the portal of death. How is one supposed to prove the existence of the spiritual world with concepts such as those taken from the sense world? This, however, is what Maeterlinck is trying to do, and it is extraordinarily interesting that when he gives in to his healthy feeling, he has no choice but to acknowledge repeated lives on earth. It is very interesting how he expresses himself about a knowledge that he calls a belief, and I would like to read to you his own words: ‘Never was there a belief more beautiful, more just, more pure, more morally fruitful, more comforting, and in a certain sense more probable than this. With its teaching of gradual redemption and purification of all bodily and spiritual inequities, of all social injustice, all terrible’ injustices of destiny, it alone gives meaning to life. The goodness of a belief, however, is no proof of its truthfulness. Although six hundred million human beings devote themselves to this religion, although it is closest to the origins that are shrouded in darkness, although it is the only one without hatred, it should have done what the others have not done: bring us indisputable evidence. What it has given us up to now is only the first shadow of the beginning of a proof.” In other words, Maeterlinck is trying in this realm to square the circle.

We see especially clearly in this example how someone who can think that the benefit of spiritual science lies only in an extreme, in phenomenalism (all his writings show this), is totally unable to keep in view the significance and the real nature of spiritual scientific investigation. From such an example as Maeterlinck, we can learn a lot, namely that truth, which must be introduced into the world evolution of humanity, is really, when it first appears, in the position once characterized by Schopenhauer with the words, “In all centuries poor truth had to blush over being paradoxical.” To Maeterlinck, truth appears not just paradoxical but unbelievable, yet it is not the fault of truth. Truth cannot take on the form of the universally reigning error. Thus she looks sighing to her patron god, Time, which promises her victory and glory, but whose vast wings beat so slowly that she dies in the meantime. So it goes with the course of the spiritual evolution of humanity. It is most interesting and instructive that the best individuals today, those human beings who long to have their soul life connected with a spiritual world, are not capable of grasping the core of the actual science of the spirit. Instead, where it involves distinguishing the true path from the two possibilities for error, they stumble, because they do not dare leap over the abyss; they wish either to make use of their dependence on the ordinary world, in phenomenalism, or, if they do not do this, they seek an intensification of the sense of self in ecstasy. We cannot concern ourselves only with recognizing the character of the separate possibilities for error; we must concern ourselves with that which humanity must avoid if one is to recognize and close up the source of spiritual scientific error. From the way in which today's study has been undertaken, one conclusion can be drawn: spiritual investigation must know the sources of error. The temptation is always present in the soul to err in the direction of phenomenalism, and therefore to stand as though spiritually unconscious in relation to the spiritual world, or to err in the direction of ecstasy, which means wanting to enter the spiritual world with inadequate organs of spirit and thus receiving only isolated pieces and not related facts.

The path goes between the two extremes. One must know the possibilities for error. Because they can appear with every step in spiritual life one must not only know them but overcome them. The revelations of spiritual investigation are not only results of investigation but also victories over error, victory by means of a way of looking that has been gained previously, victory over the sense of self and more. He who penetrates more deeply into what we have tried to describe only sketchily today will become aware that—even if everywhere where we embark on the investigation of spiritual life the possibilities for error can lurk frighteningly—we nevertheless must conquer error again and again. He will become aware that spiritual investigation not only satisfies an indomitable yearning for that which man needs for certainty in his life but that its goal must appear, to one who regards this movement with comprehension, as attainable to a sound human sense. To conclude what today's lecture was to offer on the level of feeling, I would like to say that in spite of all obstacles, in spite of all things that can stand in a hostile way on the path of spiritual investigation, those who penetrate with a sound sense into the results of spiritual scientific. investigation feel and sense that these results penetrate—through difficult hindrances of soul, through bewildering darknesses of spirit—to a solemn clarity, to a luminous truth.

The times in which we live will be able to suggest to us very clearly how urgently it is necessary for people in our present time to explore the meaning of life. And the meaning of life on earth can never become clear to us if we merely turn our gaze to that which takes place in the world of the senses. For everything that takes place in the world of the senses acquires its deeper meaning only through the fact that the spiritual in this sensual also comes to expression. Our time is a difficult time of trial. And those who are willing to remain loyal and firm to our cause must understand in particular how this time of ours is a difficult time of trial, and how it will only be able to reveal its meaning - again its meaning! - to our soul if we rise to that which expresses itself spiritually even in such difficult events that take place on the physical plane.

In view of the fact that we are looking at fields where the gate of death rises up in countless cases, and in view of the thought that many of our friends have already left the physical plane in large numbers, we would perhaps do well today to turn our attention to what can be said about the world into which a person passes when he passes through the gate of death here. From this point of view — and you know that there are many, many points of view from which we can start our observations — we want to consider life between death and a new birth today.

In our spiritual science, we first try to recognize the human being as he stands before us: we know that he stands in such a way that he unfolds his physical and spiritual sides before us. We know that these spiritual aspects remain supersensible for the physical plane; the spiritual can only reveal itself, announce itself through the physical. And when we look at the human being here on the physical plane in order to understand him in the sense of our spiritual science, we say: First of all, as you know from my book Theosophy, the four main aspects of the human being reveal themselves to us: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the I. From the etheric body upwards, the aspects of human nature are supersensible to physical observation. But we do experience our I and our astral body. We experience them inwardly. We experience them through the fact that we are able to know ourselves as I, even if this I remains invisible and supersensible. In short, one can understand, even if one remains with what only the physical world reveals, why we consider the human being in terms of these four aspects.

Now let us imagine that we can also look at the human being who lives between death and a new birth in a similar way, that it is also possible to speak of members of the human being who is in the process of life between death and a new birth. You know that we hand over the physical body to the elements, to the substances of the earth; the ether body is handed over to the general ether world; after some time, that which is mainly in our astral body, but of which the earthly human being knows nothing, that also dissolves to a certain extent, and the I then goes its way through the world that we are currently experiencing between death and a new birth.

Now we should not believe that the human being who stands between death and a new birth is not an equally differentiated, an equally structured being as the human being here in the physical world. We can also speak of members of human nature between death and a new birth; only then we will have to speak in the following way.

Here, when we look at the human being on the physical plane, the ego appears to us as that which comes to us first, if we may use the expression, as the highest. The physical body is shared with all minerals, the etheric body with all plants, and the astral body with all animals. The I is unique to us. In the spiritual world, the I, which appears to us here as the highest link in human nature, is the lowest link in human nature in the world between death and rebirth. Just as we begin here with the physical body, so in the spiritual world one must begin with the ego, which is shrouded, as if in a mist of the astral, only during the time when the human being passes through the soul world, but which is nevertheless the lowest link of the human being between death and a new birth. And just as we envelop ourselves here when we enter the physical world from the spiritual world through birth or through conception, we also envelop ourselves in the spiritual world, one might say with spirit members. We actually already know the names for these members of the spirit. We just look at them a little from a different angle. When we have passed through the gate of death, we envelop ourselves in the spirit self. This is, of course, a member of human nature that the human being will develop in the future during the Jupiter evolution. What I now call the spiritual self for the world between death and a new birth is not exactly the same as what will develop when the human being progresses from the earth to Jupiter; rather, what the human being will develop on Jupiter will be a kind of external image, a kind of counter-image for the senses of the spiritual essence in which the human being envelops himself when he passes through the time between death and a new birth. It is indeed the case that this link, in which the human being envelops himself when he passes through the time between death and a new birth, can also be described as a spirit self.

In the further course, man then envelops himself in that limb, which can be described as the spirit of life, which in turn is a spiritual counterpart to something that will only arise in the physical process during the development of Venus. And the actual spiritual man is that which develops in man as the spiritual counter-image of that which, in the physical image, man will have in the highest sphere, to which we can still look today, during the volcanic development, in his physical development. So that we can say: As man here envelops himself in the astral, etheric and physical body, so he envelops himself by growing into the spiritual world, into spirit-self, life-spirit, spiritual man.

Now I would like to describe to you in more detail how things turn out from the initiated knowledge, as one might say. You already know half of these things. When a person has passed through the gate of death here, his physical body is given back to the elements of the earth. This release of the physical body is an extremely important one for the life between death and a new birth. Of course, it seems trivial to say that death is actually birth for the spiritual world; but nevertheless it is also a justified word. We just have to get used to making our concepts somewhat flexible, so that we do not cling to our concepts directly to what the earth presents to us. We are accustomed to forming our concepts only according to what the earth presents to us. We must be able to change our concepts. Life in the spiritual world is completely different from life on earth. The spiritual experience that a person has in the spiritual world when he passes through the gate of death is that the physical body falls away from him. This is a momentous, an enormously momentous experience! And the first thing to be said about this experience is that it is completely contrary to the beginning of the spiritual life after death, as the birth of man is to our physical life between birth and death. No man can, after all, look at his birth with the physical power of knowledge of the earth. Man does not experience birth with his physical powers of knowledge here on earth. Just as we do not experience the physical birth, as the human being has no memory – this only begins later – of the events of his birth and how this is right for life on earth and must be so, so it is the opposite for the life between death and a new birth. Because the moment, the instant of, I cannot say dying, but of having died, remains as something that man can look at again and again during the whole process of life between death and a new birth. Just as we never remember the events of our birth in our physical life, just as clearly we have our entire lifetime between death and a new birth in front of us, the moment of death, but from the other side, from the side of spiritual experience, so to speak from the other shore. For the earthly human being, death can, with a certain justification, be a frightening thing. It represents the decay of the physical earthly human being. The opposite is the case when the human being looks back on having died between death and a new birth: Then it always represents the victory of the spirit over the physical, then death represents the most beautiful, the greatest, the most glorious, the most sublime that can be experienced at all. And because a person is able to look at their mortality between death and a new birth, this reflection on mortality is what gives us consciousness after death, so that we know: we have shed our physical body. And that we experience this, that we always have this before us, is given to us by our self-awareness after death, just as we attain our self-awareness here in the physical world by having our physical body.

When we are outside the physical body with our astral body and I from falling asleep to waking up, we have no consciousness of the physical world. When we wake up, we have to physically push into ourselves, and then the consciousness of self can flourish again. Every time we look at death after death, when the whole event, this - speaking from the other side - sublime, beautiful event stands before our soul, then after death the consciousness ignites again and again. It depends entirely on the constant contemplation of this moment. And there is something else connected with this. It is somewhat difficult to talk about these things, because, as I said, there are no corresponding experiences here in the physical world, but one must try to characterize these things as they are. When we look beyond our continued existence after death and consider our dying, then we have above all the feeling, the impression, that where we died, now that we have died, there is nothing, not even space. It is, as I said, difficult to describe, but that is how it is: there is nothing there. And in the external sense: The thing appears magnificent and sublime for the reason that everywhere else a new world is opening up for us. The flooding spiritual world presses in from all sides, but there is nothing there from which we have died out.

Theoretically described, the matter may have something terrible about it, but in the sensation after death it is not terrible. In the sensation after death, it allows a deep satisfaction to well up in the soul. One learns, as it were, to expand into the whole world and to look at something that is like an emptiness in the world. And from this arises the feeling: That is your place in the world, the place that is out of all the vastness, and that is yours. And you get the feeling, precisely from this emptiness, that you have a purpose for the whole world, that every single human existence - you get it initially, of course, as an explanation for yourself - must be there. This place would always be empty if I were not there - so every soul says to itself. That everyone, everyone as a human being, has been assigned a place in the universe, this feeling, this incredibly inwardly warming feeling, arises from this contemplation: that the whole world is there, and that this whole world has been driven out as if from a symphony the single note that one is, and that must be there, otherwise the world would not be there. This feeling arises from looking back at the experience of death. It remains, because it is what primarily gives the sense of self, self-awareness, between death and a new birth.

Then, for a relatively short time — but that is enough — there is still a union with the etheric body. Everything one has experienced in life, even the smallest events, suddenly stand there as in a large life tableau, for days; they remain for days. One has the very intense feeling: the earth on which one has stood so far moves on, but one remains behind, one begins to stand still. One does not go along with the spatial movement of the earth. And in doing so, the life tableau expands.

One does not actually speak when one speaks of a memory of life, because one has memories in such a way that one looks back in time. But that is not the case; it is simultaneous; it is a tableau, it is a moving tableau. Even, as I said, the smallest events extend to that.

Then one separates from this ethereal experience. Then, as one is accustomed to saying, the disengagement of the etheric body takes place. That with which one was connected as the etheric body, one has it, while one previously addressed it as one's inner being, now externally, and it becomes ever larger and weaves itself into - that is actually the correct expression - the spiritual world, into which one has now entered. Only in this spiritual world is the empty space that I have spoken of; that remains empty. And the etheric body weaves itself in all around on the outside, becoming bigger and bigger.

Now, we must be very clear that it would be a mistaken idea – I must confess, I have been convinced in all cases in which I have been able to study this fact, which I am now talking about, intensively, that it would be a mistake – to believe that we would not see what we have woven into the general spiritual world as our etheric body in the time between death and a new birth. We see it forever. We always look at it, it belongs to our outer world. What previously belonged to our inner world in our etheric body now belongs to our outer world. We look at that. And it is important that we can look at it, because through it so much of the spiritual outer world becomes understandable to us as a relationship exists between what we have interwoven and the entire spiritual outer world.

You may remember from the lectures I once gave in Vienna about the time between death and a new birth that I said: First of all, the human being is interwoven in a world that is full of wisdom. While he searches for wisdom here with effort, he is completely immersed in the light of wisdom. And this wisdom, in which he is immersed, overwhelms him. And it would overwhelm him further if he could not weave into it that which he has woven into the wisdom of his etheric body during his lifetime, if he could not weave that into the world. In this way, the tremendous abundance of light in the general world ether is attenuated for him, and he begins to understand what it is that interweaves, ensouls and spiritualizes the world in the general world ether.

Thus we have that which, as it were, falls away from the human being when the human being is taken up into the spiritual world. For of the earthly members of human nature, essentially only the ego and the astral body remain. The physical body has fallen away. What remains is what I have called “the void.” The etheric body becomes subject to the general world ether. The human being continues on his path. For what he now gives up to the cosmic ether as his etheric body, for that he envelops himself in what we have called the spirit self. This is, so to speak, now an outer member. Indefinite ether approaches him; this envelops him with a kind of spirit self.

It is good if we now pause for a moment to consider what remains behind, I would say, in the immediate future: the concept of the human being. We need not speak of this emptiness, because it is of the greatest importance above all for the person himself who has died, who has the experiences I have described. But with the etheric body it is something else. The etheric body itself is objectively woven into what is the general world ether. It is then in this, this etheric body of man.

Now you will find it understandable that, to a certain extent, the etheric body of a person who dies at a young age is somewhat different in the world outside than the etheric body of a person who, so to speak, reaches the normal age limit. Every etheric body naturally has its task, and it cannot arise from what I am about to say that any wish to die early or late can arise from it; that would be a very distorted and false, the most false conception of the matter. But nevertheless, what is to be said now is valid.

When a person dies at a young age, they have an etheric body that could perhaps have still cared for the physical body for decades, could have worked in the physical body. Now, just as little energy is lost in the spiritual world as in the physical world. This means that in the etheric body, which the human being leaves after death, the power is present that could perhaps have supplied the physical body of the human being for decades if the person were in their twenties or thirties. It is no longer in a physical human body; it is out in the world. This can perhaps be most vividly brought home to our souls by an example.

We had a little boy at the building site in Dornach – I have already spoken to some of our friends about this matter – who died in the seventh year of his life due to a tragic circumstance. The boy had fetched food supplies from our canteen that evening, which is located near the Dornach building site, and a strange chain of circumstances resulted in the boy walking out of the canteen and through a reed bed that was next to a path that a fully loaded furniture van was just driving along. And the fully loaded furniture van was knocked over and crushed the boy. It was a very painful thing. Just after the lecture evening, after ten o'clock, we received the news that the boy was not there. There was nothing to be done but to see what had happened to the furniture van. The circumstances were also quite strange. The boy wanted to leave a quarter of an hour earlier and was held back by someone who wanted to go with him. He wanted to go out through a different door; then he would have passed the furniture truck on the right, whereas he was crushed on the left. He had been told to go out through this door, so he was literally sent out. Besides, it is a road where a furniture truck may not have gone for years, and perhaps none will go for years. It was a furniture truck that was exceptionally delivering furniture to one of our members. So they looked for the boy. The furniture van was so heavily loaded and unfortunately tilted that it could not be lifted immediately, because the people who were driving the furniture van had not brought anything with them and simply walked away. They did not want to lift the furniture van until the next day. But now, of course, it had to be lifted during the night, and they found the dead baby underneath.

This little boy had been in the atmosphere of the building for some time. It is true that since that time, soon after that death, the etheric body of that little boy has been woven into the aura of the building. And the person who – and it is certainly not immodest to say this – is involved in the artistic side of the building, as I am, notices how the fertilization comes from the unspent etheric power of the etheric body, which is needed to artistically integrate this or that into the building.

Of course, human selfishness would perhaps prefer to attribute all this only to one's own genius. But it is absolutely the case that even what comes to us from within comes from external spiritual influences. And we can prove these spiritual influences in detail. We are dealing here with the etheric body of a boy who has turned seven years old, who could therefore have still supplied the physical body for another six to seven decades, who, with the tremendously wise building power that is necessary to form the physical human body in an appropriate way, is in the etheric aura of the Dornach building.

And I dare say, with complete certainty, even to artists: the art needed to form the physical body out of the etheric body is much greater than any art that man practices on earth. Man is already the greatest work of art. And all the impulses for forming the physical human body are contained in the etheric body. The artist also brings them out of his etheric body when he creates artistically.

This is just one example; others could be cited in which the capacity of the unspent etheric bodies can be seen. Just this year, dear friends of ours, some of them quite young, have also passed through the gateway of death. And so we see how, especially now, in this time, countless people are passing through the gate of death, in the vigorous age, leaving behind their etheric bodies, which could all have worked on the physical body for decades to come. These etheric bodies, which are still strengthened and invigorated by the fact that they have gone through sacrificial deaths, are present and will be present. And those people who will be in a position in the future, when different things are happening on the European continent than in the present events, who will then live on the European continent, they will live in a spiritual, in an etheric atmosphere in which these unused etheric bodies can be found. And when souls are found here on earth that will have understanding for that which will live spiritually not just as an abstract memory but as real etheric powers – this understanding can only be gained from spiritual science – they will well sense the inspiring powers of these etheric bodies.

And that is one of the feelings that now weigh heavily on our hearts, heavily for the reason that on the one hand we have to look at the enormity that could happen if quite a lot of people could become aware of what is sown by the deaths that are now happening around us due to the great events of the time, while on the other hand the handful of people who can understand these things is still so small. And it could easily happen because of people's lack of understanding of spiritual science due to the materialism that fills all of humanity, that in the future people could continue to live without any trace of an inkling of what arises from death.

We should not allow such a sentence to live in our hearts in any other way than by allowing ourselves, as far as it depends on us, to be completely imbued with such an awareness, to fully absorb this awareness and to do what we can to understand such a thing. I would like to say that we should not just worry about how much materialism there is. We should indeed recognize how much materialism there is on earth, but we should not close ourselves off from the ever-increasing materialistic worldview, but rather do all the more what is incumbent upon us.

So much for what can be said about the etheric-physical. Then the human being progresses further. He has first enveloped himself in a kind of spiritual self that is formed in a slightly different way than everything that is formed when we live here on earth. One could say that the spiritual self is something that comes to us from all sides, and in the midst of which we feel ourselves. Then the human being continues to live in the other covers by simultaneously experiencing, as I have often described, a kind of spiritual regression, by experiencing - but now in a different way than through the mere tableau that has been described - that which acts as a kind of opposite to earthly life. One can realize how the following time passes, after the etheric body has been discarded and we live on with our astral body and with our I, wrapped in the spirit self. This spirit self is a kind of driving force. It leads us back, so that we relive, really go backwards, our last life on earth from death to birth. If, for example, we have said something to someone here on earth that has caused them suffering, we experience such an event from our point of view here on earth in our physical body. We cannot experience it from the point of view of the other person. We would not be able to live in the physical body at all if we wanted to live differently than to experience everything from our own point of view. But let us take the extreme case: we have hurt someone very much with a word that we said out of revenge. What he feels, what he experiences, we do not experience here. In the regression that I am now describing, we always experience what the other person feels as the effect of what we have done. So we live inside the world of effects. We experience what others have gone through with us during our physical life, until we get to the point where we have reached our birth. Then we envelop ourselves with what could be called the spiritual counter-image of what will develop on Venus: we envelop ourselves with the spirit of life.

And our further life is now determined by this spirit of life, which I have described several times. You will find it described from a wide variety of perspectives in the lecture cycle in Vienna on life between death and a new birth. I will describe it here again from a different perspective.

We are thus enveloped, as it were, by the spirit of life. This expresses itself in a certain way, and it is essential that we understand this. The spirit-self first guides us back; the spirit-self is mainly concerned with our being, with our individuality, and it then also leads us further. After it has brought us to our birth, it guides us further along the paths we have to take in the spiritual world.

It is different with what the next shell, the life spirit, now does to us. Here in the physical body we are permeated by the etheric body, which also contains the life ether and everything that gives us life. We are, so to speak, permeated by the etheric body, and we live through this etheric body. Those who have no etheric body cannot live on the physical plane.

When we have discarded our astral body, we know that we are enveloped by this spirit of life. Now we also realize that we were enveloped the whole time while our spirit self was guiding us back. But now we only realize it. We only realize it afterwards, when we have gone through the whole thing, which is called the Kamaloka time. And now we become aware of something very strange: it is only because we are enveloped by this spirit of life that our life between death and a new birth is possible. Because here in the physical body we have to live, I would say within our skin. We cannot do that between death and a new birth in the spiritual world. If we only wanted to live in the spiritual world within ourselves, so to speak, only in a single place in the spiritual world, then we would have to die continuously and would not be able to live. Rather, we have to live with the whole universe. We have to have the whole universe as one great living thing and have to live with it.

Now this could happen in two ways. We could flow out into the whole universe. But if we were to flow out all at once, the consciousness that we have, that I have described, this self-awareness, would also flow out into the nebulous. Rather, we must be moved around in the great, living cosmic organism. Here in our physical body, a limb of ours, let's say the hand, is in a certain place. In the spiritual world, we must always be led around. We must always be carried from one place to another. The spirit of life does that. In this way we leave one place and arrive at the other. This is done rhythmically, so that we always come back to the same place. But we have to be led around in the world. An eventful, a spiritually eventful life arises for us. Here, as physical human beings, we are confined to a single place, with certain exceptions. However, the spiritual is always carried into the physical, and this is how we can move around in the physical plan. This is essentially an Ahrimanic effect, since the spiritual is brought into the physical by Ahriman. But in the spiritual, it is right that we are guided by the entire associated world organism. And in this way we settle in, just as we settle in here on earth in one place, I would say in the whole environment of earthly life. And as we are led from spiritual place to spiritual place in it – you can find more details in my Vienna Cycle – at the same time, the forces we need to prepare our new life on earth are implanted in us, in order to be drawn to earthly life again. For the time between death and a new birth passes in the first half in such a way that we find our way out of earthly life; in the second half we find ourselves again preparing for a new earthly life.

You see, materialism today basically turns everything into its opposite. It will lead people into the most serious errors, and into ones that are not only credible but almost taken for granted. When a personality appears who is as ingenious as Goethe, for example, people take it quite materialistically. A very thick book has been written and published about Goethe, in which all his ancestors that can be found are examined in a materialistic sense, physically and spiritually - but the materialist only assumes bodies - and then it is shown how Goethe got one thing from one ancestor and another from another. Goethe himself said ironically: From my father I have the stature, from my mother the cheerful nature - and so on. Here in Kassel, in a lecture series, I once developed how people take this quite materially by showing how we have inherited everything through the physical inheritance current, especially genius. And I have often said: the matter is absurd, ridiculously foolish, and yet again so credible, because it makes immediate sense to the materialist that certain qualities are enhanced through many generations, so that they then appear to be inherited in the case of genius. The materialist even believes that he is expressing an experience. But he does not express any other experience than that of someone who falls into the water and is pulled out is wet. Of course, the soul passes through all its ancestors in a certain way, and as a result it inherits everything it has drawn out of its ancestors. Just as someone who has fallen into the water is wet, so the person also has the qualities of his ancestors as he passes through the generations. It would be different if the opposite were to be proven, if it were to be proven that the genius that is present is inherited by the descendants: But it is not. People should prove that! But they will probably leave it alone. You examine Goethe's ancestors; but you leave it pretty to go to your son or your grandchildren! Just see if the qualities of genius are inherited by the descendants! There may be cases where the matter is concealed, but there can be no question of an inheritance of qualities of genius to the descendants. If there were, it would be known. But there is no such inheritance of qualities of genius.

But something else is the case. If one tries to trace back a human individuality that enters a physical body at a certain point in time further back - it comes out of the spiritual world, after all - it is the same individuality that now brings together father and mother, that contributes to the fact that father and mother come together to produce it. Indeed, it is already involved further back. It works, so to speak, the whole succession of generations in such an order that in the end two people find each other through whom this one individuality can find its embodiment. The individuality is already involved in what takes place over centuries from ancestors to descendants. However strange it may sound, that is how it is. Goethe had a father and a mother, a grandfather and a grandmother and so on. If we go back centuries, we see that this individuality of Goethe's from the spiritual world already works in such a way that those who ultimately yielded the old Kaspar Goethe and Mrs. Aja always come together. Through the centuries, individuality is already working from the spiritual world; it works into the succession of generations.

It is just the opposite of what is assumed. Man does not inherit what he carries in his soul from his ancestors in the physical sense. Rather, he compiles his ancestors from the spiritual world, from world midnight, which lies in the middle between death and a new birth, so that he can then find those through whom he makes his way into earthly life. That is the mystery that emerges. This is something tremendously significant, and basically actually harrowing. And we see through this that there really is an intimate connection between what happens in the spiritual world and what happens further down in the physical world. And at the same time we see how strangely intertwined our spiritual and soul life is with what happens here, which is just not noticed.

One speaks of the spirit in modern philosophy in a very strange way. There was a professor in Halle who is now regarded as a very important light in the field of philosophy. He published a book, “The Philosophy of the As If,” in which he attempts to prove that such concepts as spirit and soul do not represent reality, but that they are nevertheless useful in man's contemplation of the world. One should not look at a person and say that he has a soul. But now, he moves his hands and speaks, so that one can say: one regards him as if he had a soul. Otherwise, one leaves the soul as a soul. One denies it; one does not care about it; but one regards it as if the person had a soul, as if the soul wanted to achieve all this.

It is a comfortable philosophy, but also a terribly thoughtless one. However, anyone who tries to apply this philosophy in concrete life sees that this “as-if philosophy” is of little use, even as a method. And a person like Fritz Mauthner, who has written a philosophy of language and who traces everything back to language, should actually be viewed from the point of view of this “as-if philosophy”: as if such a person could also have spirit. But if you make this attempt, then this method is not good. You cannot show that he can be viewed as if he had spirit; it cannot be applied. Where there is no mind, it cannot be applied. You know, of course, what I mean. But I only cite this Fritz Mauthner because he is one of those who deny the whole meaning of history altogether and who have most clearly stated, from the standpoint of present-day materialism, that history can never be a science. He says: When a raindrop falls on the earth, we can find the laws of the raindrop scientifically, because many raindrops fall according to the same laws. Then you can compare the individual cases with each other, and you can find the laws. That is what philosophers today believe: that observing many cases and always finding the same thing leads to the individual laws. But in history, things only happen once, the Thirty Years War only once and so on; and therefore the whole of history is only a succession of coincidences for Fritz Mauthner. People in the present day must come to such assertions if they deny the spirit in reality; for history would also be only a sequence of coincidences if that which we have now shown, which works out of the spiritual world and in which people work between death and a new birth, did not have the very effect of what we have now shown, which works out of the spiritual world and in which people work between death and a new birth. We are weaving, so to speak, on what happens here on earth between death and a new birth. We weave only according to those impulses that then come to us from the spiritual world.

It can truly be said: One should not believe that any serious objection to spiritual science can come from any scientific side; because if one compares what today's science can really achieve with spiritual science, then today's science is the best support for spiritual science. One must only approach the matter in the right way.

If we pick up any book today in which a materialistically minded person expresses himself half in terms of psychology, that is, the soul, and half in terms of the body, we find the following. These people seek, as man presents himself, to visualize himself by showing the thinking apparatus - nervous life, brain life. They examine the thinking apparatus and can then really show that when any idea takes hold in us, a brain process occurs. So they say: You see, we can prove to you that without a brain process a thought, an idea, could not be conceived at all; so what do you want with an independent soul? After all, only the thinking apparatus is present!

But they come to something else, these materialistically minded people. If you look through the textbooks in use, you will find that these people point out the thinking apparatus and link all thinking and imagining to the mechanical processes in the brain and nervous system; but they have to deny feeling and will. Feeling and will cannot be explained by physical processes. Therefore, this is simply eliminated. And today, if you open the books, you can find everywhere: People have indeed assumed a will and a feeling from their prejudices, but this is actually a nothing, it does not even exist.

So the natural scientist stops just before feeling and will. Now that we know that thoughts separate from us with our etheric body, it is explained to us that this separated part, which leaves us with our etheric body, also works on our exterior here on earth, the thinking apparatus first sets itself up, and when the thinking apparatus is formed, then thinking comes with the help of the thinking apparatus formed by thinking itself. Feeling and will remain with us in the astral body and in the ego. We carry these into the spiritual world. Not one science forces materialism, on the contrary, real science today justifies our spiritual science everywhere. Today's materialism is entirely dependent on the fact that people have no urge for spiritual life, that they want no sense for spiritual life. Understanding would not be lacking either. For truly, if one opens oneself to what the spiritual researcher is able to give from the spiritual world, even for such chapters as we have allowed to arise before our soul today for the life between death and a new birth: it can be understood, one needs only a finer, more subtle understanding than the rough understanding that today's man often wants to apply to the outer world. But we also live in a time when materialism has reached its peak. The spiritual researcher can even state exactly that the year in which materialism reached a peak was around 1840/41. Since then, it has even been declining somewhat; but the after-effects are, of course, great. But what does materialism mean for the conception of physical human life? The most astute minds of the present are leading people astray into a state that is to be deeply regretted under the influence of materialism.

There is a truly astute man, a criminal anthropologist by profession. He has examined the brains of many criminals. He was the first to find a famous, significant sentence about the brains of criminals, the sentence that in the criminal brain, in the vast majority of cases, the posterior lobe covering the cerebellum is underdeveloped, as is also the case in monkeys. The monkey is distinguished precisely by the fact that it also has a small occipital lobe. This was, of course, a godsend, because it meant that one could say: Aha, this is a throwback to the nature of the ape when a person is criminal; he is born with a too-small occipital lobe!

But just think what an enormous significance this has for the moral life if one is only willing to admit that the human being has a physical body. He must then say: What are you talking about when you speak of responsibility, what are you talking about when you say that you want to improve people morally through this or that education? That is all nonsense. Those who are born with a occipital lobe that is too small, which of course cannot be changed during this life, become criminals; they become criminals out of necessity. And if materialism were true, then this must also be true: we would then not hang people because they have murdered another, but because they have too small occipital lobes! One would only have to admit this: we cannot live in the world at all if we did not admit such things. One cannot be materialistic in this sense if one would not admit: people are hanged because they have too small occipital lobes. Anything else would only be a concealment of the truth.

But is it the truth? We have to speak of the etheric body in the sense that we have done today, that it is still present, that it even increases in size after death and is woven into the general cosmic ether. If we now have a young person who has a occipital lobe that is too small, we cannot make it grow; no physical science will ever achieve that. But we can organize the education in the appropriate way by saying to ourselves: There is also an etheric body present, and a part of the etheric body etheric body that corresponds to the occipital lobe, and through appropriate education we train the etheric body of the occipital lobe, and it is just as effective in life, perhaps even more effective in a certain sense than the physical occipital lobe, because it has to overcome a certain force. And then we derive comfort from our knowledge that the physical shape of our occipital lobe is not the determining factor, but that we can then develop the etheric lobe accordingly in the person whose occipital lobe is too small, by evoking these or those feelings in him when we notice that he has these or those tendencies towards wrongdoing. Then we will be able to save him.

You see, that is the truth. That is the moral side of spiritual science! It is also present. Desolation and bleakness, especially in the moral and ethical sphere, if one only wanted to be true, one would see emerging from the materialistic world view. A consoling possibility to actively intervene in what people become can be seen from what spiritual science can give us. If we only recognize certain tendencies in a person at the right moment, which could lead to criminal acts, then we can use a certain type of education to develop what has a particularly strong effect on this occipital lobe in the ether strongly, and thus weave into the person the power that will continue to live with him between death and a new birth and, especially in the physical, particularly well develops the occipital lobe in the next incarnation. Not only do we help him for this incarnation; we also set the stage for a particularly well-developed brain, which he can then carry through the life between death and a new birth for inclusion in his next physical incarnation.

So spiritual science now practically places us in life. Only it will have to do what goes beyond what is done today. Today, people still think that they have done enough with spiritual science if they have listened for a while and believe that it has had a favorable, uplifting effect on our soul. That is not enough! Spiritual science must enter into all branches of life in practical activity. The fruits of spiritual science must show themselves in all branches of life. Education, which is particularly bleak today because it only starts from what the human being has physically, must be particularly fertilized by spiritual science.

Today there may still be many people who say: You can tell us a lot about spiritual science, but why should we believe in what you are telling us? We can't see it for ourselves. At most, it could be seen by someone who finds their way into the spiritual worlds in a certain way, as described in “How to Know Higher Worlds”. If you say: Above all, I want to see something practically – and in doing so, you think that you can bring the spiritual into the physical world in this way, to see the spirit externally as you see the physical, because you are too lazy to seek the spirit in a spiritual way, then that is a very selfish point of view. And if materialism today is connected with selfishness – it is a world view, after all! – then materialistic spiritism is even more selfish. For materialism at least merely aims to accept only the physical world and then also to satisfy this physical world. But spiritualism wants, first of all, a sensual view of the spiritual world, and secondly, I might say, constant satisfaction, and that in a physical way. But in its lack of clarity it still imagines this physical way as spiritual. In short, it wants to remain in the physical world and yet have something spiritual! It is actually lamentable that our materialism has reached such a level of development as to give rise to the popular belief in spiritualism, which is particularly rife in America. This tendency is to reduce the spiritual to a material level and to view the spiritual and spiritual processes in material terms.

But there are many other ways to recognize that which is on the physical plane as an imprint of the spiritual world. And one of the ways – of course not all of them can be listed now – is to seek the spiritual where it is effective, for example in children, where it is to develop. And that is where education must be enriched. Education will only come to fruition when people develop a sense, a feeling for the spiritual, so that the teacher not only teaches according to all kinds of instructions, but above all starts from observing the developing individuality, seeing what wants to develop out of it. This must be achieved, or rather, must be achieved! And it is good if we remind ourselves, so that we can believe in this struggle, that people in the present are actually terribly short-sighted. They believe that we have come a long way in our time, that we have finally cast off all the childishness of earlier centuries. But it is not true that we have cast off prejudices. All that had to be discarded in order to see the physical plane clearly and to gain freedom was the old atavistic clairvoyance, and that was discarded in its last vestiges not so long ago. The day before yesterday I was able to speak to our dear friends in Hamburg about a special example of this clairvoyance. If you had the opportunity to walk around here, you might be able to find such an example. But I will tell you the Hamburg example; perhaps you can look for a similar one for Kassel yourself.

If the Fall of Man in Paradise, that powerful image that stands in the Bible for the Luciferic seduction of man, is depicted by the painter today, Adam and Eve and the snake are depicted realistically, with the usual snake head. Now we know from our spiritual science that this snake is Lucifer. The physical snake on earth can at most be a kind of symbol for Lucifer, but this physical snake is not Lucifer, nor is the great snake that is coiled around a tree and has an ordinary, common snake head at the top, is not Lucifer. Lucifer is a being that has remained on the moon, a being that naturally cannot be seen with the senses. On the moon, one did not see with the senses; only the earth has produced this sensuality. The earth snake can be seen with the senses. Lucifer, of course, cannot be seen with the senses, he must be seen inwardly. When one looks inwardly, it is an inner feeling. And one senses: Aha, that is the one that in its upper part resembles the human head; after all, it has driven out the eyes: “Your eyes will be opened, you will see,” it is inside the head and still fills the nervous system down into the spinal cord, -— a human head that continues in the snake's body, but all this only conceived ethereally. It would therefore have to be perceived from within. If one wanted to paint Lucifer according to the Bible, one would have to paint the etheric for the spinal cord, and at the top something that is also still etheric, which is not yet physical, the human head. That would be the teaching, if it were put into the picture, of what we have today.

In Hamburg, one can see biblical pictures by the master Bertram, and, as I have just described, the Fall of Man: not an ordinary snake, but a snake with the usual shape, but with a human head. In the 14th and 15th centuries, in the middle of the Middle Ages, the painter painted it that way, that is, they still knew it back then. So you have tangibly proven what the matter is! The painter did not go and paint an ordinary snake, but in those days they still could, because atavistic clairvoyance was still present. It is only in the last few centuries that this has completely disappeared, and it must be regained. There is no other way to regain it than by preparing ourselves to understand the spiritual world through spiritual science.

Those who are wholeheartedly devoted to our spiritual science take it in such a way that they see: It is the most important task of our time that people learn to understand what is in the spiritual world, in order to prepare themselves to be able to look into the spiritual world again, into that which is part of the world around us. How differently we as human beings will go through the world when we know that not only air surrounds us, but that this air is permeated by the weaving not only of the visible world - after all, light is not visible otherwise, but colors are visible - but in the light the dead etheric bodies weave. Natural science and spiritual science will combine in a beautiful way, only spiritual science will be there for all people, since it will bring something to all people.

I believe that in our time it is especially necessary that we urgently feel obliged to let such truths as those we have been able to experience today for the life between death and a new birth enter into our meditation quite often. This too is good material for meditation when we let the beginning of life between death and a new birth, this emptiness that assigns us our place in the world, this instruction of the etheric world, the interweaving of our own etheric body into the etheric world, come before our soul quite often in meditation. This stimulates what lives in us to grow more and more into the direct experience of the spiritual world. And this is already necessary for humanity in the present. One could feel, when one looks at the events of the time, how necessary this living in the spiritual world is for present-day humanity. The present time of trial will only be able to be gone through in the right way if a number of people can feel it faithfully and humanly, what lives in spiritual science and how this spiritual science must prepare the human future.

These are serious signs of the times, and the seriousness is revealed when we reflect on many things that are so close to us. Think, we speak of what should permeate our path with a serious principle: seeking the same in all human souls and through all nations and races. We are right to regard this as a lofty ideal of humanity, but we must not hide from ourselves the tremendous contrast between the life of present-day Europe and this ideal. Can we say that European humanity today is in any way remotely close to this ideal in what it expresses? How far removed it is! And may we – may, I say – regard this ideal as one that we can apply so directly today? Are we not obliged, as Germans, not to deceive ourselves, to be clear about the fact that we cannot even remotely think of realizing such an ideal due to European circumstances? We would do a poor job of fulfilling the mission specifically imposed on us as Germans if we were to simply become absorbed in general, vague ideals today. Time obliges us to develop the specific nature of our Central European character. And with that we may already look at the karma that has grown on us, I might say, in particular.

Just think, when you look at world events today, we have not been managed badly in the sense of these great world events. Karma has brought it about that our movement first belonged to the general theosophical movement. Long before this war showed what it can show to the Germans today, our German movement had completely separated itself from the theosophical one and emphasized how necessary it is that the spiritual movement arises out of the very substance of the German people, a spiritual movement that can carry us and that the other world will also have to carry. We can say that we, as the anthroposophical movement, have felt the English hatred in our particular field for many years before. It has now only increased, because one cannot remain silent there; what has been written about us in recent times by so-called English Theosophists exceeds anything that can somehow still be justified. We may say, therefore, that when we survey the course of our movement, we find our karma also running through our movement in such a way that it is in full agreement with what the great movement in the world indicates to us even today. That our karma led us early enough to emphasize German intellectual life, we may, in all modesty, present as a favorable karma for us, and that anthroposophy has found its center in German intellectual life, we may regard as a kind of shining morning star for our karmic currents. And since, I would like to say, the omens for what is happening in the world have already shown themselves much earlier with us, we can already deduce from this single fact the belief that there is something in our movement of a power for the great general human movement.

Let us learn, my dear friends, to trust the spiritual power that lies at the heart of our movement, trusting that it is one of the best to which our soul can possibly attach itself. Let us live through the full weight and the full significance of thought and feeling and will impulse, the full weight and the full significance of what it means: there must be individual souls who, in the face of the great demands of our time, understand how the spiritual impulses must interact with what must take place in future history here on earth. Let us learn to understand, not only in the abstract, but also in the concrete sense, what the countless deaths that are now flooding the earth mean. Let us learn to understand how faithfully our souls must remain loyal to our movement so that there may be people who can look up in the right way to the sphere where the etheric bodies and the individualities that have made the sacrifices for our time on the great historical field will continue to work and will work together with those who will later tread the earth in times of peace. Let us learn to understand what it means to find the right sense for the fact that a spirituality also permeates that which takes place on the physical plane today, that the confessors of spiritual science are there to turn their minds to that which arises spiritually from the courage and sacrifice of our time. Let us learn to understand in the right sense the words with which we want to conclude our reflections:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the suffering of the abandoned,
From the people's sacrificial deeds
Will grow spiritual fruit —
Guiding souls, spiritually aware,
Their minds into the spiritual realm.

First of all, I would like to remind you of something we discussed yesterday, so that we can then proceed to further considerations. Yesterday, I essentially explained that one cannot gain insight into the relationship between the ideal or spiritual and the material in the world, or into the purely causal natural order, without taking into account the nature of human sleep.

We started from St. Augustine's thought that he wanted to experience true certainty about the world in his inner experience. I said that we can no longer base ourselves on this thought for the simple reason that we have to know today that every human sleep refutes this thought. For we could never somehow hold on to the idea that what a person experiences within himself is preserved post mortem, after death, and that what a person experiences within himself is truly eternal, if we had to look at it from the point of view of the time from falling asleep to waking up, as ordinary consciousness today looks at it. The ordinary consciousness of today sees how, during sleep, what is experienced within the human being dawns. But now we said that as soon as a person completes the first step of looking into the spiritual world, he realizes that from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up, what we call the human being's ego and its astral body – that is to say, the human being's actual spirit-soul nature – is so connected from within with the nature of the angels, archangels and archai, as the human being is otherwise connected here during waking life with the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. Only because man's consciousness is dulled during sleep by the powers opposed to the world is he not aware that during sleep he is connected to the hierarchy of angels, archangels and archai, that they imbue his ego and his astral body with their own being, that they hold and carry his astral body and his ego. And we have explained how three things arise from this connection between human beings and spiritual beings: Firstly, that we have the feeling of personality more or less clearly even in our ordinary consciousness. We know ourselves as an ego. We would never know ourselves as an ego with only what is available to us during waking hours. The feeling of free personality that continues during the day, while we are awake, is a kind of after-effect of what we experience during sleep. This comes from the fact that from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, we are connected with the angelic being from the spiritual world to which we belong. But the archangelic being, or actually a series of archangelic beings, is also connected with our spiritual soul being. And this is the reason why, when we are awake, we know ourselves as members of the whole of humanity, that we recognize ourselves as human beings on earth.

Every human being actually has an awareness of their free personality, even if it is not entirely clear. The awareness that one is a human being in general is already more shadowy in the background. Yes, certain philosophers, like Fewerbach or even Auguste Comte, have argued that it is a significant discovery for a person to come to feel that they are a human being in general, a member of the whole of humanity. And yesterday we heard Auguste Comte speak of the Great Being; by this he means nothing other than the human being. But Comte speaks from the standpoint of ordinary materialistic science; he does not know what underlies spiritually this consciousness that one is human, which lies in the background of our soul life. One would have no inkling of being a human being if that which is separated from our physical and etheric bodies during sleep were not imbued with the nature of the archangels.

And again, we are imbued with the nature of the archai from the hierarchy of the so-called Zeitgeist (the spirit of the age). But what comes from this remains a rather dark, shadowy consciousness. Indeed, today's humanity does not have it at all if it does not feel part of history, of historical life. The oriental world view has not penetrated to this consciousness of living as an earthly human being at all. This has been the particular task of Western culture: to feel like a historical being, as a being – let us say for ourselves – who belongs to the 19th, 20th century. But the present materialistic consciousness of humanity knows little more than the date and some other external historical data – we will hear shortly how little these actually have any significance for real life. For only spiritual science leads us to recognize how the human soul changes from millennium to millennium, how human beings become different, and how we now look back to ancient times and know that the people of the third post-Atlantic period, the Egyptian-Chaldean peoples, had a very different soul and human condition than we do today. This sense of being at home in the whole development of humanity is an echo of our connection with the archetype, with the arche, during the time from falling asleep to waking up. So that we should know that we are connected with this third spiritual hierarchy from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. Now, how does our life differ from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, that is, every day, from the life between death and a new birth? Every evening when we fall asleep, we lay aside, I would say provisionally, our physical and etheric bodies. These remain with us. There we are connected with these entities of the third hierarchy; when we wake up, we return to our physical and etheric bodies. It is different when we can no longer return, when we have died. Then our physical and etheric bodies are apparently handed over to the driving forces of that which is becoming earthly. We know that this is only apparent, as we have recently discussed; but for our experience, our physical and etheric bodies are handed over to the spaces of earth and heaven. During this time between death and a new birth, we not only come into contact with the beings of the third hierarchy, as we do in sleep, but we also come into equally intimate contact with the beings of the second hierarchy, with the exusiai, that is, the Spirits of Form, with the Dynameis, the Spirits of Movement, with the Spirits of Wisdom, Kyriotetes, and also with the beings of the first hierarchy, with the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. Just as we, here in our human existence, focus on the world and, in the surrounding world, everything that is contained in the realms of nature appears to us, so we become aware, now not externally but internally, of the intervention of the higher hierarchies between death and a new birth. From a certain point of view, this is essentially the difference between sleep and death in a human being: that during sleep we are actually only indirectly connected with the beings of the third hierarchy, but after death we are connected with the beings of all three hierarchies, up to the highest spiritual beings.

Now, if you hold on to this, you will be able to see how man is placed in the whole universe, how man, as a microcosm, is connected to the whole universe, to the macrocosm. Let us visualize what I have said schematically. Let us say, then, that after death our spirit is inwardly connected with the beings of the third hierarchy, with the beings of the second hierarchy, with the beings of the first hierarchy, just as it is outwardly connected here with the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms, from which it is built. But there is another connection. When you get to know all the things that the beings of the third hierarchy initially work on – they also have other tasks, but we are only ever talking about things in parts, aren't we? The beings of the third hierarchy are individual beings that work individually and also through their work together through their effects, which bring forth something, create something. If you visualize what these entities of the third hierarchy work, it is first of all everything, I say, that happens in the historical life of humanity (see drawing on page 57). You can also grasp the thought in this way: No one knows anything of the reality of the historical life of humanity without having an inkling that what actually constitutes history is not made by human beings, but by the beings of the third hierarchy. The beings of the third hierarchy – angels, archangels, archai – actually make history, and man participates in the work of this third hierarchy by having his consciousness as a personality, his consciousness as a human being, as a historical being on earth, in the characterized way. So that man stands in the world is because these entities make up historical life, and man, in turn, has what he is inwardly and through which he is inwardly connected to historical life from these entities. The external historical life, which is recorded in popular history, which is essentially a fable convenante, is only a reflection of the inner historical life that is created in his development by the beings of the third hierarchy.

Now we may ask: What is the similar task of the beings of the second and first hierarchy, that is, the Exusiai, Dynameis, Kyriotetes, the form spirits, the movement spirits, the wisdom spirits? Yes, they have a much more comprehensive task. We will initially disregard their relationship to humans. You can best imagine this task in front of the soul when you focus on your etheric body. Right, when you start from your self and go inward, you come to your astral body. Through your astral body, you are connected to the historical life of humanity. In turn, the beings of the third hierarchy, who make up the historical life of people, have an effect on the historical life of humanity. But if you go further, if you go down to the etheric body, this etheric body is a very complicated entity. In today's consciousness, man is not aware of much of the complexity that underlies this human etheric body. But you do get a certain idea of what has to work in this ether body when you study “Occult Science in Outline”; there you are shown, in the succession of Saturn, Sun and Moon time, that is, the successive embodiments of our Earth, how this ether body develops from the entire cosmos, and how the beings of the higher hierarchies participate. If we express this in a vivid formula, we can say from a certain point of view: Everything in the becoming of the world that is now more comprehensive, with which our etheric body is just as connected as our astral body is with the historical life of humanity, is created and formed by the beings of the second hierarchy, by the Exusiai, Dynameis, Kyriotetes. So, to illustrate this, I will say: The beings of the second hierarchy create everything that has an effect on the human etheric body.

But this in turn gives rise to something else. When you wake up in the morning and immerse yourself in your etheric body, you actually plunge into the creature of the beings of the second hierarchy. And you also submerge into your physical body. Of this physical body, which is why the being of mystery calls it the temple of man, what the external anatomy and physiology reveal is really only the very, very outermost shell. One can only grasp this tremendous, wondrous structure of the human physical body if one knows that it is the creature of the interaction of the beings of the first hierarchy. When you descend into your physical body upon waking in the morning, you actually descend into the work of the highest hierarchies. So think about how things are distributed in life: here between birth and death, when we are awake, we first descend into our astral body, in which the historical life of humanity is effective. But we also dive into our etheric body, the creature of the second hierarchy, in which much of the cosmos is effective, the etheric life of the cosmos. And we dive into our physical body, which is the creation of the beings of the first hierarchy. And when we live between death and a new birth, we do not live with the creature, but with the creators themselves.

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Now you have one of the considerable differences in the life between birth and death and the life between death and a new birth. Here you descend by immersing yourself in your physicality, in all that is a creature of the higher hierarchies. When you die, you descend into the hierarchies themselves. You go from the creature to the creators. That is how things are connected.

And now, looking at what we have just discussed, let us ask: What exactly is our Earth? What geology and other sciences usually explore of our Earth is, after all, only the outer shell. What exactly is our Earth? As you know, we have our physical body in common with the entire mineral kingdom. Because we share our physical body with the entire mineral kingdom, we stand in it in a part of the earth when we are awake. We share our etheric body with the entire plant kingdom, standing in a second link of our earth. We share our astral body with the animal kingdom. We have the I for ourselves. There we stand in the three kingdoms of the earth, and our whole earth actually consists of the three kingdoms. This is the ground, so to speak, on which we stand, not physically, but with our human nature. But this cannot be seen, it remains supersensible. By standing on this ground, its lowest link is the mineral kingdom.

Now you remember from the “Geheimwissenschaft” that the mineral kingdom was not present during the earlier embodiments of our earth; the moon did not yet have a mineral kingdom, nor did the old sun, nor did Saturn. You only need to read about it in the “Geheimwissenschaft”. It was only on the earth, during the fourth embodiment of our earth, that the mineral kingdom came into being. I ask you to take careful note of this. It is a difficult matter, but it is an extraordinarily important one. In a sense, three formations had to precede it before the mineral earth could develop. We call these three formations the three elemental realms; the mineral realm is the fourth. We could also speak in these terms about the earlier embodiments: During the Saturn embodiment of our Earth: first elementary realm; during the Sun embodiment of our Earth: second elementary realm - the beings that were in the mineral realm at that time were earlier in the elementary realm -; during the Moon time - not the present time, the old Moon time -: third elementary realm. As we progress to Earth, the mineral realm arises as the fourth realm. Man carries this within himself.

To stand in the mineral kingdom is to stand in the fourth formation. We carry this mineral kingdom within us; only through this are we actually visible beings. But this mineral kingdom is also the only closed one in us. Only when the earth will have reached its end, when it will have entered into a different embodiment, will man be just as closed in the plant kingdom as he is today in the mineral kingdom. Then he would stand in the fifth formation. So the Earth will come to an end state and will arise anew: Jupiter time; man will then have his relationship to the plant kingdom as he has his relationship to the mineral kingdom today. He will stand in the fifth formation. To stand in the plant kingdom means to stand in the fifth formation.

There will come a new incarnation of our Earth, we call it the Venus incarnation, the Venusian age. Man will then stand for himself in the animal kingdom, not be an animal, but stand in the animal kingdom; as you know, this is different from being an animal. But to stand in the animal kingdom means to stand in the sixth formation. And then comes the conclusion, I would say, the seventh of all becoming. We call it the volcanic embodiment of the earth. Man has then reached the highest level of his education, only then has he become fully human. To stand in the human kingdom means to be in the seventh education, to stand in the seventh education. And in seven educations the life of man is complete.

Let us take a look at the human being today. He stands, as we do, in the mineral kingdom; he does not yet stand in the plant kingdom. When man stands in the plant kingdom, his whole life will be different. He will not feel as a personality, but as he feels today as a personality, he will feel as a human being, he will feel as a member of the whole of humanity. He will, for example, when he once stands in the plant kingdom, find it unbearable that he has a certain degree of happiness when someone next to him is surrounded by misfortune. Today, the human being feels as if he is closed off from other people by a partition. It must be so, otherwise man would never be able to develop his personality. But in the future kingdom of Jupiter, where man will be in the fifth education, it will be different; then it will be an absolutely unbearable thought that one can be happy and the other unhappy next to him, because people do not feel like an organism, as one says in abstracto. Now they do not feel as an organism: but that is an untruth, a deception, a maja. But the time will come when man will stand in the plant kingdom, where he will not find individual happiness tolerable when there is unhappiness next to him.

This thought underlies those spiritualists of whom I spoke to you yesterday. I told you: in the future, the English spiritualists will have to fight a great battle against the entire English popular culture. The flower of this popular culture is utilitarianism; and what this utilitarianism has driven out in Bentbam is essentially the principle that was called the maximation of happiness. This utilitarianism will increasingly fill their thinking. Therefore, only the opposition of the spiritually minded will enable this thinking to become spiritualized. That is the perspective for the future: the spiritually minded will have to overcome popular culture, to overcome it to the point of annihilation. That is why I was able to quote to you that Bentham, who, starting from popular culture, came to the principle that the good on earth consists in the happiness of the greatest number of people, has his most fierce opponents in the spiritually minded people of his own country, who tell him: That is a purely devilish definition, because this definition can only be made if you consider nothing but the mere present. If you think a little about the future of development, you know that the thought is quite unbearable: the happiness of the greatest number, because the opposite would be the unhappiness of the least number, and that would have to be evil. But evil and bliss have nothing to do with each other; for in the future, when man feels that he is in the plant kingdom, he feels that he is a member of the whole of humanity, and this opposite will be an impossibility. Just as today an important organic limb cannot simply be cut out of a human being without the whole human organism perishing, so in the future, when the earth is in the plant kingdom, not one particular group of people will be able to suffer without the whole suffering. That is a certain state of development that is coming. And because Bentham's definition of happiness has no future, only the present, it must be fought against, especially by those who aspire to spirituality.

Yes, why should it be a contradiction when it is said that good is defined by Bentham as the happiness of the greatest number, and evil is defined as the happiness of the least number? It is not an abstract contradiction for the rational mind, but the spiritualist does not think abstractly; the spiritualist thinks concretely. He does not think: What is the opposite of the other? but he thinks of the real that develops and that mostly does not agree with the mere thoughts of people.

And in an even higher degree the individual human being will participate in the whole when he is in the sixth education. And then especially when he is a full human being, a completely spiritualized human being, in the seventh education.

Yes, but we have seen from this that, as we now stand on the firm ground of the earth, we as human beings, insofar as we are creatures, actually only come to the fourth education. We have the mineral kingdom, that is finished. The other kingdoms, as they exist today, will partly perish, and man will develop them in a different way: the plant kingdom, as I have described it. We will not describe the animal and human kingdoms today, but next time.

Thus, today, when man regards himself as a creature standing among other creatures, he stands in the fourth formation. But he extends into the other formations, for we have seen that even in sleep man is under the influence of the third hierarchy. This hierarchy is further than he is, and is already in the fifth formation today, and the other beings are further still. So he extends into the higher levels of formation. I ask you to have the patience to really think through these subtle thoughts, because you now have to make the distinction between thinking of yourself as a creature and thinking of yourself as an independent spiritual being, which you are, for example, in sleep or between death and a new birth. Insofar as you think of yourself here in your physical, in your etheric body, astral body and I, insofar as you think of yourself as a creature on earth, you are in the fourth formation; but you reach into the fifth, sixth and seventh formations. By not living only in your body, but also outside of your body, in sleep or in death, you reach into the other hierarchies, and these other hierarchies are further. We can therefore say: If we regard the earth, with everything on and in it, as a created being, then it has reached the fourth level as a created being, and we have also reached the fourth level with it. But we rise up into the other spheres, into the other elements of formation, because we feel that we are independent personalities, that we feel that we are human, that we feel that we are members of the evolution of the earth, that we know that our etheric body is a creature of the second hierarchy, our physical body is a creature of the first hierarchy.

But the seventh education is not the end. Evolution continues, and by projecting into the higher forms of education, we also project into an eighth form of education, the famous eighth sphere. We can safely say: in a sense, by reaching up to highly developed levels of higher entities, we reach into the eighth sphere of education by standing in the pool of God or the spirit realm – as you like. But we reach into this eighth sphere of education with the finest components of our spiritual being. This reaching into the eighth education is a great secret, but we can still get an idea of a, I would say, very slight, not very intensive reaching into the eighth education, if we imagine the following.

We know that at the center of the earth stands the Mystery of Golgotha. If we look back at this Mystery of Golgotha, as it took place from the year 1 to 33 of our era, in the 747th year since the founding of Rome, it is in the first third of the fourth post-Atlantic period. We speak of the cultural development of humanity into which the Mystery of Golgotha fell, as of the fourth post-Atlantic cultural level. We know that the third post-Atlantean cultural stage was preceded by the Greco-Latin cultural epoch. We are now in the fifth, because the fourth, into which the Mystery of Golgotha fell, ended in the 15th century AD. So we are in the first third of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period. Now, the human being develops through the cultural periods, but when we describe these cultural periods, we are actually describing something that the human being does not fully experience. You were all embodied in the old Egyptian-Chaldean period, which is the third post-Atlantic period, then again in the Greek-Latin cultural period and in the present one; but you only ever experience the successive time – if things go well, don't they, even if someone lives to be eighty – just eighty years, and in between lies the much longer time that passes between death and a new birth. So of what we describe by describing the successive developmental periods of the earth, the human being only experiences a part.

You could, of course, say: Well, man only experiences a part here in the physical body; but he truly does not live in vain in the physical body: he experiences the world from the point of view of the physical body because he could not experience what he experiences from the physical body between death and a new birth. Whether what a person experiences in the pure spiritual realm between death and a new birth is valued more highly or less highly is not what we wish to discuss today. But it is different from what a person experiences here through his body, and it is very important to take this into account. And it is truly not in vain that man is placed in the world through his body; for he could not experience through his body in the world, always in episodes of the development of humanity as a whole, if he did not have the development of the body. It is a thoroughly false idea to have an ascetic attitude towards the development of the physical body on earth, regarding it merely as the enemy of the higher human being. In truth it is not that, but that which gives man something that he could not attain in any other way. And the man is very much mistaken who despises the life in the body, who regards the body as something low, for it means just a highest, an most important, a most meaningful in the whole life of man. And spiritual science can least of all follow that mysticism or that wrong direction of Christianity – not the right direction, but the wrong one – which despises what it calls the earthly world. Between death and a new birth, the human being experiences the world from a different perspective; he experiences it as he can experience it: now it is not the creatures that affect him through the physical body and etheric body, but the creators themselves. There he experiences something different.

This is why we have the task during our earthly career not only to get to know the world of the senses, but also the supersensible. For the historical life of humanity, which is a result of the third hierarchy, we cannot get to know from the perspective of earthly life. And for our time – I ask you to pay attention to the fact that I say: for our time, because it was not so in the pre-Christian era – for our time it is essential that the human being becomes aware: he must, while he lives here on earth between birth and death, also get to know, if he wants to get to know himself as a historical being, what angels, archangels and archai work as historical life. If we only get to know the world in the way that today's scientists want to know it, if we only get to know the world as history describes it, as if history were made by human beings alone and not by the beings of the third hierarchy, then we only get to know the outermost layers of historical development. Only he gets to know history who is aware that he must, so to speak, contemplate here in the physical body what the beings on earth do between death and a new birth in a completely different way - if I may use the expression, which is only used comparatively - which he gets to know personally, individually, in their heavenly deeds. He must get to know it in its effects on earth in historical life.

'But it was not always like that; that is how it is in the time in which we now live. Above all, it was not like that in the third post-Atlantean period, before the year 747, in the Egyptian-Chaldean period. We know that the whole spiritual life, the whole state of mind of people was different then. Then the supermundane life radiated into the ordinary human life, then man knew, even if he interpreted it differently than we now interpret it in the mythologies: the entities of the third hierarchy worked into his ego and his astral body. He meant the beings of the third hierarchy, called them Osiris or Zeus or Apollo or Minerva or whatever, but he knew: these beings, which he only invented and interpreted in this way – but the invention and interpretation related to these beings – they have an effect. Even if he had not wanted to see them, he would have seen them inwardly, for in those ancient times there was not the same delusion of consciousness as there is today; but there was only the delusion of life, which, as one says, anthropomorphized these figures. But one knew about these figures.

This is also one of the points through which the whole life of people has changed. Today, people in their ordinary consciousness do not know what is playing into their lives. Man was born as a soul being in this third post-Atlantean time, was born again in the fourth post-Atlantean time, and was born again in our time. He does not see what the beings of the third hierarchy bring about as historical life, but he should get to know it, he should really get to know it! Not in its true form, but in mythological form, did the old man get to know it.

Now put yourself in the shoes of such a human soul – there are more incarnations, as you know, but let us consider three consecutive ones: one Egyptian, one Greek, one from the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period – let us put ourselves in the shoes of such a human soul. During the third, during the Egyptian-Chaldean cultural period, it experiences what it could experience through the fact that the entities of the third hierarchy played into life. This had gradually dawned. Some had still experienced it in the fourth, in the Greco-Latin period; many people had still experienced it in an orderly way until the year 333 after the Mystery of Golgotha, then it gradually disappeared; then people had to more and more confine themselves to what is present in the external sense world, if they did not develop inwardly in such a way that they could get to know the spiritual world again in a different way and thus ascend to the entities of the third hierarchy.

And now, when we look at such a soul that is returning, it comes with all that it has absorbed in the third post-Atlantean period, in the Egyptian-Chaldean cultural period. It comes with all that, but let us assume that such a soul refuse to look at the deeds of the third hierarchy in the historical life of humanity in the present incarnation and say to herself: What do I care what the angels, archangels and archai have done; for me, history is what human beings have ever done here on earth. Such a soul does not take into account that in everything that human beings have done on earth, the deeds of the third hierarchy are involved. Let us now assume for the sake of clarity – for some souls it also applies to the fourth, the Greco-Latin period, up to the year 333 – but let us assume for the sake of clarity that such a soul comes over from the Egyptian-Chaldean, from the third post-Atlantean period , from the third post-Atlantean period, it would not need to make any effort to know about the deeds of the third hierarchy, because that came into human life by itself; that is what this soul still carries within it. So we say that this soul was able to process back then, and that is what it carries within it. One could not have said to an ancient Egyptian – he had no real concept of historical life, but he did look to historical life – but one could not have said to him about this historical life: people make history. He would only have laughed, because he saw that the entities of the third hierarchy made history, even if he also presented them in a sensuous way in his own way.

All this is within the present-day human being, but unconsciously, of course; it has descended into the subconscious. Now they believe that history is something that people on earth have made. This gives rise to a strange state of mind, which I ask you to consider very carefully. If we were to look at such a soul in the present, we would say that this soul refuses to place itself in the historical life of humanity in reality; it says: I want to know nothing of the deeds of the archai, the archangels, the angels; I only want to know from external testimonies what people have done since those ancient times. But in this way such a soul cannot develop further; in reality such a soul remains at the point of view at which it stood in the old Egyptian times; it only has the maturity of a soul of the old Egyptian times, it does not allow itself to grasp reality. The angels, archangels and archai have developed further, they have done what could be experienced by humanity since then. Such a soul says: What the hierarchies have already done up there in the spiritual world, I will not get involved in that; I will only get involved in my own abilities. But the abilities are none other than those which she already had during the ancient Egyptian times.

Numerous such souls live in the present, and think of the peculiar situation of such a soul! Until the year 333, a soul could not yet come into this situation, because the spiritual world still extended into it by itself; but now, since that time, souls can be in a strange position: they cannot resist reality, in reality they are naturally in it, in what the angels, archangels and archai do, but they deny this with their consciousness, they only take up in their consciousness that which has been brought about here on earth by people themselves.

This is a case where people as creatures are in the fourth formation, because the fourth stage of formation is everything that happens in a creaturely way. So what men on Earth have done since Egyptian times belongs to the fourth education, but man himself rises above that, and due to the fact that since the year 333 he cannot consciously reach into it at all with his whole being, into what he actually reaches, due to that he even stands with his nature above the seventh level of education, he stands in the eighth level of education. So that today there is the possibility that souls are in fact in the eighth stage of education, but do not recognize it because they do not recognize the activity of the historical life of men through the angels, archangels and archai, but only recognize the fourth stage, so that the eighth sphere remains unconscious in them. This is an extraordinarily important fact.

If a world view arises from this state of mind, what then arises? Man ignores his own reality, he does not admit that he extends into a high spiritual realm, although he really does extend into it, but he only admits that he is in the human realm. This state of mind has only clearly come to light in what I have called the industrial age in recent days. Only the fact that people are immersed in the whole of industrial life has led them to completely ignore the fact that man reaches up into the spiritual world within a world view and only to take into account the external deeds of men. That is something significant. One cannot understand the present if one does not know that there are numerous people today who, with their world view, reach into the eighth sphere, and ignore this fact, that is to say, they bring all the damage to earth that reaching into a sphere of the world brings when one denies its existence. For by denying that he is projecting into the eighth sphere, into the eighth stage of education, he shuts himself out from the good beings of that stage of education and delivers himself into the hands of the Ahrimanic spirit of that stage of education. His thinking becomes, instead of divine or spiritual, Ahrimanic.

When speaking in spiritual scientific terms, one must point to the facts of this world in their truth. And the truth is, for example, that something like the materialistic historical view of Karl Marx, who lived from 1818 to 1883, that Karl Marx's world view is a purely Ahrimanic one. Its secret is based on the fact that only what is materially occurring on earth is recognized, that the way in which the human being's spirituality reaches up into the supersensible worlds is ignored, and that as a result of this ignorance, the human being falls prey to the Ahrimanic powers. For as soon as man excludes his consciousness from the worlds into which he reaches up, he falls prey to the ahrimanic or luciferic, in this case the ahrimanic, powers.

Now, we are faced with the fact that numerous people today advocate a purely Ahrimanic world view, fight for this purely Ahrimanic world view, and thereby also conjure up over the earth all that must come when the Ahrimanic order spreads over the earth instead of the divine order. Bentham's philosophy, of which I spoke to you yesterday, is in the first place an external theoretical expression of this Ahrimanic view of life. Marxism is such an expression, which is also already creative, which is formative, which has an enormous influence. And the indolence of bourgeois life knows nothing about it and has not cared for decades what elements of such world views have developed in the sphere of social life. Marxism is an extreme expression of this. It will continue to have an effect. What at first was only meant to be knowledge will become an event, will actually become reality. Only insight into these things, which in turn forms the will, can help in these matters.

Such truths are drastic, such truths are truly not suitable for mere Sunday sensationalism; such truths are that which is most intimately connected with the whole cultural life of the present day. And much will depend on people's willingness to recognize that which lives in their thoughts in connection with the whole order of the world. For in our time we have entered the cycle of time in which we cannot advance without falling into terrible catastrophes if we do not understand how what takes place in the human being relates to the evolution of the whole cosmos.

Such truths, when they are discovered in the search for truth – you can take my word for it – are initially disturbing. If you have a feeling for the impact of the great truths in the world, you also know the feeling of being disturbed by these great truths. It is not easy to live in the life of truth. Only the superficial might think that it is not disturbing to have to say to oneself: people, a great number of whom believed – and that is also true! – that they honestly strove for the truth, are permeated by the spirit of Ahriman! It strikes at the heart, my dear friends! Therefore, when such truths arise, one tries to come to terms with them. These truths are not there to be let in at one ear and out at the other. Nor are they there to be found in one's lonely meditation and accepted as sensations. These truths are not there for that. One must come to terms with them. One must be able to find how what one knows as world evolution, what is all around one, also agrees with what people judge, that something like that is there.

Anyone who, like me, has seen how many people there are today - now people can see for themselves through external facts - who live by Marxism or Marxism-like views, is faced with the necessity of taking a closer look at these things. One often says to oneself: Perhaps you are an illusionist after all! Of course one need not immediately doubt the whole spiritual world, but with regard to such concrete truths one often says to oneself: Perhaps you are succumbing to illusions after all! — The deep sense of responsibility towards the truth must arise precisely in the face of spiritual truths. Then one seeks to dig deeper and deeper. But there is indeed not a little, but a great deal, a great deal, which provides terrible confirmation of what I have just explained to you as the ahrimanic character of, for example, Marxism or similar world views.

When I spoke here some time ago, I made a certain demand of you. I spoke about the fact that the time as we experience it is actually an illusion, that time is in reality something quite different from how man experiences it, because man does not take time perspectively, I said at the time. Man experiences space perspectively; he sees the more distant trees smaller than the nearby trees. In reality, time is also to be seen perspectively. Events that lie far apart in time are to be seen differently than those that lie close together in time. But this is only the basis for time really being what the researchers of all times have regarded it as: time is the most important medium of human deception. We imagine, for example, that the beings of the higher hierarchies also flow through time as our own soul life flows through time: there is no truth in this. In reality, the essence of the higher hierarchies lies in elapsed times, but they work across from the elapsed times, as one can work across in space from a distant place, for example, through light signals or something similar, to beings in a nearby place in space. Time is not what people see it as, nor is time what philosophers like Kant see it as, but time in its reality is something completely different. And what man sees as reality is also a maja, a great deception. Above all, what we believe to be past remains, because we live in time as a deception. But it remains there; time really becomes something like space. And one looks at past events in the same way that one looks at distant objects in space, if one truly sees. Time is an illusion.

And further, spiritual science knows that the sources of other great illusions in human worldviews arise from the fact that man succumbs to deception with regard to time. If there were many physicists among you, I could express myself here in purely physical terms. I could show you with the help of physical formulas that just as the physicist introduces time - t, as he merely calls it - into the physical formulas, this time is only a number, and thus something quite unknown, not a reality but pure appearance. The only thing that is real is the speed, but the physicist regards this as a consequence of time. Since you are not physicists and probably will not get involved in understanding the matter, I will not go into it further either.

Time is an illusion, that is a profound truth, because time as an illusion underlies many other illusions of life. For example, if you apply time incorrectly in the course of history, you see everything in the wrong light. People in the first three Christian centuries thought that certain things that had happened were over and done with. In reality, they should have thought: the archangel or being from the hierarchy of archai who guided the events of that time is still there; it continues to have an effect in a different way. The past is only an illusion. It is very important for people to realize that time has a perspective character for spiritual reality, that they must be just as mistaken about events in the course of time – while they do not believe this – as they are about events in space if they do not allow for perspective. Consider how great the deception would be if you did not allow for perspective, if you regarded what is far away in space as having the same effect as what is close by. You are looking at a distant mountain. Your health depends to a great extent on the air around you; the air on the distant mountain does not, because if you want it to be beneficial to your health, you have to go there. As soon as we are dealing with reality in life, reality is essentially connected with perspective. But it is the same with regard to time. We live in the present when we do not believe that the more distant events of the past can be weighed as much as the near events. If we look at the Egyptian-Chaldean period in the third post-Atlantic period and only consider what the documents provide and register them as Torengeschichte registers, the fable convenue, which today calls itself history, then we make the perspective mistake. For what people did outwardly during the Egyptian period has no significance at all for today's life, but what the angels and archangels and archai did has significance; but this only emerges in the perspective formed by observation. Therefore, it is a principle, and not only today, when we all have to rediscover these things on the basis of anthroposophy, but in all times it was a principle for all spiritual researchers, that time as such is an illusion, and never was time counted in such a way by a real knower of reality that it was thought to be a truth, that it itself would have been thought of as a true reality.

Now the strange thing came to light, this Karl Marx of whom I have spoken to you, to whom millions swear today, albeit more or less in shades, more or less in formulas - but that's not what . Those who know these things know that thousands of people swear by him, or if they do not swear consciously outwardly, they do so subconsciously. This Karl Marx tried to answer the question: what are the true goods of humanity? What is it really that is achieved in humanity? — He answers the question in an extraordinarily original way, for it has never been answered before; human goods have always been considered in some other way than Karl Marx considers them. What human goods are was considered, let us say, for example, in terms of whether it had to be brought from afar, whether a lot of understanding was needed to find it, or the like. I once tried to make this clear to you by saying: Human labor must also be considered qualitatively; one must generally get involved in the concrete. We consider the elaborate Gotthard Tunnel. No one today who builds something like the Gotthard Tunnel is unfamiliar with differential and integral calculus, and differential and integral calculus is a Leibniz or, if it is better liked in England, a Newtonian - the two were arguing about the honor - invention. So one can say that Newton or Leibniz helped to create the Gotthard Tunnel. Yes, without them it would certainly not have been built! Now, the work of Newton or Leibniz must be evaluated in a completely different way than the work of someone who lays one stone on top of another in the Gotthard Tunnel. This is one way of evaluating human goods, human labor. The theory of the value of human labor, of human life, has taken various forms. Labor, goods of life, have been evaluated from the most diverse points of view, but never as Marx evaluated them. Karl Marx takes up a single element in his theory of value. For him, everything that has value in human life is only valuable because it is condensed time, namely condensed working time. Whether something can be produced in three hours, six hours, or twelve hours is the measure of its economic and global economic value. A large part of Marx's theory, which is so common today that it is possible to see it when someone from the so-called higher classes talks about work from his point of view, is based on this. A real socialist, a worker, stands up and says: “Please look it up in Karl Marx – of course he doesn't have the book with him – please, page 374, you will find this or that there.

One must really know life in order to be able to judge life, otherwise one will be amazed everywhere that this or that happens here or there. What happens happens out of the impulses of the human soul. But if one cares as little as people on earth have cared in recent decades about what has actually been going on at the bottom of the human soul, then one should not be at all surprised when the whole thing finally collapses catastrophically. But I have explained this for a special reason. It is the first time that the original has occurred, that what is only the source of deception has been made the standard of all economic values: time in the form of working hours.

So take this from a higher perspective. People who understand reality have always known that time is an illusion. Now someone comes along and says: But what has value in the world has only as much value as condensed working time is contained in it. Does that not mean in other words that your reality is an illusion and only that which is condensed time has real value? The deception is made into reality right down to the form of time by those who want to be completely materialistic, who want to stand only on the ground of reality, and reality is overlooked.

This is just one example. I could show you numerous things that comfort when one is dismayed by truths that, if one has a heart for the life of humanity, thunder into the mind. But when one then studies the matter in detail, when one looks at the hand of someone like Karl Marx, whose spirit is known to be Ahrimanic, and asks him: How do you proceed in detail? — then it is indeed the case that one comes across the Ahrimanic, and one feels: You may admit such truths to yourself. — I just wanted to give you one example here. It is not easy to have to say: Everything that protrudes into the world anachronistically today does so because people have left the spiritual world, which thus becomes their eighth sphere, and they only perceive the world in material terms. If you take this, then you will feel with all its weight what it means when I repeatedly emphasize: Today it does not matter at all whether a person says something beautiful, something that can be admitted, but what really matters is what comes from what one says or does. I must tell again and again how I have been repeatedly tested – you know I am not saying this out of some silly vanity – to draw attention to the fact that it does not matter what one thinks, but that one sees what effect one's thoughts have. You can have a thought that is absolutely wonderful. But if you have no idea how this thought will work in reality, it can have the opposite effect. I have been trying to make such things clear in various examples for years. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, I once gave a lecture in which I said – I will now summarize much of what was discussed at the time in a few words, because I just want to illustrate –: Today there are more people who are programmatic pacifists, talking very nicely about the leadership of humanity from their pacifist point of view. Pacifism has never actually assumed such proportions as in this time – so I spoke at the beginning of the century. And that is, I said, a clear sign that we are facing the greatest war of humanity. For people in the past did not think about human interrelations in such an unrealistic way as they have done within these circles, they only went so far as the content of their thoughts, and had so little awareness of the real effectiveness of what lives in the soul that one can only recognize it through the whole world perspective. This is only done in the age in which all the things we have been talking about have been spreading.

How is it that something that is no more than a train of thought, and a very unreal one at that, can set the tone for many people, a thought that can never have anything to do with what is happening? This is Woodrow Wilson's train of thought, Wilsonian train of thought, which is nothing more than Egyptian-Chaldean train of thought, which does not care that there is a spiritual reality in history, but only adds abstract thoughts to each other. It comes from all these peculiarities of our age. A future historiography will have to baptize everything that our time has produced in terms of unreal thoughts that bring about the opposite, in the name of Woodrow Wilson.

That is what is decisive in our world view, what must be decisive, and what must be considered not from today to tomorrow, but from the point of view of the whole of cosmology, from the point of view of being placed in it. He who answers such questions from the point of view that arises out of a complete world-view judges such people as Woodrow Wilson is, not from sympathies or antipathies, but judges as one judges objectively about something. But that is the anachronism, that very many people today cannot get involved in it, because it is uncomfortable to look things in the face. You cannot look things in the face if you do not research them in depth. This must be said of such souls, who today have no connection to historical life: they are souls who ignore what real history has been through the third hierarchy and therefore do not deal with the real impulses when they speak, but basically only with empty words.

This is a fundamental requirement of our time: that we come to terms with it and realize that, even if we have the most beautiful concepts that the human mind can grasp, the most beautiful concepts that are quite sufficient to explore the nature that is spread around us, we will never understand anything about history. For history does not unfold as natural life unfolds; history unfolds as the deeds of spiritual entities. This is what must be added to the other world views. From theocracy, as I described to you yesterday, people emerged by still remembering the old theocratic order during the time of theocracy; then the metaphysical time came, which essentially developed the civil service throughout the world; then the purely materialistic time came, the time of industrialists. This would lead completely into the unreal in relation to the spiritual, if it were not for the counterweight of working one's way back into the real, into the actual, which, however, can only be observed if one can ascend to that which is veiled for man in ordinary life in the present time cycle. We must learn again to speak of supersensible things if we want to speak of history. In the nineteenth century people often spoke of historical ideas. Everyone knows that you can't chop down a tree with ideas, but the followers of Ranke and similar historians believe that the historical life of humanity is brought about by ideas. We must realize that this time, the mere metaphysical time, must also be overcome, otherwise that world view, which is purely limited to the sensual, will become overgrown. Mankind must work towards the spiritual. It can only do so if it first works its way through the field of history, from the apparent succession of events in time to the real event, which, I might say, is so tangible behind the external sensory reality, especially in the case of history. Then, however, one will no longer create social or similar programs based on ideas that relate only to the external life, but one will proclaim one's social programs again based on the revelations of the spiritual world. But the programs that people create today are very, very different from these revelations from the spiritual world.

We will discuss this next time. I will continue these reflections next Friday; they cannot be concluded so quickly.

My dear friends,

Today I would like to bring before you a few important considerations connected with the matters that we have now for a long time regarded as our task. When we reflect on the way in which spiritual science, as here intended, is able to consider and to give answers to the questions of life, we must above all take careful heed to the fact that this spiritual science, and indeed for that matter the whole present and the future time, makes new and different demands on man's powers of comprehension and of thought. He has to think in a different way from what he is accustomed to, in accordance with the habits of thoughts of the immediate past and of the present—especially the habits of thought arising from science and its popularization. You are well aware that all that spiritual science has to say concerning any sphere of life and hence too what it has to say on the social question, indeed especially what it has to say on the social question, is the expression of the results of research—results that have not been obtained on any merely rationalistic or abstract path, but that have been sought and found in the realm of spiritual reality. They can be understood, as we know, with the help of a sound and healthy human intelligence—they can, however, only be discovered when one rises above the ordinary consciousness, such as is comprised within rational thinking, abstract thinking, natural scientific research and so forth—rises above this ordinary consciousness to the Imaginative, Inspired, and Intuitive consciousness. What comes to light on the path of Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition—this it is, formulated in concepts and ideas that are capable of expression, that fills the content of the science which Anthroposophical research has to give.

We have to accustom ourselves—and this is what makes it so hard for many of our contemporaries to tread the necessary path from the usual thinking of today to the Spiritual Science of Anthroposophy—we have to accustom ourselves to quite a new and different conception of wherein the finding of truth consists. Today men ask so lightly: can this or that be proven? The question is justified of course. But, my dear friends, we have also to look at the question from the standpoint of reality. If we mean: can what the spiritual researcher brings forward be proved in accordance with the conceptions and ideas that we have already acquired, in accordance with the customary ideas which we have imbibed through our education, through our everyday life?—If we mean this, we are making a great mistake; for the results of spiritual research are drawn from reality.

Let me make clear to you by a quite trivial, simple comparison, how the ordinary thinking that runs on purely abstract lines may fall into error. One thought is supposed to follow from another. The error is that if people see: As a thought it does not follow—they concluded that it must be false, while all the time from the point of view of reality it still may be perfectly true. The consequences in reality are not always the same as the consequences in mere thought; the Logic of Reality is a different thing from the Logic of Thought.

In our time, the metaphysical legalistic way of thinking has taken such hold upon men that they are wont to think that everything must be comprehended with the Logic of Thought. But that is not the case. Listen to this, for example. Take a cube measuring—let us say—30 centimeters each way. Now if someone were to say to you: “This cube, measuring 30 centimeters each way, is raised up a meter and a half above the floor”—if you were not yourself in the room where the cube is, you would be able with your pure thought-logic to say one thing: you would be able to conclude from what was said to you: The cube must be standing on something. There must be a table there of the corresponding height, for the cube can certainly not hover in the air. This, then, you can conclude even when you are not present there, even when you have no experience of it.

But now let us suppose: A ball is lying on the cube; something is lying upon it. That you cannot conclude by thinking, that you must see. You must behold it. And yet the ball, too, corresponds to reality. The reality is thus filled with things and entities that have of course a logic in themselves, a logic, however, that does not coincide with the pure thought-logic; the logic of sight is a different thinking from the logic of mere thought.

This necessitates, however, my dear friends, that we should at length learn that we cannot only call proof the so-called logical sequences to which modern thinking has grown accustomed. Unless we learn this, we shall never arrive at a true understanding of things. In the domain in which I have been speaking to you now for some weeks—in the domain of social life, of the structure of human society, many new demands result simply from the fundamental premises that I have set before you concerning the three-fold division of society which will be necessary for the future. One such result is, for example, a quite definite system of taxation. But this system of taxation, once more, can only be found by calling to our help the logic of things seen. The mere logic of thought is insufficient. It is this that makes it necessary that men should listen to those who know something of these things, for when the thing has once been said, then the healthy human intelligence, my dear friends, will always suffice; it can always corroborate and “control” what the spiritual researcher says. The healthy human understanding, however, is something very different from the logic of thought, which is developed especially through the way of thinking that is prevalent today, soaked and steeped as it is in the natural-scientific point of view. From all this you will understand that spiritual science is not intended merely to make us receive a certain collection of ideas and then think that we can handle these ideas much as we would handle information we acquire through natural science or the like. That is absolutely impossible and is not to be imagined for a moment. If we think that we are making a great mistake. Spiritual Science makes a man think in an altogether new way. It makes him comprehend the world in an altogether different way than he has done before, it makes him learn not merely to perceive other things than before, but to perceive in a new way. When you enter into spiritual science you must always bear this in mind, you must be able to ask yourself again and again: Am I learning to look at the world in a new way through my receiving of Spiritual Science—not clairvoyance but Spiritual Science—am I learning to look at the world in another way from what I have done hitherto? For indeed, my dear friends, one who regards Spiritual Science as a collection of facts, a compendium of knowledge, may well know a great deal, but if he still only thinks in the same way as he thought before, then he has not received Spiritual Science. He has only taken up Spiritual Science if the manner, the form, the structure of his thinking has changed, if in a certain respect he has become another man than he was before. And this can only come about through the might and the power of the ideas which we receive through Spiritual Science.

Now if we are to think about the social question, it is absolutely essential that this change, which can only come about through Spiritual Science, should enter our thinking, for only in this light can that be understood to which I directed your attention yesterday. Yesterday I spoke to you of the economists of the schools, the present-day exponents of the theories of economists. I pointed out to you how utterly helpless they are in the face of realities. Why are they so helpless? Because they are bent on understanding with the Natural-Scientific type of thinking something that cannot thus be understood. We shall have to make up our minds to conceive the social life, not with the kind of thinking that is brought up on Natural Science but in an altogether different way. Only then shall we be able to find fruitful social ideas—fruitful in life, capable of realization.

I have already once drawn your attention to a thing that may well have astonished one or another among you; yet it needs to be deeply thought over. I said: The logical conclusion which one will tend to draw from such and such ideas, maybe from a whole “world-conception” are by no means always identical with that which follows from such a world-conception in real life. I mean the following: A man may hold a certain number of ideas or even an entire world-conception. You may envisage this world-conception clearly according to the ideas it contains and you may then perhaps draw further conclusions from it—conclusions which you will quite rightly presume to be logical, you may imagine that such conclusions, which you can logically draw from a world-conception, must necessarily follow from it. But that is by no means the case. Life itself may draw altogether different conclusions. And you may be highly astonished to see how life draws its different conclusions. What do I mean by this? Let us assume a world-conception which appears to you highly idealistic, and—we may assume—rightly so. It contains wonderfully idealistic ideas. You yourself will probably admit only the logical conclusions of your world-conception but if you sink this into another mind, if you take into account the reality of life even where it leads you across the chasms that separate one human being from another—the following may happen: and only Spiritual Science can explain the necessity of such a sequence. You instruct your son or daughter or your pupil in your idealistic world-conception, and they afterwards become thorough scamps and rascals. It may well happen in the reality of life that rascality will follow as the consequence from your idealistic philosophy!

That of course is an extreme case, though one that might well happen in real life. I only wish to bring it home to you that other conclusions are drawn in real life than in mere thought. Hence it is that the men of today are so far removed from reality, because they do not see through such things as these; they are not really willing to bring to consciousness what was formerly done instinctively. The instincts of past ages felt clearly enough that this or that would arise from one thing or another in real life. They were by no means inclined only to presume the consequences that follow by the logical thought. The instincts themselves worked with a logic of their own. But today men have come into a kind of uncertainty, and this uncertainty will naturally grow ever greater in the age of the evolution of the Spiritual Soul unless we make the counterbalance, which is: consciously to receive into ourselves the Logic of Reality. And we do receive it the moment we earnestly consider in its own essence and process the Spiritual that lives and moves behind the realities of sense.

I will tell you a practical case to illustrate what I have just explained in a more theoretic way. It will serve at the same time to illustrate another thing, namely how far we can go wrong, if we merely look at the external symptoms. In my lecture this week, I spoke of the symptomatic method in the study of history. Altogether, the symptomatic method is a thing that we must make our own, if we would pass from the outer phenomena to the underlying Reality.

A Russian author and philosopher of the name of Berdiayeff recently wrote an interesting article on the philosophical evolution in the Russian people in the second half of the nineteenth century and until the present day. There are two remarkable things in this essay of Berdiayeff's. One is that the author takes his start from a peculiar prejudice, proving that he has no insight into those truths, with which you must by now be thoroughly familiar—I mean the truth that in the Russian East, preparing for the Sixth Post-Atlantean Age (the age of the evolution of the Spiritual Life), altogether new elements are on the point of emerging, though today they are only there in embryo. Berdiayeff being ignorant of this fact, his judgment on one point is quite incorrect. He says to himself (and as a Russian philosopher he must surely know the facts), he says: It is strange that in Russia as against the Western European civilizations we have no real sense (especially in philosophy) for what in the West they call the Truth. Russians have been much interested in the philosophy of the West, yet they have no real feeling for it inasmuch as it strives towards “The Truth.” They only take up the truths of philosophy inasmuch as they are serviceable for life, inasmuch as they are directly useful to some conception of life. The Socialist, e.g., is interested in philosophy because he imagines that this or that philosophy will provide him with a justification for his socialism. Similarly the orthodox Believer will interest himself in some philosophy, not, like a Western man because it is the Truth, but because it gives him a justification or a basis for his Orthodox Belief. And so on. Berdiayeff regards this as a great failing in the Folk-Soul of modern Russia. He says: In the West they are far in advance of us. They do not imagine that Truth must follow life; they really believe that Truth is Truth; the Truth is there, and life must take its direction from it. And Berdiayeff actually adds the extraordinary statement (albeit not extraordinary for the men of the present day, who will take it quite as a matter of course, but extraordinary for the Spiritual Scientists) he adds the statement: The Russian socialist has no right to use the expression “bourgeois science,” for bourgeois science contains the truth; it has at last established the concept of Truth, and that is a thing that cannot be refitted. It is therefore a failing on the part of the Russian Folk-Soul to believe that this Truth too can be transcended!

Berdiayeff shares this curious opinion, not only with the whole world of professors, but with all their faithful followers, to wit, the whole bourgeois of Western and Middle Europe, the aristocracy especially so, and the rest. Berdiayeff simply does not know what is now germinating in the Russian Folk Soul, which comes to expression for this very reason in a frequently tumultuous and distorted form. He does not know that in this conception of Truth from the standpoint of life, crooked as it may be today, there lies a real seed for the conception of the future. In the future it will right itself, of that we may be sure. When once what is preparing today as a germinating seed will have unfolded, I mean the directing of all human evolution towards the spiritual life, then indeed will that which men call the “Truth” today have an altogether different form. Today I have drawn your attention to some peculiar facts in this respect. This Truth, my dear friends, will among other things bring to man's consciousness what the men of today cannot realize, that the logic of facts, the logic of reality, the logic of things seen is a very different thing from the mere logic of concepts. And this transformed conception of the Truth will have some other interesting qualities. That is the one thing which you see emerging in Berdiayeff's essay. It is remarkable enough, for it shows how little such a learned author lives in the real trend and meaning of the evolution of our time, which he might well perceive in his own nation above all, but cannot recognize, laboring as he does under this prejudice.

The other thing must be considered in quite a different direction. Berdiayeff, as the whole spirit of his essay shows, witnesses the rise of Bolshevism with great discomfort. Well, in that respect, the one man or the other, according as he is a Bolshevist or the reverse, will say that Berdiayeff is right or wrong. I do not propose to dilate just now upon this question. I will describe the facts, I will not criticize. But this is the important thing: In the sixties, so says Berdiayeff, there was already the tendency to regard Truth and Philosophy as dependent on life, and at that time materialism found entry into Russia. Men believed in Materialism, because they found it useful and profitable for life. Then, in the seventies, Positivism, such as is held by Auguste Comte for example, came into vogue. And after that, other points of view, for example that of Nietzsche, found entry into Russia among the people known as the Intelligentsia. And now Berdiayeff asks the question: What kind of philosophy do we find among the Intelligentsia of the Bolsheviks? For, indeed, a certain philosophy is prevalent among them. But how this particular philosophy can go with Bolshevism, that Berdiayeff is quite at a loss to explain. He simply cannot understand how Bolshevism can regard as its own philosophy—curiously enough—the doctrine of Avenarius and Mach.

And, truth to tell, my dear friends, if you had told Avenarius and Mach that their philosophy was to be accepted by such people as the Bolsheviks, they themselves would have been still more astonished and angry than Berdiayeff. They would have been most indignant (both of them, as you know, are now dead) if they had lived to see themselves as the official philosophers of Bolshevism. Imagine Avenarius, the worthy bourgeois, who of course had always assumed that he could only be understood by people who—well, who wore at any rate decent clothes, people who would never do violence to anyone in the Bolshevist manner, in short, good “respectable” people, in the sense in which one used the expression in the sixties, seventies and eighties. And it is true, if we consider only the content of the philosophy of Avenarius, we are still more at a loss to understand how it happened. For what does Avenarius think? Avenarius says: Men labor under a prejudice. They think: within, in my head, or in my soul or wherever it is, are the ideas, the perceptions, they are there subjectively; outside are the objects. But, says Avenarius, this is not correct. If I were all alone in the world, I should never arrive at the distinction between subject and object. I am led to make the distinction only through the fact that other people are there too. I alone beheld a table, I should never come to the idea that the table is out there in space and a picture of it here in my brain. I would simply have the table, and would not distinguish between subject and object. I only distinguish between them because, when I look at the table with another man, I say to myself: He sees the table, and I too perceive it. The perception is in my head too. I reflect that what he senses I am also sensing. Such are partly theoretical considerations (I will not go into them more fully, you would say: All these things do not interest us) within which Avenarius' thought lives and moves. In 1876 he wrote his book Conception of the World According to the Principle of Least Action. For on such premises as I have here explained to you, he shows how the concepts we have as human beings have no real value, but that we only create them for the sake of mental economy. According to Avenarius, the concept “Lion,” for example, or the concept that finds expression in a “Natural Law” is nothing real, nor does it refer to anything real. It is only uneconomical if in the course of my life I have seen five or six or even thirty lions and am now to conceive them each and severally. I therefore proceed in a more economical way, and make myself a single concept “Lion,” embracing all the thirty. Thus all our forming of concepts is a mere matter of subjective mental economy.

Mach holds a similar view. It was Mach of whom I told you how he once got into an omnibus where there was a mirror. As he got in, he saw a man coming in from the other side. Now the appearance of this man was highly antipathetic to him, and he said to himself: “What a weedy-looking schoolmaster.”—only then did he perceive that there was a mirror hanging there and that he had simply seen himself. Mach tells the story to indicate how little one knows oneself, even in one's external human form how little self-knowledge man has. He even tells of another occasion when he passed a shop window which acted as a mirror and thus again met himself and was quite annoyed to come across such an ugly-looking pedant.

Mach proceeded in a rather more popular fashion, but his idea is the same as that of Avenarius. He says: there are not subjective ideas on the one hand, and objective things on the other. All that exists in reality is the content of our sensations. I, to myself, am only a content of sensation, the table outside me is a content of sensation, my brain is a content of sensation. Everything is a content of sensation, and the concepts men make for themselves only exist for the purpose of economy. It was about the year 1881; I was present at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna where Mach gave his lecture on the Economy of Thought, entitled: “Thought as a Principle of the Least Action.” I must say, it made quite a terrible impression upon me, who was then a mere boy, at the very beginning of the twenties. It made a terrible impression on me when I saw that there were men so radical in their ideas, without an inkling of the fact that on the paths of thought there enters into the human soul the first beginning of a manifestation of the super-sensible, the spiritual. Here was a man who denied the reality of concepts to such an extent as to see in them the mere results of a mental activity bent upon economy.

But in Mach and Avenarius—you will not misunderstand my words—all this takes place entirely within the limit of thoroughly “respectable” thinking. We should naturally assume that these two men and all their followers are worthy folk of sound middle-class opinion, utterly removed from any even moderately radical, let alone revolutionary ideas, in practice. And now all of a sudden they have become the official Philosophers of the Bolsheviks! No one could have dreamt of such a thing. Perhaps you may read Avenarius' booklet on the “Principle of Least Action.” It may interest you, it is quite well written. But if you were to tackle his “Philosophy of Experience,” I fancy you would not get very far, you would find it appallingly dull. Written as it is in an absolutely professorial style, there is not the slightest possibility of your drawing even the least vestige of Bolshevism as a conclusion from it. You would not even derive from it a practical world-conception of the most gentle radicalism.

I am well aware, my dear friends, of the objection which those who take symptoms for realities might now bring forward against me. An easy-going, hard-and-fast Positivist, for instance, would say: The explanation is as simple as can be! The Bolshevists took their Intellectuals from Zurich. Avenarius was a professor in Zurich, and those who are now working as intellectual leaders among the Bolsheviks were his pupils. Moreover there was a University lecturer there, a pupil of Mach's Adler, the man who afterwards shot the Austrian statesman Count Stügh. Many followers of Lenin, perhaps even Lenin himself, were well-acquainted with Adler. They absorbed these ideas and carried them to Russia. It is therefore a pure coincidence.

Needless to say I am well aware that a cock-sure hard-and-fast Positivist can explain the whole thing in this way. But did I not tell you the other day how the whole poetic character of Robert Hamerling can be shown to have arisen from the unreliability of the worthy Rector Kaltenbrunner, who forgot to forward Hamerling's application for a post in Budapest, as a result of which someone else got the post instead. If only Kaltenbrunner had not been so slack, Hamerling would certainly have gone as a schoolmaster to Budapest in the 1860's instead of to Trieste. Now if you consider all that Hamerling became through spending ten years of his life on the shores of the Adriatic at Trieste, you will see that his whole poetic life was a result. This was the external fact. The worthy Rector Kaltenbrunner, headmaster of the Grammar School at Graz, forgot to forward his application and was therefore the occasion of Hamerling's going to Trieste. You see, these things must not be taken as realities but as symptomatic of inner things which come to expression through them.

Thus what Berdiayeff conceives in this way—that the Bolsheviks chose as their idols the worthy middle-class philosophers Avenarius and Mach—does indeed take us back to what I said at the beginning of the present lecture: The reality of life, the reality of things seen is very different from the merely logical reality. Of course you cannot deduce from Avenarius and Mach that they could have become the official philosophers of the Bolsheviks. But, my dear friends, even what you can deduce by logic is only of importance as an external symptom. In effect, we only get at Reality by a research which goes straight for it. And in the Reality the Spiritual Beings work.

I might tell you many things which would indeed enable you to perceive it as a necessity, in reality of life, that such philosophies as that of Avenarius and Mach lead to the conclusion of the most revolutionary socialism of our time. For behind the scenes of existence it is the very same spirits who instill into men's consciousness philosophies after the style of Avenarius or Mach, and who instill once more into men's consciousness that which leads on to Bolshevism for example. Only in Logic you cannot derive the one thing from the other. But the Reality of Life performs this derivation. I beg you inscribe this deep into your hearts, for here too you will have something of what I am constantly emphasizing. It is needful to us to find the transition from the mere tangle of logical ideas, within which the people of today in their illusions imagine the realities of life to be imbued, to the true reality. If we look at the symptoms, and know how to value them, the thing does indeed become far more earnest. Here I will draw your attention to something to which another who is not a Spiritual Scientist will not pay so much attention; for he will take it more as a phrase, as something more or less indifferent. Mach, you see, who is a Positivist, and a radical one at that, comes to the idea that all things are really sensations. This doctrine, which young Adler also expounded in his lectures at Zurich, whereby he will undoubtedly have gained many adherents for himself, and for Mach and for Avenarius—this doctrine declares that everything is sensation, and that we are quite unjustified in distinguishing the physical from the psychical. The table outside us is physical and psychical in precisely the same sense as my ideas are physical and psychical: and we only have concepts for the sake of mental economy.

Now the peculiar thing in Mach was that instinctively, every now and then, he withdrew from his own world-conception—from his radical, positivist world-conception. He withdrew a little, saying to himself: These then are the results of truly modern thought. It is meaningless to say that anything exists beyond my sensation or that I should distinguish the physical and the psychical. And yet I am impelled again and again whenever I have the table before me, to speak not merely of the sensation, but to believe that there is something out there, quite physically. And again when I have an idea, a sensation or a feeling, I have not merely the perception of the phenomenon which takes place, but though by my scientific insight I realize that it is quite unjustified—still I believe that here within me is the soul, and out there is the object. I feel myself impelled again and again to make this distinction how does it come about? Mach said to himself: however does it come about that I am suddenly impelled to assume; in here is something of the soul, and out there is something external to the soul. I know that it is no true distinction, yet am I continually compelled to think something different from what my scientific insight tells me.

This is what Mach says to himself, every now and then when he withdraws a little from these things and considers them again. You will find it in his books. And he then makes a peculiar remark; he says: sometimes one has a feeling that makes one ask:—Can it be that we human beings are just being led round and round in a circle by some evil spirit? And he answers: Sometimes I really think so.

I know, my dear friends, how many people will read just such a passage, taking it as an empty phrase. Yet it is truly symptomatic. For here, every now and then, there peers over the shoulder of the human soul something that is real fact. It is indeed the Ahrimanic spirit who leads men round and round in a circle, making them think in the way of Avenarius and Mach. And at such moments Mach suddenly becomes aware of it. And it is the same Ahrimanic spirit who is working now, in the Bolshevist way of thought. Hence it is no wonder, my dear friends, that the logic of realities has produced this result. You see, however, that if we would understand the things of life, we must look into them more deeply. Truly this is of no small importance, especially for the domain of social life, today and in the near future. For the conclusions that must be drawn are not such as were drawn by Schmoller or Brentano, Wagner, Spencer, John Stuart Mill or whoever it may be. No, in the domain of social life, real conclusions must be drawn, i.e., conclusions according to the logic of realities. This is the bad thing, that in the social agitations and movements of today, and in all that they have produced, merely logical deductions—i.e., illusions—are living. Illusions have become external reality. I will give you two examples. The one is already well-known to you, you will only need to see it in the light in which I shall now place it.

The Marxian Socialists (and as I have often told you, this includes almost the whole of the proletariat today), the Marxian Socialists declare, under the influence of Marx: Economic life, economic oppositions, and the class oppositions that arise from them—these things are the true reality. Everything else is an ideological superstructure. What man thinks, what he creates in poetry and art, what he thinks about the State or about life in general, all this is a mere result of his economic mode of life. And for this reason the proletariat of today declares:—We need no National Assemblies to bring about a new social order. For in the National Assemblies there will be the bourgeois folk once more and they will have their say out of their economically-determined bourgeois minds. We have no use for that. We can only do with those who will voice the thoughts of Proletarian minds. It is they who must re-mold the world today. To this end we do not first need to summon National Assemblies. Let the few Proletarians who happen to be on top exercise a dictatorship. They have proletarian ideas, they will think the right thoughts. Not only Lenin and Trotsky in Russia, Karl Liebknecht in Berlin repudiates the National Assembly. He says: After all, it will be no more than a reassembly of the talk-shop—meaning the Reichstag, the Houses of Parliament.

What is the underlying reason, my dear friends? It is the same reason on account of which, in the main, I was driven out of the Socialist Working Men's College in Berlin sixteen years ago, as I told you recently when giving you the history of my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. In that College I had to lecture among other things on scientific matters; I conducted practical lessons in public speaking. But I also had to teach History. And I taught it in the way in which I assumed, objectively, that it should be taught. This was certainly satisfying to those who were my pupils, and if it could have been continued—if it had not been brought to an artificial end—I know it would have borne good fruit. But the Social-Democratic leaders discovered that I was not teaching Marxism or the Marxian conception of history. Nay more, they discovered that I even did such curious wild things as I will now relate (which incidentally were very well-received by the workers who were my pupils). I said, for instance, on one occasion: The ordinary historian cannot make anything of the story of the seven Roman kings, they even regard it as a myth. For the succession of the seven kings, as described by Livy, shows a kind of rise and decline. Up to Marcius, the fourth, it rises to a kind of climax. Then it declines to decadence in the seventh, Tarquinius Superbus. And I explained to my pupils that we were here going back to the most ancient period in Roman evolution, the period before the Republic, and that the change to the Republic had in fact consisted in this: that the ancient atavistic spiritual regularities had passed into a kind of popular chaos; whereas, in the more ancient period, as we can see quite tangible in the history of the Egyptian Pharaohs, the social institutions contained a certain wisdom, discoverable by Spiritual Science. It is not for nothing that we are told how Numa Pompilius received influences from the Nymph Egeria, to order the social life. Then I explained how men did indeed receive Inspirations for the social institutions which they were to make; and how in truth it was not merely the one monarch following the other as in later times, but these things were determined according to the laws received from the Spiritual World. Hence the regularity in the succession of the Egyptian Pharaohs and even of the Roman kings, Romulus, Numa Pompilius, and so on down to Tarquinius Superbus.

Now you may take the seven principles of man which I summed up in my Theosophy and regard them one after another from a certain point of view. You will find these seven principles in the succession of the Roman kings. Here, at this present moment, I am only hinting at the fact, and among you I need do no more. Nevertheless it is a thing which, rightly expressed, can well be described as an objective truth, throwing real light on the peculiar circumstances which the ordinary materialistic historian cannot understand. Today indeed, the “genuinely scientific” historians simply regard the seven kings as non-existent, and describe them as a myth.

So you see, I really went so far as this. And in other matters, too, I spoke to them in this way. If it is done rightly, it gives the impression of answering to the realities. Still it is not the “Materialistic Conception of History.” For that would mean that we should have to investigate what were the economic conditions in ancient Roman times, what was the relation of the tillage of the soil to the breeding of cattle and to trade and the life; and how the cities were founded, and what was the economic life of the Etruscans, and how the Etruscans traded with the young Roman people; and how under the influence of these economic elements, conditions took shape under Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, and so on, in succession.

You see, even this would not have been effected quite so simply. But here again the true Reality came to my assistance. Of course, such an audience did not consist merely of young people. There were many among them who had already absorbed the Proletarian thought to a considerable extent and who were well-equipped, well-armed with all these prejudices. Such people are by no means easy to convince, even when one is speaking of things remote from their domain of knowledge. On one occasion I was speaking about Art. I had described what Art is, and its influence, and suddenly from the back of the hall a lady cried out, interrupting: “Well, and Verism, isn't that Art?”

So you see, these people were not prone to take things simply on authority. It was a question of finding a way to them; not of finding the way to them by all manner of sly devices, but out of a sense of Reality and Truthfulness. And so it came about that one had to say—not only could, but had to say—“You folk are primed with ideas of the ‘Materialist Conception of History,’ which believes that all things depend on the economic conditions, and that the spiritual life is but an ideology, spreading itself out on the basis of the economic conditions, and indeed, Marx expounded these things with clear and sharp insight. But why did all this come about? Why did he describe and believe all this? Because Marx only saw the immediate and present age in which he lived. He did not go back to former ages. Marx only based himself on the historic evolution of man since the sixteenth century, and here in deed and truth there came into the evolution of mankind an epoch during which over a large part of the world the spiritual life became an expression of the economic conditions, though not exactly as Marx describes it. True, Goetheanism is not to be derived from the economic life; but Goethe was regarded even by these people as a man remote from the economic life.

Thus we might say that this was the mistake, that which held true only for a certain space of time, notably for the most recent time of all, was generalized. Indeed, only the last four centuries could be truly understood by describing them in the sense of the Materialist Conception of History.

Now this is the important thing: We must not proceed by the mere logic of concepts; for by the logic of concepts very little can be said against the carefully and strictly guarded propositions of Karl Marx. We must proceed by the logic of life, the logic of realities, the logic of things seen. If we do so, the following will be revealed. Beneath this evolution which has taken place since the 16th century in a way that can well be interpreted through the materialist conception of history—beneath this Evolution there is a deeply significant Involution. That is to say, there is something that takes its course invisibly, supersensibly, beneath what is visible to the outer senses. This is seeking to come forth to the surface, to work its way forth out of the souls of men; and it is the very opposite of Materialism. Materialism only becomes so great and works so in order that man may rear himself up against it, in order that he may find the possibility to seek the Spiritual out of the depths of his own Being during this age of the Spiritual Soul, and thus attain Self-consciousness in the Spirit. Thus the task is not, as Karl Marx believes, simply to look at the outer reality and read from it the proposition that economic life is the real basis of ideology; but the task is rather this: We must say to ourselves, the outer reality since the 16th century does not reveal the true reality. The true reality must be sought for in the spirit; we must find, above all, that social order which will counter-balance and overcome what appears outwardly or is outwardly observable since the 16th century. The age itself compels us, not merely to observe the outer processes but to discover something that can work into them as a corrective. What Marxism has turned upside down must be set right again.

It is extraordinarily important for us to know this. In this instance the logic of realities actually reverses the mere sharp-witted dialectics of Karl Marx. Alas, much water will have yet to flow down the Rhine before a sufficient number of people will realize this necessity, to find the logic of reality, the logic of things seen. Yet it is necessary—necessary above all on account of the burning social questions.

That is the one example. For the other, we may take our start from some of the things I told you yesterday. I said: It is characteristic how men have observed, ever since Ricardo, Adam Smith and the rest, that the economic order entails this consequence: That in the social life of man together, human labor-power is used like a commodity, brought on to the market like a commodity, treated like a commodity after the laws of supply and demand. As I explained yesterday, this is the very thing that excites and acts as motive impulses in the proletarian world-conception. Now one who merely thinks in the logic of concepts, observing that this is so, will say to himself: we must therefore find an economic science, a social science, a conception of social life, which reckons with this fact. We must find the best possible answer to the question: “Seeing that labor power is a commodity, how can we protect this commodity, labor power, from exploitation?” But the question is wrongly put, wrongly put not only out of theory, but out of life itself. The putting of questions wrongly is having a destructive, devastating effect in real life today. And it will continue to do so if we do not find the way to reverse it. For here once more the thing is standing on its head and must be set upright again, we must not ask: How shall we make the social structure so that man cannot be exploited, in spite of the fact that his labor power is brought on to the market like any other commodity, according to supply and demand.

For there is an inner impulse in human evolution which works in the logic of realities, although people may not express it in these words. It corresponds to reality and we can state it thus: Even the Grecian Age, the Grecian civilization which has come to mean so much for us, is only thinkable through the fact that a large proportion of the population of Greece were slaves. Slavery, therefore, was the premise of that ancient civilization which signifies so very much to us. So much that the most excellent philosopher, Plato, considered slavery altogether as a justified and necessary thing in human civilization. But the evolution of mankind goes forward. Slavery existed in antiquity and as you know, mankind began to rebel against it, quite instinctively to rebel against men being bought and sold. Today we may say it is an axiom: The whole human being can no longer be bought and sold; and where slavery still exists, we regard it as a relic of barbarism. For Plato, it was not barbarism; it went without saying that there were slaves, just as it did for every Greek who had the Platonic mind, nay every Greek who thought in terms of the state. The slave himself thought just the same, it went without saying that men could be sold, could be put on the market according to the laws of supply and demand, though of course not like mere cattle. Then, in a masked and veiled form, the thing passed over into the milder form of slavery which we call serfdom. Serfdom lasted very long, but here again mankind revolted.

And to our own time this relic has remained. The whole human being can no longer be sold, but only part of him, namely his labor-power. And today man is revolting against this too. It is only a continuation of the repudiation of slavery, if in our time it is demanded that the buying and selling of labor-power be repudiated. Hence it lies in the natural course of human evolution for this opposition to arise against labor-power being treated as a commodity, functioning as a commodity in the social structure. The question, therefore, cannot be put in this way: How shall man be protected from exploitation?—assuming as an axiomatic premise that labor-power is a commodity. This way of thinking has become habitual since Ricardo, Adam Smith and others, and is in reality included in Karl Marx and in the proletarian conception. Today it is taken as an axiom that labor-power is a commodity. All they want to do is, in spite of its being a commodity, to protect it from exploitation, or rather to protect the worker from the exploitation of his labor-power. Their whole thought moves along these lines. More or less instinctively or—as in Marx himself—not instinctively, they take it as an axiom. Notably the ordinary run of Political Economists who occupy the professional chairs assume it is an axiom from the very outset, that labor-power is to be treated, economically speaking, on the same basis as a commodity.

In these matters countless prejudices are dominating our life today: and prejudices are disastrous above all in this sphere of life. I am well aware how many there may be, even among you, who will regard it as a strange expectation, that you should spend your time in going into all these things. But we cannot possibly study the fullness of life if we are unable to think about these things. For if we cannot do so, we become the victims of all manner of absurd suggestions. How many an illustration the last four years have provided; what have they not brought forth? One could witness the most extraordinary things: I will only give you one example. Returning again and again to Germany—and in other places it was no different—every time, one found there was some new watchword, some new piece of instruction for the true patriot. Thus, the last time we went back to Germany, once more there was a new patriotic slogan: Do not pay in cash! Deal in checks as much as possible! i.e., do not let money circulate, but use checks. People were told that this was especially patriotic, for, as they thought, this was necessary in order to help win the war. No one saw through this most obvious piece of nonsense. But it was not merely said, it was propagated with a vengeance, and the most unbelievable people acted up to it—people of whom you might have supposed that they would understand the rudiments of economics—directors of factories and industrial undertakings. They too declared: pay in check and not in ready money, that is patriotic!

That fact is, it would be patriotic, but only under one assumption, namely this: you would have to calculate on each occasion how much time you saved in dealing in checks instead of ready money. True, most people cannot perform such a reckoning, but there are those who can. Then you would have to add up all the time that was saved, and come up and say: I have been paying my accounts in checks and have saved so much time, I want to spend it usefully; please give me a job! Only if you did so would it be a real saving. But of course they did not do so, nor did it ever occur to them that the thing would only have a patriotic importance on economic grounds on this assumption. Such nonsense was talked during the last four and a half years to an appalling extent. The most unbelievably dilettante propositions were realized. Impossibilities became realities, because of the utter ignorance of people—even of those who gave out such instructions—as to the real connections in this domain of life.

Now with respect to the questions I have just raised, the point is this: It must be the very aim of our investigations to find out—How shall we shape the social structure, the social life of man together, so as to loosen and free the objective commodity, the goods, the product, from the labor-power? This must be the point, my dear friends, in all our economic endeavors. The product should be brought onto the market and circulated in such a way that the labor-power is loosed and freed from it. This is the problem in economics that we must solve. If we start with the axiom that the labor-power is crystallized into the commodity and inseparable from it, we begin by eclipsing the essential problem and then we put things upside-down. We fail to notice the most important question—the question on which, in the realm of political economy, the fortunes and misfortunes of the civilized world will depend. How shall the objective commodity, the goods, the product, be loosed and severed from the labor-power, so that the latter may no longer be a commodity? For this can be done if we believe in that three-folding of the social order which I have explained to you, if we make our institutions accordingly. This is the way to separate from the labor-power of man the objective commodities, the goods, which are, after all, loosed and separated from the human being.

It must be admitted, my dear friends, that we find little understanding as yet for these things, derived as they are from the realities. In 1905 I published my essay on “Theosophy and the Social Question,” in the periodical Lucifer-Gnosis. I then drew attention to the first and foremost principle which must be maintained in order to sever the product from the labor. Here alone, I said, could we find salvation in the social question, and I emphasized that this question depends on our thinking rightly about production and consumption. Today men are thinking altogether on the lines of Production. We must change the direction of our thought. The whole question must be diverted from Production to Consumption. In detail, one had occasion to give many a piece of advice: but through the inadequate conditions and other insufficiencies, such advice could not really take effect, as one experienced—unhappily—in many cases. And it is so indeed; the men of today, through their faith in certain logical conclusions, which they mistake for real conclusions, have no sense for the need of looking at the Realities. But in the social domain above all it is only the Reality which can teach us the right way to put our questions. Of course people will say to you: Do you not see that it is necessary for labor to be done if commodities are to be produced? That is so indeed. Logically, commodities are the result of labor. But Reality is a very different thing from Logic.

I have explained this to our friends again and again from another aspect. Look at the thought of the Darwinian Materialists. I remember vividly the first occasion—it was in the Munich group—when I tried to make this clear to our friends. Imagine a real, thorough-going follower of Haeckel. He thinks that man has arisen from an apelike beast. Well, let him as a scientist form the concept of an ape-like animal and then let him form the concept of Man. If as yet no man existed and he only had the concept of the ape-like animal, he would certainly never be able to “catch,” out of this concept of the animal, the concept Man. He only believes what [in?] the ape-like creature, because the one proceeded out of the other in reality. Thus in real life men do after all distinguish between the logic of pure concepts and ideas and the logic of things seen. But this distinction must be applied through and through; otherwise we shall never gain an answer to the social and political questions, such as is necessary for the present and the immediate future. If we will not turn to that realistic thinking which I have explained to you once more today, we shall never come to the Goetheanic principle in public life. And that the Goetheanic principle shall enter into the world, this we desired to signalize by erecting, upon this hill, a “Goetheanum.”

In humorous vein, I would advise you to read the huge advertisement that appeared on the last page of today Basler Nachrichten, calling on everyone to do all in his power for the greatest day in world-history which is now about to dawn, by founding a “Wilsoneanum.” True, as yet, it is only an advertisement, and I only mention it in a jocular spirit. Nevertheless, in the souls of men, to say the least of it, the “Wilsoneanum” is being founded pretty intensely at the present moment.

As I said a short while ago, it has indeed a certain meaning that there is now a Goetheanum standing here. I called it a piece of “negative cowardice.” The opposite of cowardice was to come to expression in this action. And it is indeed the case, my dear friends, events are coming in the future—though this advertisement is only an amusing prelude—events are coming which will seem to justify this prophetic action which is being made out of the spirit of a certain world-conception. Though we need not take the half-page advertisement for a “Wilsoneanum” seriously, it is well for us to know that Wilsoniana will indeed be founded. Therefore a Goetheanum was to stand here as a kind of protest in advance.