The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Today, many people talk about the “social question” as if it were a matter of replacing existing social systems with others in which certain demands will be met that are raised by broad masses of people as being necessary for a dignified existence. Some institutions are seen as anti-social and efforts are made to develop social ones. When one speaks of the transfer of the means of production from private to common ownership, this is currently based on such a way of thinking. Under the influence of this way of thinking, one does not notice that the administration of the means of production by the community can have just as unsocial an effect as private-capitalist administration if those administering behave unsocially towards their fellow human beings.

In recent times, we have had to experience that the social order has taken on an anti-social character. We are looking for the causes of this. We see that we live in private capitalist economic systems. We form the judgment from this that these economic systems have undermined social justice. We exclude the human element by forming this judgment. One believes that the institutions, by their own nature, impose their character on social life.

As long as such insights remain within the circle of “scientific thinkers”, they are harmless. Other such “thinkers” come and refute the one-sidedness. The harmlessness ceases as soon as one sets about making institutions that have been conceived out of such one-sidedness. The present is faced with the danger of reshaping the order of life in a way that corresponds to the one-sidedness described. In large areas of Eastern Europe, things are happening that put humanity in such danger.

Recognizing the fatal errors that are made when such a transformation of social life is undertaken is one of the most important tasks of the present day. Realized errors kill life. The temptation to fall into such errors is great. This is because it is brought about by recognizing the damage in what already exists. These are there; and they show that something new must be created. Whether the new does not lead to even worse damage is not considered as long as one is hypnotized by one-sided ideas that one wants to realize.

Karl Marx thoroughly understood the damage of previous economic systems. He saw that this damage resulted from private capitalism. In it arose the idea: If there is no private capitalism, the damage will be eliminated. This idea hypnotized him. And the hypnosis caused him not to penetrate to the question: How did private capitalism produce the damage?

Anyone who asks this question and has a sense of the realities of life will find that private capitalism as such is not the cause of the damage. It is not because individuals or groups of people manage capital that life becomes anti-social, but because these individuals or groups exploit the results of their management in an anti-social way. Private capitalist management makes it possible for the individual with ability to extract the greatest conceivable value from the management. The social interests themselves demand that this should happen. If management by the individual with ability is replaced by management by the general public, the productivity of management is undermined. For within this generality, free initiative, the full effect of individual ability and willingness to work, cannot be realized.

The Marxists saw how the modern relations of production concentrated the masses of capital in the hands of a few. They formed the opinion that the administration of the concentrated masses of capital could one day pass over to the generality. They did not see that with this transition everything that can be achieved through the power of individuals must disappear with concentration. The point is not to eliminate these achievements based on the power of individuals, but to introduce them into the cycle of the social organism in the right way.

Let us face the facts. The demands of the modern economy have brought private capitalist management to a certain level. Its productivity depends on this level. At the same time, however, this productivity has given rise to an anti-social structure of the social order. If we strive to make economic life itself social, we will take away its productivity.

A truly social way of thinking must strive for a way of life that does not detract from the fertility of economic activity. It must leave the management of the means of production to the individual. It will therefore have to ask: How can the anti-social aspects that are necessarily brought about by this management be transformed into a social one?

It will not be possible to achieve the social through a retrogressive transformation of economic activity. But it is a retrogressive transformation to endanger what has become fruitful through the fact that the individual has been able to fully apply himself in economic life. We must not go back to economic forms in which the individual is again more bound by the community. The opposite must be striven for. The effect of the power of the individual must be encouraged.

With this impact, the power of the individual grows, if this growth depends solely on economic life. Within economic life, institutions cannot be created that would remove the disadvantages that arise when the individual comes to a power that harms his fellow human beings. They must arise outside of economic life.

The idea of the threefold social order does not seek to shape economic life in an impossible way, but rather to channel the social flow of forces into the economic cycle through the separate administration of the legal and spiritual life, which it can never develop from within itself. By its own nature, economic life can be neither social nor anti-social. It can only be administered in such a way that the goods needed by the community are produced by the economic activity of people with the appropriate expertise and skills. People attain their positions within economic life through their expertise and professional skills. They can only act in these positions in a socially just manner if no other relationships arise with their fellow human beings as a result of holding them. But this can only be the case if the tendency of economic life to produce such other relationships can be continuously counteracted. Man cannot do this in a position in which he is economically active. He can only work fruitfully in it if he does not need to have any other considerations in mind than to satisfy the manifest needs of his fellow human beings from the economic sources available to him. The other relationships must be established in a way that economic life has no influence on. Such other relationships are the cultivation of spiritual and legal-political life.

It is only because the results of economic work, the cultivation of spiritual life and the legal and political institutions are organized in each other in the whole of life that people believe they must also manage the interacting factors from a central point. Because a person must have the abilities to work profitably in economic life, people believe that they must also obtain the institutions through which these abilities are developed from economic life. But this does not promote the cooperation of spiritual life with economic life, but hinders it. The only thing that can be decisive for how a person works when he holds an economic position is what economic life demands. Economic life cannot do anything to develop abilities for this position. Therefore, he should not be able to get such a position through something that is based in economic life itself. The head of a business should work in such a way that goods are produced in the most appropriate way through his work. The independent spiritual life should ensure that the abilities for such leadership are developed in the human being. Abilities only develop when they are cultivated from a spiritual point of view. To cultivate them, it is necessary that there is an area of life in which the abilities of people are developed appropriately from their own being.

An obvious objection to the idea of the threefold social order is that a state that proceeds to implement this idea would disrupt its international relations with other states that retain their old institutions. This objection prevents many who understand the timeliness of a threefold social order from approaching the idea of its corresponding practical design.

These misgivings arise from the justified insight that a state which attempts to carry out socialization on its own in the sense of orthodox or modified Marxism would be unable to maintain undisturbed economic relations with states organized differently. It is therefore important to establish whether the concerns that apply to such socialization also apply to the threefold order of the social organism.

This clarity cannot be gained without considering the way in which humanity's economic life has developed in recent times. And the most striking fact here is that this economic life has the most pronounced tendency to regard the historically given state borders as non-existent for itself. National economies tend to merge into a unified world economy. The historical conditions that gave rise to the demarcation of states have gradually ceased to be of decisive importance for the economic interests of the people living in those states. The international tendencies of both capitalist and socialist circles are connected with this tendency towards the formation of a unified world economy. This is most evident in international socialism. However, it fails to recognize what is really demanded by the development of the times because it focuses only on economic life. It sees that this life has taken on forms that cannot be taken into account if the institutions of the state, which have become historical, determine the motives of the individuals and groups of individuals who engage in economic activity. He therefore wants to reshape these institutions so that they correspond to world economic conditions. He has a world economy in mind, in which the individual economic sub-areas are to be the states that have come into being historically. However, he wants to transform these into large cooperatives. He is thus on the way to turning the state into a mere economic society. He does not shrink from pursuing this idea because, under Marxist influence, he has developed the belief that the corresponding legal and intellectual institutions will arise “by themselves” from the economic institutions. Anyone who realizes that this is a fallacy must do justice to the tendency of the latest time after the formation of a world economy in a different way.

The more the unified world economy develops, the more it will require that what happens in its area be dependent on economic considerations. A necessary condition in this regard can be brought about if, within states, the legal relationships of citizens and their intellectual interests are separated from economic life. If, as a result of this separation, economic life is administered only as such within a social organism, it will only enter into relations with other social organisms through institutions that stem from it. The legal and intellectual organizations with which the economic sphere is associated are not considered in terms of economic relations with the outside world. The individuals or groups of individuals of one social area enter into direct contact with those of the other, uninfluenced by state relations.

In more recent times, this contact has been impeded by the fact that the interlinking of economic life with legal and political interests and intellectual interests from older human developmental epochs has been preserved and has opposed the urge for world economy. This interconnection can be seen in the facts that led to the catastrophe of the World Wars. One of these facts was the situation in southeastern Europe, where this catastrophe originated. The spiritual antagonism between the Slavs and the Germans was the underlying cause, leading to conflict. Political events came into play. The old Turkish regime was replaced by the democratically oriented Young Turk regime. The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria and the declaration of Bulgaria as a kingdom were the result of the political upheaval in Turkey. Thirdly, Austria's urge to expand its trade relations to the south worked together with the other two. (The endeavor to lay tracks in this direction in its interest is an expression of this urge.) The concatenation of these three factors in the efforts of the unified states that were interested in them made it possible for the catastrophe to occur. And anyone who has followed the negotiations that have been conducted because of the Baghdad Railway can see how national antagonisms, that is, intellectual interests and state aspirations, repeatedly play a decisive role in a matter that could have been purely economic. These are two striking examples among many. In the southeast of Europe as well as with the Baghdad Railway, measures that would have been undertaken only in the interest of the world economy would not have become causes of world catastrophe in themselves. They became so because the unified states combined different interests with economic ones.

It might now appear that the consideration of these facts fully justifies the objection raised against the threefolding of a social organism in the midst of such states, which retain their old structure, as fully justified. For one might think that the economy of these other states, supported by state power, would crush the social organism, which does not want this state power behind its economy. This applies to an economic state that is organized in line with Marxism, because such a state wants to use the framework of the existing unitary state to impose economic forms that it considers beneficial. The result should be that all the disadvantages that have arisen from the fact that the economies of individual states have opposed the trend of the world economy would be greatly increased. The world economy strives to shape economic relations between individuals and groups of people purely according to their needs. The state economies interfered with this process by shaping what should arise from economic demands according to their own interests. If the states become economic cooperatives, the interference will have ceased to be a determining factor.

The opposite must occur if, in accordance with the idea of the threefold social organism, economic life is completely removed from the state sphere and stands on its own. Then the people belonging to this organism will be able to enter into free economic relations with foreign countries. How these foreign countries enter into relations with them will depend only on which economic interest is present in such a transaction.

When speaking of spiritual science, it is assumed that there is an interest that is detached from the human being – a state of mind that is not readily available. If I wanted to win followers for a personal opinion or aspirations, it would be illegitimate. This movement is only justified if the necessary insights are proclaimed. Those who only want personal gain will not understand this - people may say to me: Why don't I make it clear what should not be? But the resistance tires - and this resistance is abundant: a response to the intentions that have been made clear is rarely forthcoming. All the more often a bending of these intentions - one can always, what arises from human compassion, from the standpoint of cold reasonableness condemn - and what is done out of cold reasonableness, from the point of view of compassion condemn. But one should bear in mind that events sometimes necessitate one or the other point of view: anyone who did not act in this way would not be able to speak of spiritual science in the present day: At most, he could, but this is antiquated and would be an anachronism, brood over his spiritual experiences as a hermit. I have repeatedly met people who wanted to do this – people who were disappointed by mystical movements. I had to say to myself: These people do not consider that what they do in secret, after it has matured in the next incarnation, would come to Earth too late. I understood such people, but I could not do as they did. If I had done as they did, it would have been more comfortable - because the way I did it challenged those who wanted to put the matter into their personal service.

Why are the attacks so hateful? Because they do not want to get into the matter; because they want to discredit the matter through personal attacks. They are actually opponents of the truth; but they do not want to admit it to themselves – they do not want truth at all, but authority. – The opponents are only the necessary counter-strike of those who believe in authority.

It is necessary to found a bank-like institution that serves economic and spiritual endeavors in its financial activities, which are oriented towards the anthroposophically oriented worldview both in terms of their goals and their attitude. It should be distinguished from ordinary banking enterprises in that it not only serves the financial aspects, but also the real operations that are supported by the financial side. It will therefore be particularly important that loans, etc. are not granted in the way they are in ordinary banking, but rather from the factual point of view of the operation to be undertaken. The banker should therefore be less of a lender and more of a merchant who is in the know, who can realistically assess the scope of a transaction to be financed and make practical arrangements for its execution.

The main focus will be on financing such ventures that are likely to put economic life on a healthy associative footing and shape intellectual life in such a way that legitimate talents are placed in a position where they can express themselves in a socially fruitful way. What is particularly important is that, for example, enterprises that currently yield a good return are centered in order to support other enterprises with their help, which can only bear economic fruit in the future and above all through the spiritual seed that is now poured into them, which can only come to fruition after some time. It is necessary for the bank's officers to have an insight into how the view of life that comes with anthroposophy can be translated into economically fruitful action. To do this, it is necessary to establish a strict associative relationship between the bank's administrators and those who, through their ideal work, can foster an understanding of an enterprise to be brought into being.

An example: a person has an idea that promises economic fertility. The representatives of the ideology can evoke understanding for the social consequences. Their activity is financially supported by the amounts to be received, which at the same time are intended to support the economic and technical realization of the idea.

The main focus must be on supporting the centers of the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement itself. The building in Dornach, for example, cannot support anything at first; nevertheless, it will bring a mighty economic return in later times. It must be made clear that anyone can support it materially, even if it means compromising their financial conscience, if they can see it as being materially fruitful in the long term.

The undertaking must be based on the realization that technical, financial, etc. activity can develop branches which, although they may temporarily produce favorable results for the individual entrepreneur, have a destructive effect in the context of the social order. Many of the latest undertakings were oriented in this way. They were capitalized, and it was precisely through their capitalization that the social order was undermined. Such endeavors must be confronted by those that arise from healthy thinking and feeling. They can be integrated into the social order in a truly fruitful way. However, they can only be supported by a social mindset inspired by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

It is true that an undertaking such as the one characterized here can initially only overcome the social-technical and financial possibilities of crisis and that it will face social difficulties as long as these, as the actual workers' question, still take the form that comes from the old mode of production, which is doomed to crisis. The workers involved in the new ventures will, for example, behave in the same way in wage differences as they do in relation to old-style ventures. However, one must not underestimate how quickly a company of the kind characterized here can have socially beneficial consequences if it is managed correctly. This will be seen. And the example will be convincing. If a project of this kind comes to a halt, then the workers involved will have their convictions with them when they get back on track. Only by aligning the interests of manual workers with the spiritual leaders of enterprises, through a way of thinking that affects all classes of people, can the forces of social destruction be counteracted.

The basic condition is that spiritual endeavors be intimately connected with all material ones. We cannot achieve such an orientation with the forces currently available in the anthroposophical movement because we do not have a practical enterprise in its bosom that has grown out of its own forces, except for the Berlin Anthroposophical Publishing House. But this alone is not enough to serve as a model, because its economic orientation is only the external expression of the power of spiritual science as such. Only those enterprises that do not have spiritual science as such as their content, but that have a content based on the spiritual-scientific way of thinking, can truly serve as models. A school as such can only be considered exemplary in this respect when it is financially supported by only those enterprises whose entire institution has emerged from spiritual-scientific circles. And the Dornach building will only be able to prove its social significance when the personalities associated with it have brought into being such enterprises that are self-supporting, provide the people who support them with the appropriate maintenance and then still leave so much that the deficit always demanded by a spiritual enterprise can be covered. This deficit is not really one at all. For it is precisely the fact that it arises that brings about the fructification of material enterprises.

You just have to take things really practically. That is not what the one who asks does: How, then, should one do a financial or economic enterprise in the sense of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science? That is simply nonsense. Because you don't do anything practical with mere thoughts. It is essential that the powers organized in the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement itself undertake the enterprises, i.e., that bankers, factory owners, etc., join forces with this movement, that the Dornach building become the real center of a new entrepreneurial spirit. Therefore, no “social”, “technical” etc. “programs” are to be set up in Dornach either, but the building is to create the center of a way of working that is to become the way of working in the future.

Those who decide to give financial support to the Dornach enterprises must understand that we have now reached the point where supporting enterprises in the old sense means investing in the sterile, and that supporting one's money today means supporting future-oriented enterprises that alone are capable of withstanding the devastating forces. Short-sighted people who still believe that such things have never borne financial fruit will certainly not support the efforts in Dornach. Those who do support them must be far-sighted people who are truly capable of financial and economic judgment and who realize that continuing to muddle along in the old ways means digging a secure grave for themselves. These people alone will not follow in the footsteps of the destroyed livelihoods of the last four to five years. Working with companies in the same old way means nothing more than using up financial and economic reserves. Because even the reserves of raw material and agricultural production, which last the longest, are being used up. Their financial and economic fructification does not lie in the fact that they are there, but that the labor is possible through which they are supplied to the social organism. But this labor belongs entirely to the reserves. Everything for the future depends on a new spirit also getting the leading position for the individual enterprise.

The absorption of nutrients allows the cosmic activity to immediately flow into the sphere in which the human etheric body is active. This transition is already conditioned by the forces that underlie the human form. Within this absorption into the etheric body process, the cosmic forces of movement intervene insofar as they are concentrated in the seven organs, so that the gall process still represents the descent of the human ego into the first nutritional processes.

Then, in the liver, human astrality descends, so that it contributes to the inner life process through the spleen; from the body tissue, human astrality now begins to intervene in the overall life process, insofar as it acts through the etheric body on the physical body; it comes to life in the lymphatic system; from the heart (blood) the human I intervenes, which acts through the astral body on the etheric body and from there on the physical body; the descending processes of muscle tissue, cartilage tissue and bone tissue arise. And now one can work the processes of salting from the outside onto the blood, from the inside through the nutritional process. These interventions take place until the absorption through the blood from one side, and through the fluids until the transformation by the seven organs from the other side. The metallization goes into the seven organs and their soul correlates. The easily combustible substances go as far as the exchange process of lymph and 7 organs; they thereby regulate the processes associated with body warming; the forces active in the plant kingdom directly intervene in the sphere of 7 organs and lymphatic system; they go directly to the life processes, insofar as these are ascending.

Mineral substances on all systems = internally on bones, cartilage, muscle system (arbitrarily) on the organs, if their nutritional processes are not in order. —

Herbal substances on the life systems, if their functions are not in order.

The outside world forms in the exoderm, so that it goes inward until it is connected to the nervous system.

The impression of the outside world then progresses to the muscle and bone systems in the mesoderm; (outside) the inner world presents itself as the older one in the lesser muscle and vascular systems... inner mesoderm.

The inner world pushes this system towards the outside and is present from the inside in the intestinal gland system - which opens outwards. Entoderm.

With the first inner world, the lymphatic system pushes its way into the organism [to absorb what is produced by the inner world in the organism itself], and the system of inner perception.

With the second inner world, the system of unlocking the outward with the corresponding drainage system and the upwardly differentiated sensory system pushes forward.

When the cell is rejected, all nascent life = germ cell = this has all the nascent processes and is not viable because the cosmic processes can give less than it demands; it dies from excessive energy, which does not allow the outer mesoderm to completely close the skin and deposit bones, and the inner mesoderm to form organs. The sperm cell contains the predispositions for those processes that condition the opening up of the organs inwards in such a way that they can cope with the outside world; they kill the outer mesoderm to such an extent that it can reach the point of bone deposition and skin closure; the inner mesoderm in such a way that the organs harden around the [pulsating] substances and forming tissues.

I must now approach some details through which the general truths of this subject will come to light. Everything would become much clearer through a little practical exercise.

But I must put the subject in as general a light as possible, so that no obstacle arises for the reader's judgment. And when I use the term “nothing,” I presuppose something other than the possession of a rule by which it can be said how the facts are. By knowing, I mean that the facts of a subject are available in the mind to come actively into consciousness when attention is directed to them. Michel Angelo recognized the human form; he could give every smallest fact about it. If he were to name it in a picture, he would see, mentally, how every muscle and every wrinkle of the hand lay in relation to the surrounding parts. We must achieve a knowledge as good as Michel Angelo's. There is a great difference between Michelangelo and us; but let us express this difference, not in our way of perceiving, but in the difference between the things he perceived and those we perceive. We now take simple lines and know them as absolutely as he perceived the complicated structure of the human body. Let us take a block of cubes; it can be any number, but to achieve consistency, let us put together 27 cubes to form a large cube of 27 parts. Let each cube be labeled so that it can be recognized, and let each be given a name so that it can be referred to. We assume that we have become acquainted with this block of dice in such a way that each of them is known, so that each is individually recognized and its relation to the others is known.

Now that we have acquired this knowledge of the block as it stands before us, we ask ourselves whether there is any self-element in our knowledge of it.

Undoubtedly, there is such a self-element. We have come to know the dice as they stand in accordance with their own convenience in relation to each other. We see the lower ones first; and the others above them, and we see those below as the bearers of the upper ones. Now, however, this relationship does not have to do with the dice themselves; it depends on the conditions under which we stand to grasp the block of dice; it depends on our own position in relation to the earth's surface when gravity is an important factor in our perception. In fact, our vision is so accustomed to taking gravity into account when considering things that when we look at a landscape or an object with our heads upside down, we do not see it in reverse, but we reduce it to this knowledge of gravity and get an impression little different from that in an upright position. If we are not things in space, then comprehending in space is the way in which the unrecognized us exists as spirit.

The Anthroposophical Society is dedicated to the cultivation of spiritual scientific research. The basis of this research is the realization that it is possible and necessary for our time to experience a similar change of views regarding the spiritual as human views experienced a similar change 4-5 centuries ago through Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Giordano Bruno and others regarding the natural sciences. This spiritual science is based on a real exploration of the spiritual world. In this respect, it is strictly opposed to all materialistic - or, as it is often called today, monistic - dogmatism. It seeks to apply the real methods of spiritual research and is of the opinion that materialistic world views and mere natural science simply do not know these methods - or have no inclination to deal with them - and therefore reject them. It takes the view that this rejection is currently arising from the same blinkered mentality as that which once opposed the Copernican worldview. The view of repeated lives on Earth is not a dogma of faith for spiritual researchers, but a result of their research. It seems just as incredible to people today as the assertion that the earth moves and does not rest once seemed to them. Thus, the Anthroposophical Society is to be regarded as a scientific society, not as a religious community or sect. The insights of spiritual research that are already possible today can be found in the writings of Dr. Rudolf Steiner. The building in Dornach near Basel, which is currently under construction, also serves to cultivate this knowledge. The artistic expression flowing from the insights of the spiritual world is also expressed in this building.

Since the spiritual-scientific results concern the important facts of the human soul life, it is natural that people's minds should also be interested in these results, that these results can become the innermost personal convictions, valuable to each one, which support and sustain him in his ethical, in his whole spiritual and also outer life. At the same time, it remains true that there can be no question of the Anthroposophical Society founding a religion or anything similar. The Society is far from even touching on any religious worldview. It can have the adherents of any religious confession in its midst. It cultivates spiritual scientific research and has nothing to do with any creed. It presents what can be investigated by spiritual science, just as natural science presents what can be investigated by natural science. Just as true natural science can never interfere with religion, given a proper understanding of the relationship between the two, so spiritual science cannot do so either. At present, anthroposophy no longer has any community with the so-called theosophical societies. It stands completely independently of any other society on the basis of the spiritual research characterized above. It is understandable that it faces opposition from religions and also from materialistic science, since its research results are currently still misunderstood, misinterpreted and the like. She will have to struggle not to appear like a sect, but like the bearers of such knowledge, which at the time of its appearance seems like fantasies, but which then become the basic pillars in the progression of the human worldview.

However, anyone who believes that there can be no other view of the spiritual world than the traditional one, or that such a view must be preserved for “belief”, will inevitably misunderstand the whole nature of spiritual research. But one should recognize that this currently reveals the same attitude as that which rejected Copernicus because it was believed that the Christian canon was contrary to the Bible.

Those who are familiar with spiritual science are of the opinion that the establishment of the fundamentals of human life in the broadest sense can lead to an elevation of the moral and of all life in general, and that with the spread of spiritual science, many an ideal will be realized, for which the best and most honest minds yearn; or in whose realization many despair because they see no possibility of realization in the materialistic present. Perhaps he will no longer do so when he penetrates into the real meaning of spiritual research. The Anthroposophical Society would like to serve knowledge and life in a calm way, based on genuine science. But it is based on a science that does not stop short of exploring real spiritual realms. —

Etheric body (etheric body). A coarser (externally perceptible) human body (and that of other living beings) underlying finer body (body). It is characterized by the newer theosophy as the system of forces, which have their lawful content from the spiritual basis of the world and which find their expression (objectification) in the organic forms of the physically perceptible body. The etheric body has nothing in common with the speculative-mystical “vital force” of the old vitalists. However, it does coincide with the “inner man” of earlier philosophies, referred to as the “scheme”, and also appears in the world view of Origenes and Augustinus. In more recent times, it found a representative in the philosophers Troxler, I. H. Fichte, among others. In Kant, it is found, albeit surrounded by skepticism, in the dreams of a spirit-seer as a soul-like inner man who bears all the limbs of the outer man within him as a possibility. For modern theosophy, the etheric body is a reality that can be perceived when the “inner senses” of the observer are awakened and brought to perception through appropriate soul training from their latent state in which they are in ordinary human life. It then reveals itself as a system of forces that changes its forms (never taking fixed forms), flows through the physical body and merges into the indefinite (into the forces of the cosmos) in the area of the anterior physical body (like a kind of mirror image of the spine). It forms an intermediate link between the physical body and the higher components of the human being, the soul and the spirit. In the state of sleep, the etheric body remains fully connected to the physical body, while the soul and spirit detach themselves from the region of the sensory organs and the central nervous system (but not from the other organs and the sympathetic nervous system). During dreaming, the spirit is detached from the sense organs and the central nervous system, but the soul is not detached from them. (This detachment is not to be thought of as spatial, but as dynamic). In death, the etheric body, soul and spirit (the soul is also called the astral body, the spirit of man is called the “ego body”) detach themselves from the physically perceptible body (spatially and dynamically); these three parts of the human being remain connected for a short time (several days); then the etheric body detaches itself from the soul and spirit. It then passes over, in accordance with natural law, into the general cosmic forces: one part into the etheric sphere of the earth, another part into the etheric world that does not belong to the earth. This dissolution of the etheric body takes place at different times and also varies in character according to the individual. An observation of the laws of this dissolution is one of the most difficult problems of spiritual science. This kind of dissolution is connected with the character of the physical life on earth and forms part of the causes of destiny that affect soul and spirit after they have passed into the spiritual world after their separation from the etheric body.

In this lecture, I will discuss two products of the human mind: knowledge of nature and knowledge of the spirit. This touches on something that not only occupies the human intellect, but also has a profound impact on all of human life; it touches on an antagonism that has produced disastrous struggles in history, great disharmony in the coexistence of people, and the most tragic conflicts in the individual human soul. In this paper, we will discuss an attempt that is currently being made to clarify this issue. We will discuss the attempt that lies in the theosophical line of thought and research in the present day.

'Wherever science is mentioned in our time, one has a certain idea of the nature of science. Even if one or the other contemporary understands the concept in a slightly different way, the differences are not so great that one could not speak of a general agreement. It is required of science that its explanations can be the subject of objective knowledge at any given point in time and for any given person. Everything that is not asserted for the reason that things themselves tell us, but rather for the reason that it lies only in the subjective experience of the human being, is excluded from science, and in an especially strict sense from natural science.

If I now want to talk about the relationship between Theosophy and this natural science, I cannot assume an agreement in the same sense about the former term. It is therefore my responsibility to say what I will call Theosophy in my explanations. The name has been in use for many centuries. And it has always been applied more or less clearly to such knowledge that strives to penetrate into an area that concerns the spiritual, the supersensible starting points and backgrounds of natural phenomena and human existence through special sources of knowledge. Within the broad boundaries that this denotes, however, the concept of Theosophy varies among those who have used it. In my explanations, I will now speak of no other concept of Theosophy than one that assumes a very specific premise. It is the one that assumes that the power of knowledge is not exhausted with the abilities that present-day science applies. Rather, it asserts that through very specific activities that human beings undertake with their soul life, other abilities come to light through which the supersensible world can be opened up. It further asserts that only the development of such abilities can provide a truly experienced knowledge of the supersensible worlds, while everything that is gained only through inference from ordinary knowledge is to be referred to the realm of hypotheses. The assertion does not go so far as to say that the results provided by the assumed powers of knowledge are meaningless for all those who do not acquire these powers themselves. These powers are necessary only for research, not for testing the knowledge once it has been gained against the standard of logic and a properly guided sense of truth. Only those who are able to use their soul as an instrument in the manner indicated can arrive at such knowledge; and it must be clear and comprehensible to every sound sense of truth.

Certain circles speak of Theosophy in this sense, and whether rightly or wrongly, they have usurped this name for their endeavors. And in this sense, Theosophy will also be spoken of in this hour.

One need only repeat what has just been said and one can immediately encounter an apparently quite justified objection on the part of science. One can say that then Theosophy appeals precisely to a realization that depends entirely on the person himself, which is achieved precisely by the soul bringing itself into a certain state. Those who raise this objection fail to consider that the question is whether the soul cannot, through the preparations undertaken, attain a state that frees it from everything that science itself seeks to exclude. In that case, the soul's preparations for supersensible research would be a purely inner, subjective process, but not the state ultimately attained. This could then lead to insights in the same sense that the eyes of people lead to an agreement about colors, which is sufficient for the practice of life. But even those who are aware that different eyes see differently will not deny this agreement.

Now spiritual research provides methods for such training of the soul faculties, by which the required can be achieved.

I ask the honored audience to allow me for the time being as a mere assertion, which will find its justification in my further remarks. I assume that there is a second person in every human being, so to speak. And while the first is meant to be the one whom the senses see and the mind initially admits, the second is meant to be a conductor who is supersensible and far removed from ordinary thinking. And I ask you to understand that by this second person I do not mean something merely imagined, but a reality, even if a supersensible one.

What alone gives us the right to speak of such a second person? Nothing other than what also gives us the right to speak of the fact that hydrogen is contained in water. It would be quite inappropriate to speak of the absence of hydrogen in water if one were not able to separate hydrogen from water in the laboratory and present it as a separate entity. Is something similar possible in relation to two human beings? The fact that it is possible is precisely the result of spiritual research. In natural science, man recognizes that he has his two natures undivided in one another, just as hydrogen and oxygen are undivided in water. But it is possible to free the supersensible man from the sensual man in such a way that the former can be by himself, that he can enter into a contemplation of the world that does not make use of the tools of the second human being.

Now, man cannot, as it were, leap into such a state. He must start from the kind of knowledge he has in ordinary life. This is done by taking the first half of the leap, so to speak, by still retaining something of ordinary knowledge. The point is to initially suppress all attention and interest in the objects presented to the senses. Furthermore, all thoughts must be silenced. Through an intense effort of will, one must acquire the mental practice of being in an absolutely even inner state, undisturbed by any impression. The mistake usually made in this practice is that one has too little idea of it. The less one believes that one has already achieved the necessary with a certain state, the better it is. It takes a great deal of time and inner strength to achieve even a little in this regard. It must be expressly stated that the state one enters must have nothing of what could even remotely be described as pathological. And there is a great danger of crossing the safe boundary between healthy and morbid in such soul training. This is why certain schools of thought that make the methods of spiritual research compulsory for their followers do not talk about these things in public at all.

There is currently a tendency among scientists and doctors to consider anything that deviates from the norm as pathological.

In contrast, it cannot be emphasized enough that the soul training should not be considered a kind of mental training, in which the aim is to achieve a state of consciousness that is as close as possible to the state of consciousness of a healthy person.

The danger is very real that one crosses the safe boundary between healthy and morbid in such soul training. This is why certain schools of thought that make the methods of spiritual research compulsory for their followers do not talk about these things in public at all.

There is currently a tendency among scientists and doctors to consider anything that deviates from the norm as pathological There is currently a tendency among natural scientists and physicians to classify as pathological everything that deviates from the norm that is considered correct.

In contrast to this, it cannot be emphasized enough that all mental states achieved through the training methods referred to here do not represent a reduction but an increase in health. And only if the training is not carried out properly will the development take a course contrary to the right one. Of course, I cannot characterize in one hour all the individual soul functions that proper training brings about. For this many individual acts are necessary. A more exact idea of what is needed can be obtained from my book, which in the German edition bears the title “Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?” The French edition is entitled “L'Initiation”. - If a person now observes everything that is indicated there, and if he does not shy away from time, effort and self-denying moods, then he can achieve what can be described as a complete dwelling within the soul without any content from ordinary life. The essential point is that this is a state in which full consciousness of the soul is present, without the soul's content being there, which in ordinary life fills consciousness.

Once such a state has been attained, the task is to fill the emptied soul with content again. This must not be content taken from ordinary life. For such a content would lead the soul back into the realm it wants to leave. But where should another content come from? Here it comes into consideration what I just described when I said that the leap must first be made half way. The soul must bring it about through further intensive efforts of will, now as if out of the nothingness of the soul life, to fill itself completely with a powerfully effective idea. This must be a symbol that does not represent any external object or event, but one that symbolizes a meaningful thing. In this case, the symbol acts as something between an ordinary idea and a phantasm. It refers to something real; but it does not represent anything real. When one concentrates all that lives in the soul upon such a symbol, one draws the inner soul together into itself, as it were, and one frees oneself from that state in which one knows the inner man only through the instrumentality of the outer man. One gets to know the experience that consists in regarding the outer man as a being that, like other objects of the outer world, does not belong to us but belongs to the objective world. It may be said of this experience that some mystics come close to it, but do not fully attain it. The philosophical critics who have discussed the experience knew it only in this imperfect form. And that is why what they object to is justified from their point of view. They find that everything that can be gained from the experience can have a personal value for a person. They admit that through it he can feel as if he has been transported into a spiritual world. But they do not admit that through this experience one can gain spiritual knowledge that is quite independent of the personality. But one can only do so when the experience deepens to such an extent that one really feels like a kind of double being. One then sees one's own organism in a completely new form. In this form, it shows with all certainty all those characteristics by which one gives one's experiences a personal coloration in normal life. And in this way it becomes a teacher of truly impersonal knowledge. One need only look at him and say to oneself: “This is what makes things appear to you with this or that nuance of feeling.” In this way one is able to eliminate everything that is subjective. This important experience, which must precede every ascent to supersensible knowledge, bears the name in the language of esoteric science: “Encounter with the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’”. Since I am not speaking here of the path that leads man to act in the supersensible world, it is not incumbent upon me to describe in detail the terrible form that this “Guardian of the Threshold” shows to all those who want to come to such action. It is quite justified that the means by which this guardian of the supersensible worlds is approached in this field is not spoken of publicly. For the encounter with him is terrible and full of danger. It brings before the spiritual eye all the instincts, desires, passions, down to the lowest forms, of which man could only be capable if all the inhibitions that education, heredity, knowledge, social sense, etc. lend to life did not work. And since nothing counteracts the terrible spectre of one's own nature, there is a serious danger that man will not be able to escape the temptations and will head towards terrible moral decay. One only has to read the descriptions of those mystics who have taken a few steps into these dangerous worlds. What they describe of temptations and wild passions is completely true. The experiences one can have there are such that the usual descriptions of hell pale in comparison. It is well known that such mystics protect themselves from these temptations by striving for a complete annihilation of their personality before they enter these regions. They kill every feeling of their own, every will of their own. “It is no longer I myself who feel, no longer I myself who will, but it is Christ in me.” This attitude of Paul's becomes the ideal of these mystics. By sanctifying their whole inner being, they seek to escape the temptations of the same. For those who do not seek complete entry into the supersensible realm, but only the gaining of knowledge from it, the meeting with the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’ is less perilous. As already mentioned, only those reasons arise at the significant boundary that determine a person to see the world in a subjective way. Now, of course, these reasons are also terribly enticing. They are so strong that there is a danger that a person will lose all sense of anything other than what is personally sufficient for them as truth. He may then lose all sense of an impersonal form of truth in spiritual matters. This danger can be avoided if the one who ventures into the supersensible has first acquired a sound judgment and genuine critical faculty. These are the only things that can be taken from the ordinary world into the world of supersensible knowledge. In regard to the content of experience the two worlds are fundamentally different; but they are the same in this, that he who really thinks logically in the one world can also do so in the other. This thinking gives the spiritual researcher nothing that he could carry over into his new world. One does not learn the nature and facts of this world through concepts that one carries over from the ordinary world into it. They can only be known through observation, through direct experience. Yet this thinking is necessary for the reason that one should not lose touch with the old world when entering a new one. It is impossible for anyone in a supersensible world to distinguish hallucination or vision from reality who is not able to compare or measure his experiences in this world with those of the ordinary world. No matter how interesting the stories about the most wonderful and marvelous things in a spiritual world may be, no matter how much they may captivate attention. They are worthless for man's understanding of the world if one is unable to explain their relationship to the ordinary sense world in a logically satisfactory way.

The one danger into which man falls in his ascent into the supersensible world, and which has just been indicated, can also be described by saying: At the boundary between the two worlds, the tendency arises, indeed an almost irresistible urge, to mistake error for truth. He who cannot conquer this tendency becomes a visionary, a dreamer. He does not become a spiritual researcher. In the literary or philosophical world, which deals with these things outside of the theosophical world view, one knows nothing of the strict laws that the spiritual researcher imposes on himself after recognizing this danger. Therefore, it is quite understandable that everything he describes as true is considered by others to be nothing more than visions, hallucinations, etc. For outwardly, i.e. for those ideas that one can form without the characterized experience, they are nothing else. And a truly critical distinction between reality and appearance is only possible for those who have hardened their cognitive abilities in the fire through which they must pass when they have that experience.

All this, however, only points to one of the dangers of the supersensible path of knowledge. The other is that in the moment in which one has left one's ordinary organism, one is like a helpless child in the supersensible world. At first one only knows that one has become a different person: one does not know what to do now. Two cases can arise: Either one feels like being in an empty nothing. Then it is necessary to keep courage and composure. This is a sign that one has not yet sufficiently mastered the soul exercises of symbolic visualization. One is in a situation like a hungry person who has awakened a longing for a new world, but who is unable to satisfy this longing. To continue the exercises, one then needs great courage and self-confidence. If one cannot summon them up, one falls back into ordinary life; and one has gained nothing for it, but one has lost one's naive contentment and peace.

The other case is when, through the spiritual exercises undertaken, one has concentrated so much of the spiritual powers of the human being that they begin to show themselves as a spiritual organism. Then one is just like a helpless child. Perceptions arise before the spiritual field of vision that run in colorful interplay. But one does not know what to do with them. You now have to learn to orient yourself. This can only happen in a calm, serene inner soul life. It is the case that little by little the details that you experience form parts of an overall picture, that they give each other meaning. In this way, the spiritual field of vision is filled with images. It is a world of which one knew nothing before. The errors that arise when real seers describe this world stem from the fact that these seers have to use the words of ordinary language, which, after all, are only formed for the perceptions of the sensory world. They have to talk about sounds and colors. In truth, however, these are all only figurative expressions. But one should not say that it is therefore impermissible to use these expressions. On the contrary, it is entirely justified. For when the seer says, “I see red here and there,” he is aware that by using the word “red” he does not mean the red as seen by the eye when looking at a red cloth; but what he sees evokes in his soul an experience similar to the red of the cloth.

The supersensible picture presented to the seer in this way must be approached in a quite different way from the approach to the sense world. If one perceives something in the world of sense, it is sufficient for all practical purposes of life to take what one perceives for reality. No matter how clearly the idealistic philosopher may demonstrate that the sense picture of the dog is only an appearance, the man who stands in practical life must first of all hold fast to what he sees as a 'dog'. If we now were to do the same with regard to the supersensible picture just described, we should fall into the worst error. We must be able to say to ourselves: everything that lies in my supersensible field of perception is as yet nothing at all; it shows nothing real, but only images of the real. It is nothing; it only signifies something. We must be able to say to ourselves: everything you have before you is basically nothing but an illusion if you can't go any further. You have to be able to take a step forward now. But this step is basically nothing more than an expectation of what happens when you persist with calmness, self-confidence and presence of mind. I would like to illustrate this step with a comparison. It is as if you opened your eyes to the bright sun and were blinded, but then you could wait until your eyes had become hardened to look boldly at the sun. In this way, the inner spiritual man indeed hardens and strengthens. The images then become transparent and what they mean appears. Only now has entry into the supersensible world been accomplished. Only now can one experience its essence. For this reason, the supersensible world is called the imaginative world as long as it is a world of images. When it then opens up to reveal what it means, it is called the world of inspiration.

Only when one has reached this point does one stand face to face with the supersensible world. What the seer then perceives in this world can become the content of what is communicated to the world as theosophy. Whether or not this is accepted will depend on the attitude with which one faces life and ordinary science. One can be in such a frame of mind that one perceives the overpowering way in which the sense world reveals itself as the only reality. Then one will not at all be open to the subtle assurances of the seer or spiritual researcher with regard to everything he has experienced, in order to be able to distinguish between vision, hallucination, etc. and reality. One will dismiss his communications as visions, his spiritual mood as ecstasy in the popular sense. At best, one will accept them as personal mystical experiences that have nothing to do with objective science. Even if this is the case in many circles of the present day, and even with the vast majority of our contemporaries, it may also be said that there are many other circles that respond to the seers' statements because a natural sense of truth enables them to agree with the messages, and because life would seem full of contradictions to them if they were not to acknowledge that the world of the seer lies behind the ordinary world as a source and origin. People from these circles are the ones who devote themselves to the theosophical trend. They are people with deep spiritual needs, people who, through their inner longings, must ask themselves the question about the origin, meaning and goal of life. Often such people have sought refuge in the most diverse world views. And not only in search of knowledge, but also for a soul that must feel bleak and empty if it cannot look up to a higher world. After a long search, and unable to reconcile some of what they found with what they experience in happiness and misfortune, in suffering and pain, in memories and hopes, they have come to theosophy. And in its messages they find a structure of ideas that initially seems improbable, even unscientific, but which not only resolves otherwise insoluble scientific contradictions, but also harmonizes with life experiences in the most perfect way. With this sentence, I do not want to express a theoretical assertion, which may be debatable; rather, I want to point out a fact that many souls experience in the present.

What appears to be particularly significant, however, is that scientific thinking is also on the way to knocking on the doors behind which lies theosophy. I would like to point out a number of things that lie in a field in which today's so-called exact research and spiritual research will meet in the not too distant future. In the last few decades, a whole series of subtle thinkers have emerged who have found it necessary to break down the frameworks of old scientific views, especially in those areas where the ordinary scientist most strongly believes himself to be on safe ground. I must touch on some remote subjects here. Who would believe that there is anything more scientifically certain than the simplest theorems of geometry. And yet, in Lobatschewski and Bolyai, and also in Riemann, ingenious mathematicians have arisen who have conceived of completely different geometries than our own. These geometries have, so to speak, no application in our world. They would apply to beings that live in completely different worlds than we do. And these geometries are not fantastic in that their ideas correspond with each other and do not contradict anything other than our sensory world.

The astute mathematician Henri Poincaré, a member of the French Institute, has based an opinion on this that is significant in the highest sense. He sees in our ordinary geometry only a sum of views that actually apply to man for no other reason than because he finds them advantageous for finding his way around in his sensory world. And therefore Poincaré can see in this human sense world only one of many possible worlds. Now in this way nothing else can be shown than how many more worlds are conceivable than can be directly experienced. But one can see from this how science is on the way to breaking the fetters of the sense world, at least intellectually. The time will come when it will no longer be considered ridiculous to claim that the human soul is also capable of transcending its ordinary abilities to perceive worlds that Lobachevsky and Poincaré recognize as conceivable for the mathematical-physical mind.

Furthermore, I would like to point out how even the admirable natural science, with the significant advances of the descent theory, the reformed Lamarckism and Darwinism, stands at a point from which a bridge is possible to spiritual science in the theosophical sense. It is well known how this science has presented a developmental series before the observing human being. It begins with simple beings, which develop ever higher and higher through differentiation of the organs. Adaptation to living conditions and the struggle for existence are said to play a role in this, through which the lower is transformed into the higher. Today, there are already numerous scientific thinkers who find it particularly difficult, in the individual results of research, to really bring the development of higher forms from lower ones to mind in concrete terms. It is not so long ago that bold naturalists enthusiastically constructed the entire developmental series of organisms and proudly presented humans as the final link in the evolution of the animal creatures that were closest to them. Today, under the oppressive burden of the facts, great caution has been adopted in this area. And there are more and more researchers who consider it necessary to hypothetically consider creatures in the distant past that had neither anything of today's humans nor of the highest animal organisms. I need only refer to research such as that of the successful Selenka to suggest the tremendous perspectives that open up here. Natural scientists are increasingly coming to realize that pure fact-finding is more likely to raise countless questions than to solve them by their methods.

What does spiritual research have to say about all this? The seer is able, by means of the methods that have been described, to look into the most distant past. And the spiritual essence of what he sees becomes all the richer the poorer it becomes in relation to what is accessible to the senses. He finds that the natural scientist is right when he imagines the earth in its primeval state as being inhabited only by simple material life, but that the spiritual world is becoming ever richer. He finds an original, entirely spiritual state of being on earth. But man already existed in this spiritual state as a spiritual-soul being. Indeed, he existed as such before other organisms were present. In ancient conditions we are dealing – my description can only be an approximation on this point – with the spiritual-soul man. And the present state of humanity is only a condensation of the ancient soul-spiritual form of man. That man has come to his present sensual-real form is due to the fact that he has gone through the transition into it at a relatively late time on earth. The various animal forms have arisen because their corresponding spiritual primal beings came to earthly densification earlier. As a result, they remained at more imperfect levels, which man has progressed beyond. Thus, through the seer's observation, an upward expansion of the theory of evolution is given. And this is in such a way that no results of natural science are disregarded. All the achievements of so-called positive research can be done justice to precisely because of this. And anyone who wants to see can already see how the two streams of research, the natural scientific and the seer's, will meet in this field in the near future. It can already be seen how the thinking of the present is pushing towards this. It is only necessary to draw attention to a thinker like Henri Bergson. Bergson finds that all the paths of research that science has taken since Galileo require a supplement. He finds this supplement in a certain intuition. And in this, Bergson even goes some way towards meeting theosophy. In his mind's eye he sees a complex primeval human being, which in its further development has become man. And the animal kingdom in its forms, and even a part of the plant kingdom, seem to be like the splintered debris of the progressive human stream of development. All this is abstract intuitive thought in Bergson. He does not take the step into theosophy. But it will be taken one day. For what Bergson constructs only in thought, presents itself to the seer's observation in a perceptible form, quite concretely in its development, just as the individual stages of human life present themselves to sensory observation as childhood, youth, maturity, old age.

[From the chapter “World of Thought, Personality, Peoplehood”] The thoughts that a person is able to form about reality easily come to fill his entire mental life. He believes that they give him a light that shines into all the secrets of the world. If he finds that someone has different thoughts from his own, he speaks of a different world view. He believes that the other person's thoughts contradict his own and that they therefore cannot exist alongside his own.

However, by judging in this way, one usually confuses two things that need to be kept separate by anyone who wants to gain insight into the true reasons why thinkers' ideas about reality differ so widely. This paper is based on the view that, when one looks more closely at the ideas that are believed to belong to different worldviews,

In the way that one speaks of the diversity of the worldviews of thinkers, two different causes of this diversity are lumped together, resulting in a confusion of concepts. A thinker can have thoughts about reality that differ from those of another, like the image of a tree photographed from one direction is different from that of the same tree photographed from another.

If one seeks to recognize how the forces of nationality are effective in the thinkers of a [people], then one will be able to find significant examples in such personalities as they have appeared in Planck, Troxler, 1. H. Fichte and others described in this writing. For the purpose of such a consideration is to find those popular instincts that also work in other branches of popular activity, and that drive their peculiarity into the world of thought in such thinkers. These forces often have no influence on the opinions that are then formed about the course and value of worldviews and that are expressed in the writing of history; and so it happens that thinkers rooted in the soil of their nation are often not only lonely during their lifetime, but that their thoughts are also lonely for posterity. The most effective forces of a people reveal themselves in their achievements; and the strength of the recognition, even the recognition of these forces, does not necessarily correspond to what has been achieved. If one says in response: yes, but this thinker, who is supposed to be so rooted in the people, has not had a great effect, one does not see how the forces at work in him are precisely those that continue to have an effect, that are indestructible. If we want to know the driving forces of a tree, we must not see how one branch affects another, but how the forces present in the trunk are manifested in the individual branch. It is not a matter of focusing on how this or that thinker has influenced these opinions, but rather on what forces of the folk-soul are at work in a personality.

It is important to see: this or that trait is national and it shows in the idiosyncrasy of this or that thinker.

How the national character works in the thinker.

If one seeks to recognize how the forces of national character are effective in the thinkers of a nation, /bricht ab]

Planck, like Troxler and some of the other personalities described here, has remained without a more far-reaching effect of the kind that is expressed in the recognition of contemporaries, in the dissemination of views and the like. But if one wants to identify thinkers in whom the essence of nationality lives, then he belongs among them. For what has become thought in him sprouts from the impulses of nationality. In his thoughts, it is precisely those impulses of the people that are often unconsciously at work, but which underlie the activity and achievements of the people.

What is expressed in all truly popular activity and achievement in the most diverse fields; what lives in the most diverse forms: in the case of such a thinker, it becomes a world of ideas. Materialism is not overcome by rejecting the view of a series of thinkers in the second half of the nineteenth century who considered all spiritual experiences to be a mere material effect, but by engaging in thinking about the spiritual in the sense that one thinks about nature in a natural way. What this means can already be seen from the preceding remarks in this essay, but it will be shown in particular in the final considerations intended as 'outlooks'.

A deepening of insight into the soul of a people can never lead to an underestimation of the essence and value of other peoples; it cannot indulge in such feelings as are today felt by many towards the German people.

The author of this writing hopes that it will be seen from it how far removed from him any appreciative immersion in the spiritual idiosyncrasy of a national character is from any misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the essence and value of other national characters. It would be unnecessary to say this at any other time; today it is necessary in view of the feelings that are now being expressed by many sides towards German nature.

The author of this essay hopes that it will be seen that his view, that a deeper understanding of the psychological characteristics of one nationality should not lead to a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the nature and value of other nationalities, is apparent from it. It would be unnecessary to say this at other times. Today it is necessary.

[On the chapter 'Images from Austria's Intellectual Life': Robert Hamerling and 'Homunculus'

In his satirical poem “Homunculus”, Hamerling shows, so to speak, what would become of human life if what is merely presented as scientific theory were to be realized in reality. The human being who lives without a soul because he thinks in a spirit-shy way is the “homunculus”. In our time, this “homunculism” is having a wide impact. There is even talk of how homo sapiens of a bygone age is being transformed entirely into homo oeconomicus. This is /bricht ab]

Hamerling is looking for a worldview that incorporates a spiritual way of thinking into the purely scientific world of thought.

What would life be like if man were really what a world view presents him as being, one that only takes into account the sensory world? One could ask the question: what would a world order have to look like if it were a reality, one that a world view presents, one that only forms its ideas from the reality of the senses. If, therefore, the purely scientific mode of thought wants to be, so to speak, [breaks off]

In his satirical poem “Homunculus”, Hamerling portrays a person who is only what the world view takes him to be, which draws its ideas only from the sensory world.

The world of the scientific way of thinking is the world that man perceives in reality; but it is presented without anything by which it could make itself perceptible to any being.

What this way of thinking conceives as light and sound does not shine or resound. One only knows from life that one has gained the representations of this way of thinking from what shines and resounds, and therefore lives in the belief that what is imagined also shines and resounds.

When Mach speaks of sensation, he is pointing to that which is felt; but in thinking the object of the sensation, he must separate it from the ego. He does not realize that by doing so, he is thinking something that can no longer be felt. He also shows this by the fact that the concept of the ego completely dissipates. That he actually loses the “I” completely. It becomes a mythical concept. Because he does not consciously think of his world of feeling as imperceptible, it throws the perceiving ego out of his thinking. Thus Mach's view in particular becomes proof of what has been explained here.

Hamerling, however, is only standing before the experience of the seeing consciousness with a presentiment. This sees in the material of the brain the conditions for the soul entities to recognize themselves in their mirror image through the ordinary consciousness. Matter can never be the bearer of thought, but it can be the bearer of the images of consciousness of the creative thinking. The latter experiences itself in the vision of consciousness in its essence independent of matter and regards the material activity of the brain as spiritual activity becoming a real image.

With this thought, however, Hamerling is only intuitively approaching the point of view of the observing consciousness. To want to derive the thought in the human brain from the activity of the material atoms certainly remains a futile and foolish undertaking for all time. For it is no better than wanting to derive the mirror image of a person from the activity of the mirror.

But what ordinary consciousness knows as thoughts is only the reflection, brought about by the brain, of the living, thinking essence of the soul. One cannot say of this reflection that something in the processes of the brain is essentially the same as it. When the observing consciousness experiences itself in the essential nature of thoughts, then it also beholds in them the reality that underlies the brain. The brain is related to this reality as an image is to the essence that it visualizes.

Enhanced consciousness is not developed from ordinary consciousness through bodily (physiological) processes, as ordinary waking consciousness develops from dream consciousness. The intensification is a completely soul-spiritual experience that cannot have anything to do with bodily processes. When awakening from dream into waking consciousness, one is dealing with a changing attitude of the body; when awakening from ordinary consciousness to spirit-perceiving consciousness, one is dealing with a changing attitude of spiritual-soul experiences.

But the image-form of the thought in ordinary consciousness is also for the seeing consciousness a reflection of the essential being that is experienced in the soul. And when the soul, living and cognizant, becomes aware of itself in the observing consciousness, it knows itself to be in a reality within which the material substance of the brain is not essentially the same as the thoughts of the ordinary consciousness, but it is the same as the spiritual substance with which the thoughts reveal themselves. In the observing consciousness, the soul knows itself to be in the spiritual substance that the brain forms out of the creative spiritual substance. But what Hamerling describes in his Atomics of the Will would only correspond to this creative spiritual essence if he knew himself as living in the consciousness of vision and was striving to visualize the spiritual experience with his description.

That is the world in which the soul knows itself to be one with what [breaks off]

[To the chapter: “Images from the Thought Life of Austria”: Josef Misson]

Misson cannot be considered a thinker among those described in this writing. But if one considers what must have gone on in his soul life, it gives an understanding of the special coloring of the ideas of Austrian thinkers. But what lives in the constitution of his soul sheds light on Austrian thinkers. The thoughts of Schelling, Hegel and Planck can be vividly dissected like the limbs of a thought organism, so that each thought always grows out of the other; a popular element can be seen in this way of growing out of one another. The thoughts of Austrian thinkers stand like isolated plants on a spiritual ground from which they all grow in the same way, with each one less arising from the other. Therefore they do not so much bear the immediate popular character in their form, but more in their fundamental mood. Such a fundamental mood is, however, held back in the thinker; in a personality like Mission it appears as a yearning for the popular. — In Schröer, in Fercher, in Carneri, Hamerling it lives as the fundamental mood of their thoughts, while their content reveals less of it.

[On the chapter 'Images from the Thought Life of Austria': Oriental-Indian Mysticism]

A kind of counter-image to the purely scientific way of thinking is Oriental-Indian mysticism. The former does not reach the spirit because it loses itself in observing the senses; the latter does not enter into reality with its spiritual experience because it does not want to awaken from ordinary consciousness to the heightened consciousness meant here, but rather dampens ordinary consciousness, thereby falling into a dream-like recognition. She believes she is recognizing the spiritual by leaving the reality that is immediately present to her. But it is part of the real spiritual that this reality arises from it. Therefore, if one weaves as a knower in a spiritual world that has stripped away this reality, then this imagined spiritual world lacks what is in truth in the real spiritual world. This oriental-Indian mysticism also claims to overcome the “I” of ordinary consciousness. In truth, it only falls back to a level of consciousness that has not yet reached the “I”. The awakened consciousness meant in this writing goes beyond the level of consciousness at which the “I” has been attained. Ancient Indian mysticism is a kind of counter-image to the scientific way of thinking. If the former paints a world that is imperceptible, the latter paints a world in which life is lived spiritually, but nothing is to be perceived. The cognizant person does not seek to awaken from sensory reality to a heightened consciousness through the power of soul experiences, but withdraws from all reality in order to be alone with cognition. He believes that he has overcome reality, while he has only withdrawn his consciousness from it, and in a sense left it standing outside itself with all its difficulties and riddles. The knower also believes that he has become free of the “I” and, in a selfless devotion to the spiritual world, is one with it. In reality, he has only obscured the experience of the “I” for his consciousness and unconsciously lives entirely in the “I”. Instead of awakening from the ordinary consciousness of self, he falls back into a dreamy consciousness. He thinks he has solved the riddles of existence, when in fact he has only turned his soul's gaze away from them. He has the pleasant feeling of knowledge because he no longer feels the riddle of knowledge weighing on him. One can have to say all this to oneself and still have no less admiration and understanding for the magnificent creation of the Bhagavad-Gita or other products of this mysticism than someone to whom the above only gives the impression that it must have been written by someone who simply has no sense for the sublimity of these creations. One should not believe that only the unconditional follower of a world view can fully appreciate it. I write this here, knowing that I have no less appreciation for Indian mysticism and no less experience with it than any of its followers.