The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. German Theosophists of the Early 19th Century

[ 1 ] It is, after all, a fact that has been noted time and again that it is extraordinarily difficult to gain any understanding from our scholarly leaders in academic circles regarding the humanities movement. On the one hand, it is a very unfortunate fact that in our time science is surrounded by such a strong belief in authority, and everything that is scientific exerts such an imposing influence in all directions, that a spiritual movement which is meant to be—and wants to be—transformative naturally has a very hard time when the vast majority of scholars, one might say, almost without exception, treat a movement such as our spiritual science as if it were dilettantism, blind superstition, and so on.

[ 2 ] It may be disheartening, but it is certainly understandable, to hear the judgments of such scholarly circles regarding theosophy or spiritual science. However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that these judgments are among those rendered without any expertise in the subject matter. If we then examine so-called public opinion, as expressed in our journals, we need not be surprised that it, too, does not exactly view the Theosophical Movement with understanding. For this public opinion is, after all, entirely under the overwhelming influence of scientific authority and is completely dependent on it.

[ 3 ] This may be disheartening, but it is certainly understandable. There are various reasons that make this understandable. One of these reasons, as it relates to German intellectual life, can be seen simply in the fact that an important aspect of our German intellectual life—a pinnacle of our deepest contemplation—has actually been completely overlooked by our scholarly community. True, you will find in every handbook of philosophy and every history of literature a few notes on what this is all about; but a truly penetrating understanding of this most significant aspect of our intellectual life—and of what the most important German thinkers accomplished at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century—is lacking. In particular, there is a lack of understanding of how these achievements of German intellectual life are rooted in the general German intellectual life of about a hundred years ago. Were this not the case—that is, if our scholarly circles were to truly engage with that deepening of German intellectual life at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century—there would, for example, be an understanding among our philosophers of the great intellectual life of Fichte, Schelling’s, and Hegel’s; the compendia of philosophy would not consist solely of isolated and inadequate excerpts from their works; and people would know what that line of thought actually achieved in Germany—then one would also find entry into the movement of the humanities from the standpoint of scholarship.

[ 4 ] Of all the introductory courses in theosophy or spiritual science available today, this school of German thought from the turn of the 18th to the 19th century is by far the best for people today. Admittedly, it is not accessible to everyone, for how could the broader public truly understand the great German thinkers when university circles and academic circles lead the way so little in this understanding, when they do so little to bring about genuine popularity for these thinkers? The general public—those who are meant to turn to theosophy—cannot be blamed for not being able to do so. But to those whose profession it is to infuse the spiritual treasures of the West into the culture of the entire people, it must be said that they are failing completely to fulfill their obligations in this regard.

[ 5 ] I will not have to mention any names that are unfamiliar to you, but I may have to address the peculiar fact that names found in every philosophical compendium can be associated with Theosophy. It is peculiar: people are so quick to point out how nonsensical it is to use the term “esoteric teaching” in any context. Western scholars who have studied Buddhism, for example, have repeatedly asserted that it is nonsense to suggest that Buddhism contains an esoteric teaching—something that goes beyond what is written in the books. That such scholarly circles make such claims is not particularly surprising. For the very fact that they do so implies that the most important things have remained a secret doctrine to them. How could they know that a secret doctrine exists, since they have never found access to it! Essentially, the most important achievement following that of the great German thinker Johann Gottlieb Fichte remains, even today, a profoundly esoteric teaching for the majority. It is true—as distressing as it may seem—that this German intellectual life emerged at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century from the so-called Enlightenment. We can describe this Enlightenment in a few words. It was a necessary event in the development of the modern spirit. It is what the most significant thinkers of the 18th century championed. Kant says that the Enlightenment simply means what can be summarized in the sentence: “Have the courage to use your own understanding.” This Enlightenment was nothing other than an emancipation of the individual, a breaking free of the individual from traditions and customs. What had been believed for centuries, what everyone had absorbed from the collective intellectual heritage of the people, was to be examined. Only that to which the individual says “yes” should be accepted. As you know, great minds drew their development from this Enlightenment. One need only recall the name Lessing to name one of the greatest. Ultimately, what is associated with the name Kant is nothing other than a result of what is called the Enlightenment.

[ 6 ] One thinker who broke with the Enlightenment in a very peculiar way is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. When I say that he broke with the Enlightenment in a peculiar way, please do not think that I intend to portray Fichte as an opponent of the Enlightenment. He broke with it in the sense that he examined all the achievements of the Enlightenment and built upon their foundations, but Fichte went far beyond what is merely Enlightenment—beyond the trivial—in a very thorough way. It is precisely Fichte who offers those who have the opportunity to immerse themselves in his great trains of thought something that, among the modern thinkers, can be gained only through him.

[ 7 ] After listening to many purely popular lectures, let us today hear a lecture that seems to deviate from the usual course our humanities lectures have taken this winter. I shall endeavor to show, as clearly as possible, a little of what actually took place in German intellectual life at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. Much of what I have to say will be only a rough sketch. This German intellectual life first made access to the spiritual world itself more difficult, and then also to the living and immortal essence of the human being. I cannot go into detail today about the merits and shortcomings of Kant’s philosophy. Official philosophy calls Kant the “crusher of all things” and regards his body of thought as a philosophical achievement of the highest order. Today I would simply like to recall a term that is perhaps familiar even to those who do not have the opportunity to delve deeper into the subject: the term “thing-in-itself.”

[ 8 ] Human cognitive capacity, as understood in Kantian philosophy, is limited. It cannot penetrate to the “thing-in-itself.” No matter what ideas and concepts we form, no matter what we experience in the world, according to Kantian philosophy we are dealing with phenomena, not with the true “thing-in-itself.” This is always hidden behind the phenomena. This may well have encouraged a blind craving for speculation—and we have seen this abundantly in the intellectual development of Germany—which seeks to circumscribe and constrict human cognitive faculties in every direction. At the same time, however, it was intended to put a stop to humanity’s tendency to strive toward the truth and to probe into the depths of existence. The aim was to demonstrate that human beings cannot simply approach the primordial sources of existence. Now, it may be true that this was necessary given the course of intellectual life in the 18th century. But viewed in a broad, comprehensive context, Kantian philosophy has nonetheless created a major obstacle to the further development of intellectual life. I am well aware, of course, that there are people who say: What, after all, did Kant do that was fundamentally different from all those great minds who have always emphasized that we are dealing with phenomena, that we cannot reach the “thing-in-itself”! — This appears to be correct, but in truth it is false. In a completely different way, the true researchers of the spirit throughout the ages assert that the world consists solely of phenomena. No true researcher of the spirit has ever denied that, insofar as we explore the world with our senses and comprehend it with our intellect, it offers us only phenomena; yet higher sensory faculties must be awakened within us—faculties that transcend the ordinary, penetrate more deeply into the sources of existence, and can—and indeed must—slowly, gradually, yet surely lead us to the “thing-in-itself”—and indeed must lead us there. No Eastern philosophy, no Platonic philosophy, no self-understanding worldview that penetrates the spirit has ever spoken of the world as a Maya in any other sense. They have always said only this: For lower human cognition, a veil lies before the “thing-in-itself”; for higher human cognition, this veil is torn away, and man can penetrate into the depths of existence. In addressing this question, the Enlightenment has, in a certain respect, reached a dead end, and this is best characterized by a statement found in the preface to the second edition of Kant’s magnum opus, *Critique of Pure Reason*, in which the Enlightenment reveals its own despondency because it is unable to proceed further. It reads: “I therefore had to set aside knowledge in order to make room for faith.” This is the crux of Kant’s philosophy and of the mode of thought to which the 18th century had arrived—a mode of thought that our philosophical inquiry has still not transcended and from which it still suffers. As long as it suffers from this ailment, philosophy will never be capable of understanding theosophy. What does this mean: “I therefore had to set aside knowledge to make room for faith”? Kant says: The thing-in-itself remains hidden, and consequently so does the thing within our own hearts. We do not know what we ourselves are; we can never arrive at the true nature of things. As if from indeterminate worlds, the so-called categorical imperative resounds: You ought to do this or that. — We hear it, but we cannot prove it. We simply must believe it. Likewise, we hear of the divine being. We must believe in it as well. Nor do we know anything about the fate of the soul, about immortality, or about eternity. We must believe in them. For these things that connect human beings to the divine, there is only faith, since no knowledge can penetrate the divine. Human beings mistake belief for knowledge when they fail to penetrate the divine. This divine is thereby distorted and cast in a false light through wild speculation. That is why Kant wanted to preserve everything spiritual for mere faith, and to limit cognition—that which can be known—to external impressions, to appearance. Whatever else you may read and study about Kant’s philosophy, this idea is the essential point that matters. This idea became central to the further development of Kant’s thought. But the one who decisively broke with this idea—who, out of a bold inner state of mind, broke with this idea—is Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

[ 9 ] It is a curious thing that among the theosophical thinkers of modern India, among the recent revivers of Vedanta philosophy, a most remarkable discovery has been made—namely, that the Germans have a great thinker, and that his name is Johann Gottlieb Fichte. This is stated by an Indian who writes under the name Bhagavân Dâs. I have met German theosophists who first learned from him that Johann Gottlieb Fichte is a profound German thinker.

[ 10 ] A lot can happen in this regard. Weeks ago, I was in a city in southern Germany. There, one of my Theosophical friends told me: “We now have a university lecturer here who thinks it would be good if people studied Fichte, because—he said—he had come to realize that there are many profound thoughts in Fichte.” — A curious admission from a German university professor! If, more than a century after Fichte, a German university professor can only now begin to realize, even a little, that Fichte accomplished something great, this casts a peculiar light on this kind of German scholarship. For Fichte, in the final decade of the 18th century, did not advocate the doctrine of the “I”—of human self-consciousness—among his students in Jena out of mere speculation, but from the very depths of his being. He did not advocate it exactly as we do today from the perspective of the humanities, but he advocated it in such a way that, if a number of people had been influenced by his approach—if they had educated themselves according to his great intellectual demands—they would then have arrived at theosophy in a healthy, lucid way that illuminates the very core of the inner self. It was not for nothing that Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s lectures had such an inspiring effect on the students at Jena at that time. For the following was alive within him. Even though he walked on the heights of thought, even though he spoke in the purest, most crystal-clear, and logically sharpest thoughts, these thoughts simultaneously expressed a very warm, deep, and immediate personality and essence. As the very thing that most deeply characterized him, he uttered the words that everyone has a philosophy, depending on what kind of person they are. To put it simply, one could say: It does not matter at all whether someone can think logically well or poorly, for one can very well provide a logical justification for a hollow philosophy; what matters is not sharpness of mind, but inner experience—what one has experienced, what one has fathomed with all the powers of one’s soul. This is expressed in language. Even if someone is a shallow materialist, they can still be a sharp logician; conversely, someone can be a spiritualist and a weak logician. One does not prove a worldview; rather, the worldview is the expression of the innermost self, of inner experience. This is what Fichte not only articulated but also lived out. He was inspired by Kant. But how one is inspired by that to which one can add the opposite, the reverse side, within oneself—for that is where a person’s deepest faculties open up—that was clear to Fichte.

[ 11 ] Now follow me—I would say, for just a brief moment—into the icy but no less important realms of thought from which Fichte drew the essence of self-consciousness. I will not describe it in his own words, for that would be too difficult here, but rather through allusions that nonetheless contain no less of the truth. I would like to convey what he once conjured up before his students in Jena: There is one thing for everyone in which the “thing-in-itself” reveals itself to them, in which it expresses itself—and that is one’s own inner self. Look within, and you will discover something that, at first, you cannot discover anywhere else. — We see that Fichte knew that not everyone discovers what they are meant to discover there, for he uses a very beautiful—though, for most people, crude—expression. He says: If people could truly attain self-knowledge, they would find the most significant thing within themselves. But there are few who achieve this, for they would rather consider themselves a piece of lava on the moon than a self-conscious being. — What is self-consciousness in our time? Some portray it as a conglomerate of brain atoms. But they do not set out to know themselves. It makes little difference whether one says “conglomerate of brain atoms” or “molecules” or “a piece of lava on the moon.” — Here, Fichte clearly points out that the kind of insight into the inner self that merely seeks to observe how things are is not the true insight into the inner self. For human existence within the self differs from any other form of existence. How does it differ? It differs in that human existence involves decision and action. This is a frigid realm of thought from which we soon wish to emerge into more flowery realms. Fichte does not regard self-knowledge as brooding within oneself, nor as mere self-contemplation; no, for Fichte it is action, an act. This is a word that leads one away from false self-knowledge toward true self-development. A human being cannot simply look within to recognize what he is. He must give himself what he is to become. He must immerse himself in the divine nature of the world and draw from the essence of the Divine the sparks with which he must continually kindle his own self. Let us consider a stone. It is what it is. We recognize it. Let us consider a plant. It is what it is. Let us even consider our own body, our etheric and astral bodies. They, too, are what they are. Human beings are only what they make of themselves, and self-knowledge is an intimate activity, not a dead form of knowledge. By using the term “Tathandlung,” Fichte expresses something that, in this meaningful way, has only been articulated by the ancient Vedanta philosophy. He has reached the point that the Theosophists are now seeking once again. I have said time and again here that Theosophy seeks to show how human beings strive upward toward the Divine, how it is meant to awaken the divine power slumbering within them, through which they then also become aware of the Divine around them. Fichte strives for exactly the same thing. False self-knowledge, he says, consists in saying: “Look within yourself; within yourself you will find God.” — True self-knowledge says something else. It says: “If you brood over your inner self, it would be like looking into your own eye. But that is not the purpose of the eye.” We come to know light through the eye. In the same way, we also come to know the light of the “I” through the soul. The awakening of the inner self can be compared to the eye. Just as you do not find the soul within the organism, nor do you find light within the eye; just as surely, you do not find God within yourself. But we find the possibility of developing the faculties to find this God. The activity within the “I” that develops our spiritual faculties—that is the being that a person bestows upon themselves. That is TathandJung; that is Fichte’s self-knowledge. From this point, Fichte’s path ascends step by step. If one immerses oneself completely, if one trains oneself in one’s own thoughts, then one finds a healthy entry point into theosophy, and no one will ever have cause to regret immersing themselves in the crystal-clear trains of thought of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, for they will find the path to spiritual life.

[ 12 ] But there is a curious fact: Precisely where Johann Gottlieb Fichte has ascended to these ethereal heights of thought, he lacks the very insight he did not arrive at back then—one that has since been restored by the spiritual-scientific worldview as a solution to the mystery of the world: the doctrine of karma and reincarnation. One need only recognize this, and then one will know how to apply it to one’s own path of development. People would like to judge all eras by the same standard. But the human spirit is in constant development, and every age has different tasks. That century, which Johann Gottlieb Fichte marks the end of in terms of thought, had the task of emancipating the human personality. That was the positive aspect of the Enlightenment. The personality, however, is the aspect of human nature that does not return exactly as it is. Our deepest core of being, which finds expression within the personality, does return through various earthly lives. But the individual earthly life is expressed through the personality.

[ 13 ] Let us now take a close look at the true nature of the personality. We essentially have four human sheaths, though they should not be imagined as layers of an onion: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and within them that which the human being develops for themselves—their refined astral body, that upon which the human being’s “I” has already worked. We possess these four sheaths. But within these lies the imperishable, eternal core of the human being, the so-called spiritual triad: Manas, Buddhi, Atma—the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human. These pass from one earthly life to the next and then ascend to higher levels of existence. The outermost sheath is that which finds expression in the personality. It has another significance as well, one that has become increasingly prominent in the course of human evolution. If we look back to ancient times, we find that in earlier centuries people placed less and less emphasis on individuality, while the personality became ever more powerful. Today, people easily confuse the concepts of individuality and personality. Individuality is the eternal essence that extends from one earthly life to the next. Personality is what a person develops during a single earthly life. If we wish to study individuality, we must look into the depths of the human soul; if we wish to study personality, we must observe how the core of the being expresses itself. The core of the being is born into the people and into one’s profession. All of this determines the inner essence; it personifies it. In a person who is still at a lower stage of development, one will notice little evidence of inner work. Their manner of expression, their gestures, and so on are simply what they have inherited from their people. However, those who are advanced are the people who express themselves and their gestures from within. The more a person’s inner self can shape their outer appearance, the more highly developed that person becomes.

[ 14 ] One might say, then, that this is how individuality finds expression in personality. A person who has his own unique gestures, his own physiognomy, and a distinctive character—even in his actions and in relation to his surroundings—possesses a distinct personality. Is all of this lost at death, never to return? No, it is not. Christianity knows full well that this is not the case. What is meant by the resurrection of the flesh or the personality is nothing other than the preservation of the personal into all subsequent incarnations. What a person has attained as a personality remains with them, because it is incorporated into their individuality, and this individuality carries it forward into subsequent incarnations. If we have made something of our body that possesses a distinctive character, then this body—this force that has been at work—will rise again. Whatever we have worked on within ourselves, whatever we have made of ourselves, remains indestructible within us. Bringing this realization fully into human consciousness is something that has not yet happened. This will be achieved through Theosophy. But to express it as an indefinite feeling—that was the task of the Enlightenment. It revealed the task of the personality. In a crystal-clear system of ideas, Johann Gottlieb Fichte presented the idea of the personality in its eternal significance. And from this arises immediately the truth for the era of grasping the eternal in the personality, the imperishable in the personality. This was accomplished by Fichte. It has often been said that great people have great flaws alongside their great virtues, and because Fichte understood in a unique way how to measure the personality against thought, he did not penetrate to the core of individuality; nor did his successors. But they have embedded thought within the personality, and whoever finds it there will, when approaching spiritual science, carry it through repeated earthly lives in a healthy way. What matters is not dogma, but the education we can gain in his spirit. And Johann Gottlieb Fichte can become an educator in the true sense of the word.

[ 15 ] What matters is not that we become slavish disciples of such a man, but that we, too, pass through the power through which he passed. Through his powers, we may then arrive at different thoughts in a different age.

[ 16 ] That is the way to confront such a spirit. This found a specific expression in its own time. The kind of person he was can serve as a lesson to us and find a beautiful expression in the distant future. Spiritual science is so far from being dogmatic that it leads us to the great individuals and shows that we can learn even more from them than what they actually said. The expression of who they are is language. But there is more to every human being than mere expression; the immortal soul lives within them, and we can rise to it as the true core of their being. That is why Fichte was already, to the highest degree, an inspiration to those who, at the end of the 18th century, sat at his feet and listened as he measured the human personality with threads of thought that spanned the globe, and were thereby inspired to penetrate in thought to the soul and to draw from it treasures quite different from those Fichte himself had uncovered.

[ 17 ] One of those who sat at Fichte’s feet and looked up to him with reverence, one of those through whom these philosophical ideas were brought to light—that was the German “theosophist” Novalis, who died young. He died at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, not yet thirty years old. Anyone who immerses themselves in his works will undergo the most beautiful training in theosophy. Perhaps for those educated in Western science, it might initially be a far better foundational training to pass through Novalis’s powerful flashes of insight than through the *Bhagavad Gita* or similar Eastern writings, which remain more or less foreign to the West. Right now, it is possible to immerse oneself completely in what this great soul has accomplished. A book of his has been published in which he describes how a young person, introduced by the great geologists and works on mineralogy to the structure of the world beneath the earth—to the geological strata of rocks and minerals—immediately has thoughts such as: “You, O rocks, are all I seek; but what you say, I seek ceaselessly.” — Runes, letters, and words were, for him, the stones he examined underground as a miner—representing spiritual beings that create within the earth and bring forth every single rock. He saw spirit and soul in the earth, and every stone was, for him, an expression of what the earth has to say to him. Mineralogy and geology became his study of runes, and he sought to penetrate to the spirit of the earth, while his great teacher made clear to him the strata and similarities among the rocks. It is precisely those who work deep within the earth who are often led to deeper worldviews. Not least among them were miners who have gained deep insights into the spiritual world. Spending time underground has a peculiar effect on spiritual experience.

[ 18 ] But there was something else that stood out in Novalis. To understand it, we need only recall that the words inscribed on the entrance gate to Plato’s Academy read: “Let no one enter here who has not studied geometry or mathematics.” — The Platonic school presented its elementary knowledge in geometric forms, and Novalis, who shed such brilliant light on the mysteries of existence, revered mathematics as a religion. To him, it is something sacred. Consider this a psychological phenomenon of a peculiar kind. These are remarkable people who are able to perceive something sacred and something akin to music in the abstract lines of mathematics and geometry. The way circles and angles group together, the way the various forms—polyhedra, dodecahedra, and so on—are structured—if one does not approach this as we do in our schools, but is able to delve into the inner music of space, then one can sense something of what Novalis means when he speaks of mathematics. For him, it is the gateway to infinite truth.

[ 19 ] Then he heard Fichte, and from him the great truths about the “I” as a personality. We then see how, in a certain sense, almost the entire field of occultism is reflected in this remarkable mind. For those with knowledge in this area, Novalis is a unique personality. He is a personality who had already experienced the deepest initiation in earlier incarnations. Everything he went through in the last, the third decade of his life was a recollection. This is evident in his life, which was more a recollection of earlier incarnations than of the present one. It is evident in his imagination. Novalis’s earlier incarnations became pure imagination, because those earlier incarnations cast their shadows and found expression here as works of art. Thus, we must understand Novalis as a unique, delicate, and intimate being. This is how he stands before us. While Fichte presents us with his razor-sharp thoughts and sweeps us along with their acuity, Novalis is wonderfully tender and nuanced, revealing the spiritual life from an entirely different perspective. Thus, he is the necessary complement for anyone who wishes to explore the German precursor to theosophy. Our greatest minds themselves went through this preparatory phase back then. We can name many figures who, in their own way and according to their character, sought at that time to penetrate the truths that spiritual science now conveys to humanity. These are all names that are more or less well-known, but whose bearers must be considered more deeply.

[ 20 ] First, we have Schelling. When we allow his early writings—in which he developed his own independent voice—to sink in, he exerts such a powerful influence on those who engage with him because he expressed an idea of Paracelsus in the manner customary at the time. This idea was expressed not only by Schelling, but also by the great Steffens, and notably by the naturalist Oken, the great forerunner of modern evolutionary theory and founder of the German Naturalists’ Association. This idea is eminently theosophical. It was common in the natural sciences, as well as in the philosophy of Schelling and Steffens, and also in that of Novalis. These thinkers said: When we look out into the world, we see a variety of animals. Each animal presents us with certain human characteristics in a one-sided form. What amphibians have, what snails have—it is also found in human beings. Those snails, amphibians, and so on have something physically one-sided about them. But when one brings them together into a whole, one obtains the harmoniously developed human body, which synthesizes everything that is spread out in the external world. As Paracelsus says, we find letters out there in nature, and when we put them together, they form a word—and that word is the human being. A great theosophist—not a German one—of the 18th century made precisely this principle the foundation of his entire theosophical research. That is why he went so far as to say: When we look at a human being, we are essentially seeing the entire rest of the animal world. This is the opposite principle from how these things are studied today. The evolutionary theorists of that time held a different view from those of today. They said: If you have a person standing here whom you do not know to be, for example, a great watchmaker, then you will not be able to recognize that person. You would first have to delve into his keen intellect, which enables him to create what he produces. What he produces—that is what matters. But nature has produced the human being as its crowning achievement. There you have the compendium of all of nature. If you understand it this way, then you will understand nature. — One must recognize the rest of nature through human beings, and not human beings through nature. If you truly put this into practice, then you will also understand how it could have manifested in a certain reflection in the works of Schelling and Oken. You can read about it in Schelling and Oken: The snail is the tactile animal, the insect is a light-sensing animal, the bird an auditory animal, the amphibian a sensory animal, and the fish an olfactory animal. In this way, they express how the senses are distributed among the individual animals. In human beings, they are harmoniously contained. One need only break down the characteristics of human beings to understand the rest of nature.

[ 21 ] In 1809, Schelling published a work of great significance for theosophy. He had, in fact, become acquainted with the profound German thinker Jakob Böhme. He immersed himself in Böhme’s thought and thus came to understand the nature of evil and its connection to freedom. You will find this in his *Investigation into the Essence of Human Freedom*. There he shows that God is the light and that everything that shines comes from the light, but that the light must shine into the darkness, and that wherever there is light, shadows arise. Only through this analogy can one fully grasp what is written in this treatise. If you let the sun shine into darkness, a shadow is cast; a shadow must arise when light is present, but the light does not create it. Therefore, he says, everything great in the world comes from the divine source of light. But just as darkness stands opposed to light, so the source is opposed by the non-source, and from this comes the shadow of the good: evil. This is a hint at an infinitely profound struggle. And once again, one can draw closer to the theosophical life by taking this to heart. Another of Schelling’s works is significant: *Bruno, or On the Divine and Natural Principle of Things*. In a beautiful dialogical form, as in Plato, it discusses the connection between the soul and the spirit in the theosophical sense. For this reason, Schelling would have been capable of becoming a theosophist himself. He understood how to practice inner contemplation. Schelling was initially an enthusiastic teacher at the University of Jena, then worked at other institutions, and finally withdrew completely. He lived in Munich for a long time and was closely associated with the spirit that Jakob Böhme so beautifully revived in the 19th century: Baader. Schelling drew inspiration from Baader. He wrote very little during that period. His treatise on freedom was written in 1809. After that, he wrote almost nothing until his appointment to Berlin by King Frederick William IV, a figure who may be criticized in certain respects but who, when it comes to insights into grand, profound, and inner spiritual connections, is still not sufficiently recognized. In 1841, Schelling was thus appointed to Berlin. He was to present to the students what he had lived through for so long. He gave two series of lectures: on “The Philosophy of Mythology” and on “The Philosophy of Revelation.” There he delved into the essence of the ancient mysteries and showed how Christianity arose from them and what Christianity is all about. Today, more than half a century later, one naturally comes to the concepts of reincarnation and karma. If one delves into the Philosophy of Mythology and the Philosophy of Revelation, one discovers: this is Theosophy. But all the shallow-minded people of that time took issue with it. They could not understand what Schelling was presenting back then. If the Theosophists were ever to immerse themselves in these writings, they would see from what depths all of this has been drawn.

[ 22 ] Because Fichte was one of those who wanted to open people’s eyes, he was able to speak of a special spiritual meaning. Essentially, Fichte had already provided the definition of theosophy as early as 1813. He said: Enter, as one who sees, into a world of nothing but the blind, and speak to them of colors and light. Either you’re talking to them about nothing—and this is the better outcome, if they say so, because in this way you’ll soon realize your mistake and stop speaking in vain—or the more spiritually perceptive among them will say you’re fantasists. —This is how it is for all those who are gifted with a special sense. They enter as if among the blind. But this sense can be awakened in everyone—slowly in some, more quickly in others. Through this special sense, Fichte shows quite clearly that he knew what is essential in theosophy. That was the true definition of theosophy. Others, too, have drawn from such sources, from such currents of soul and spiritual life.

[ 23 ] But above all, I would like to remind you of Hegel. I cannot go into detail here about Hegel’s unique perspective. And I would also like to mention the name of an exceptionally amiable individual, Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert, who wrote books on the nature of the soul. As late as 1850, when the sixth edition of a book on the nature of the soul had been published, Schelling wrote to Schubert: “It is you who are actually in a more fortunate position than I am. I must engage with the universal ideas that lead into spiritual life. You, however, experience the intimate side that confronts a person when they explore the soul in all its intimacies. — Schubert studied the life and workings of the soul, which lie at the boundary between consciousness, semi-consciousness, and the unconscious, but also at the boundary between everyday consciousness, dreams, and clairvoyance. In Schubert’s writings, you will already find discussions of the law that governs the world of dreams. You can find much on this subject in his works. He studied Swedenborg during a time when, through great ideas, it was possible to point out these peculiarities of human spiritual life in a healthy way. He held the view that there is an etheric body and that there is an even higher etheric body than the one that dissolves in every human being after death. Schubert had already pointed to what Vedanta philosophy calls the “subtle body.” He wrote a very beautiful treatise on this higher body of the human being. You can find some beautiful observations on this in his work.

[ 24 ] You can see how these various currents merged back then in the work of a poet who wove these elements into his poetry: Heinrich von Kleist, who portrayed a peculiar prince in *The Prince of Homburg* and who also created *Käthchen von Heilbronn*, such a unique character. He was inspired to do so by lectures on somnambulism and on a higher spiritual life.

[ 25 ] Schubert speaks of a pre-existing being of the soul; he also discusses the question of reincarnation. At that time, it did not yet strike him as Christian. But he speaks of a pre-existing being whose fate he follows closely. From this emerged Justinus Kerner’s insightful book: *The Seeress of Prevorst*. When the book about this remarkable woman was published in the 18th century, it contained an extraordinary amount of theosophy in its explanation. Above all, even in the basic definition he provides of this seer, the occultist recognizes Justinus Kerner as an expert. He was such an expert because he lived in an era that fostered the kind of ideas I have described. He says of the Seeress of Prevorst—who had two children and was a somnambulist of the highest degree—that the soul-spiritual world around her was open and that she was able to observe the spiritual side of human beings. He describes her as follows: Imagine someone held fast at the moment of death, so that this peculiar state persists for several years; the emergence of the etheric body and the peculiar relationship of the astral body to the etheric body—this lasted for years. Because her soul state was such, she could, for example, when someone had lost a limb, see that person’s etheric body—which was still present—with great clarity. She could also perceive many other things. Kerner provides explanations that, while not quite up to the standards of our time, are nonetheless beautiful and accurate. You can also find insights in the works of Eckartshausen, who died in 1803 and who also wrote on inner spiritual development. *Kosti’s Journey* and *The Hieroglyphs of the Human Heart* are writings well-suited to opening the human soul to a higher vision. He also described what he calls the “soul body” accurately and beautifully. Another author who is sometimes quite inspiring is Ennemoser—who also wrote on theosophy, shared much about vital magnetism, and presented some very beautiful insights into the nature of the mysteries in his works, and who also did much to shed the proper light on Greek mythology. — Thus you see a panorama of the early 19th century, ranging from the initial ideas that can have an educational effect on people to the facts that theosophy brings together with direct spiritualistic experiences. All of this is expressed there in a pure and sometimes more noble manner than was later presented by the relevant authors. One can learn much more about magical spiritual life from this than from what has been published by Schindler or Albertus.

[ 26 ] Later, this interest increasingly gave way to an interest similar to curiosity, to a mere thirst for knowledge. In the first half of the 19th century, even among those minds that had not delved very deeply, there was a spiritual impulse to ascend to higher realms, to develop the inner faculties of the soul, and an awareness of what is essential for self-knowledge and self-development. Novalis expressed all of this in wonderful terms in *Heinrich von Ofterdingen*. He presented the great treasure of memories of past initiations in what he experienced as recollections of former lives. In *The Apprentices of Sais*, he depicts how Hyacinth meets the girl Rosenblüth. Only the animals of the forest know anything of this extraordinarily delicate love. A sage arrives and speaks of magical life and spiritual mysteries. Both Hyacinth and she are filled with a longing to make their way to the temple of initiation of Isis. But no one can tell them which is the right path to the temple of initiation. He wanders and wanders. Then, weary, he settles down among beautiful natural formations, not least because of what nature speaks to him. In a ghostly manner, he sinks into a dream. The temple surrounds him. The veil is lifted from the veiled image, and what does he see? Rosenblüth. He charmingly describes how Rosenblüth embodies that sense of unity—the unified idea of all of nature—how it expands to encompass all of nature, and how he seeks the hidden mystery that life so often presents to us, which we need only understand. This is hinted at in a wonderfully beautiful way. And so you can truly delve into Novalis’s work in a wonderful way if you allow yourself to be drawn in by how intimately he expressed the experiences of the world of his time.

[ 27 ] Here I have been able to speak about Goethe, Herder, and Schiller and show how they were theosophists. In the most truly theosophical way imaginable, it is Novalis who articulates precisely what ran like a beautiful thread through the entire era, what spiritually dominated it like a theosophical motto. It is contained in the words: “One man succeeded; he lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais. — But what did he see? He saw—miracle of miracles—himself.”

[ 28 ] Thus, after developing the organs of the spirit within himself, man steps out into the world and seeks himself throughout the world. He does not seek himself within himself; he seeks himself in the world, and in doing so, he seeks God. And this seeking of God in the world—as so beautifully expressed by this spirit—is theosophy.