The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. How Do You Justify Spiritual Research?

[ 1 ] In the preceding remarks, I took the liberty of citing a number of objections and refutations directed against spiritual science or anthroposophy. It would be a misunderstanding, however, if one were to believe that today’s lecture is intended to refute these refutations in turn; for let it be said from the outset: this is not to be a mental exercise, nor a dialectical game of arguments and counterarguments. The spiritual research that is to be discussed here—and has always been discussed—is intended to operate in full harmony with contemporary science and education. Therefore, the objections mentioned earlier were not cited in the sense that they could be easily and casually dismissed, but rather in the sense that they arise, so to speak, quite legitimately in the modern soul—the soul that takes into account the achievements of our spiritual science and the progress of our spiritual culture up to the present day. They have been raised not as unjustified objections, but as objections that are justified within their own limits; and the aim was to awaken a sense of the seriousness with which spiritual research seeks to work, and of the awareness that, drawing from its own sources, it can assume full responsibility for itself, even though this spiritual research fully understands—and this is the main point these objections are meant to convey—that it is, so to speak, entirely dependent on itself in the face of what one might call, essentially, a threefold opposition.

[ 2 ] One source of opposition to it arises from contemporary science—or at least from that branch of science which often believes itself to be unquestionably founded upon contemporary science. The second source of opposition stems from various religious denominations, and the third arises from the common consciousness of the day, which instinctively rebels in many respects against what spiritual science and spiritual research have to say.

[ 3 ] It might easily seem as though the following question would be justified: How, then, does spiritual research prove its claims in the face of the objections raised? How does it prove what it has to say? — In the course of these winter lectures, we will hear a great deal about the content of this spiritual research, about the actual results of research into a supersensible world. In these first two lectures, however, I must be permitted to speak in a manner that some may find abstract—even though it is not intended to be abstract—and thus difficult to understand or uninteresting. For even if one may not be able to follow every single detail of my explanations in the first and second lectures, one can nevertheless gain the sense that a truly sound foundation for this spiritual research is being sought. Therefore, perhaps some questions may be raised today that those who would be more interested in immediately receiving this or that account from the supersensible world might find uninteresting. The question may be raised: Can what is commonly called “evidence”—in the sense widely believed—be applied at all to the foundation of a worldview? Can evidence be regarded as something which, if it exists, inherently compels every human being to be convinced?

[ 4 ] Anyone who seriously adheres to any worldview usually believes he can prove it, and if he wants to be taken seriously, he will certainly present his evidence in support of that worldview. In response to this widely held belief, I would first like to quote a statement by an energetic, dynamic German philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who says: “The kind of philosophy one holds depends on the kind of person one is.”

[ 5 ] If one wishes to get to the bottom of a statement such as the one Fichte made here—in other words, if one wishes to ask what he meant—one must realize: It is not merely a matter of evidence, but rather of which evidence one considers authoritative, which evidence carries sufficient weight for a person, given the development of their soul, to seek insight into this or that. Thus, even a philosopher like Fichte directs us to the inner workings of the human soul when it comes to the evaluation of evidence. It is, as it were, required that a person, through the development of their soul, have acquired the ability to discern the weight of evidence. To put it simply, I would say: What good is all this evidence, after all, to someone who cannot believe in it? And we can often study the nature of so-called evidence precisely through the methodology of certain worldviews that appear to be built entirely on the solid foundation of scientific facts.

[ 6 ] When I say something like what I am about to say, I must, however, preface it time and again: I do not believe that anyone can have more respect and appreciation for the scientific advances of our time than the genuine researcher of the spiritual realm. And today I would like to preface this in particular by saying that all the objections raised eight days ago are meant to be entirely valid insofar as the spiritual researcher’s direct objections to what was said eight days ago would be unjustified. For the spiritual researcher does not deny what scientific research rightly asserts. He fully acknowledges it. This fact must also be taken into account.

[ 7 ] Spiritual research is constantly opposed by the natural sciences; conversely, spiritual research itself does not oppose the natural sciences at all, if one is able to appreciate the true state of affairs. However, there are many scientific facts that are today exploited by certain ideological currents—presented, as it were, in a certain light—such that one can fully agree with the facts themselves, but not with the way in which certain ideologies sometimes seek to prove something on the basis of these facts. The facts derived from the natural sciences are, for the most part, all the more confirmed by spiritual research, and it may be said that the time will come when what is valid in Darwinism and in modern evolutionary theory will find its proper appreciation precisely through spiritual research.

[ 8 ] Thus, spiritual research in particular makes it clear that the human soul, in order to be active in the external physical world, must make use of certain parts of the brain for certain mental functions, just as one must use the hand for other tasks. Just as the hand is assigned to certain human tasks, so certain parts of the brain are assigned as tools for spiritual experience. It is precisely through spiritual research that the true meaning and significance of this allocation can be grasped, and spiritual research is in no way at odds with what natural science often maintains in this regard today. In contrast, the so-called “proofs” that are cited are often quite flimsy to anyone who understands the nature of evidence. For example, when it comes to the true fact that certain parts of the brain are associated with mental life, it is repeatedly argued that disease in these parts of the brain disables the corresponding mental activity, and that one therefore cannot perceive that the soul performs certain functions—such as speech—since the speech center is thus disabled.

[ 9 ] To those who understand the nature of proof, such evidence truly addresses the objection raised by the famous—albeit nonexistent—Professor Schlaucherl, who, as some of you may know, sought to prove how a frog perceives things. To do this, he placed a frog on the laboratory table and tapped on the table, and lo and behold: the frog jumped away—so it must have heard it. Then he tore off its legs and tapped on the table again. This time the frog did not jump away, since its legs had been torn off. But from the fact that it could no longer jump away, Professor Schlaucherl concludes that the frog hears with its legs; for if it has no legs, there is nothing to indicate that it can hear.

[ 10 ] When presenting such a matter, one must, of course, offer an apology. But it is logically and methodologically entirely consistent with the facts that are frequently cited today for the purpose of proof—facts that are not to be doubted in the least by spiritual science, and which are, in fact, true. But the evidence cited will never truly convince those who are capable of evaluating compelling human testimony.

[ 11 ] This is the case with much of what was just mentioned in the previous lecture—namely, that a weighty objection, which in a scientific sense can be raised by serious and reputable contemporary researchers in the natural sciences, is the claim that: In times past, people conceived of the life force and attempted to explain all processes occurring in the living body in terms of this life force. But the nineteenth century has shown that this “life force” serves no purpose and that, if one assumes only the ordinary forces present in certain substances, one can demonstrate—as soon as one proceeds experimentally—how certain complex substances, which were previously believed to be producible only in living organisms through the “life force,” can be produced in the laboratory without this “life force.” Consequently, the ideal of science must be to assume that it will one day be possible to actually produce even more complex living substances in this way. Now the spiritual researchers come along and claim that there is a special life body or etheric body within the living organism that is necessary for living phenomena to occur. But this is nothing more than a rehash of the old concept of vital force. It could therefore only originate from dilettantes who, out of convenience, seek an explanatory principle where, due to their ignorance, they fail to take into account the advances of true science.

[ 12 ] I would first like to explain, through a kind of historical account, how this entire conclusion affects a soul that—not being prejudiced by the, let it be said again, justified advances of science—does not so readily surrender to its conclusions. I would like to begin by illustrating this with a historical example. It is believed that the notion of an etheric body or life body has been dispelled by stating: “It must be considered an ideal of science to one day synthesize living substance from its individual components in the laboratory; therefore, one could no longer believe in a supernatural basis for life, but must regard it as an effect within the purely material realm when working in the laboratory and combining simple substances to form complex ones.”

[ 13 ] There was a time when people truly believed—far more so than any serious scientist today would dare—that it would be possible to synthesize in a laboratory not only a single living substance, but also the simplest living organisms, and even a tiny human being—the well-known homunculus. The era in which people firmly believed that the homunculus could be created in a laboratory did not at all regard this belief as if it were to do away with the supernatural aspect of life’s phenomena; on the contrary, it believed all the more strongly in the supernatural aspect of life’s phenomena. This is a historical objection to the claim that it is incompatible for human thought to believe in the supernatural origin of life and at the same time fully share the natural scientist’s view that life could be reproduced in the laboratory. The two things are indeed compatible, and to demonstrate that they are compatible, one must perhaps again invoke a rather trivial line of thought—one that is nonetheless no less significant for those who not only refuse to be hypnotized or influenced by a scientific worldview but are also capable of engaging with the entire structure of human spiritual life.

[ 14 ] There we see certain substances as they are before us. We combine them. We see—let’s assume this hypothetically—how living substance arises from them. Are we therefore justified in concluding that the life of this substance has truly formed from what we have observed in the individual substances before us? No, we are not! And we are no longer justified in doing so from the moment we admit that the flies that appear after a certain time did not develop from the food scraps found in a room. When we see a room full of flies, we can say that these flies are there because the room is untidy and food scraps have been left behind. These food scraps were the condition, but they did not create the flies. However, the presence of flies always occurs when the conditions are there, and when the conditions are there, life will emerge. But no one may claim that life arose from them; rather, they were merely the cause of life’s emergence.

[ 15 ] A supernatural process may also be assumed even when the facts fit together in a laboratory setting. It would therefore be entirely wrong for spiritual research to base itself on the idea that it seeks to rise, in a more or less ironic or witty manner, above what natural science strives for as its ideal. It fully goes along with this and is in complete agreement with it. But that does not rule out what spiritual research contributes to a true and complete understanding of things.

[ 16 ] Let us take as another example the objection raised in the first lecture against spiritual research, insofar as it explains the phenomena of sleep and wakefulness by asserting that there is a supersensible aspect within the human being which, when a person falls asleep, rises out of the physical and etheric bodies, enters a special spiritual world, and submerges back into them upon waking. We have mentioned the weighty objection—which is certainly compelling—that natural science attempts to explain the phenomenon of sleep by demonstrating a kind of self-regulation of the organism; that is, it shows how the stimuli exerted by the impressions of daily life, so to speak, destroy and deplete the organic substance, so that a point is reached where this organic substance—the substance of life—must be restored. While it is being restored, a dullness spreads over consciousness, and once the restoration is complete, external stimuli can take effect again. Thus, we would be dealing with a form of self-regulation of the organism and could say: What need is there for special spiritual research that indulges in a detailed description of what is supposed to leave the human being during sleep in order to then be in another world—when the phenomenon of sleep can be explained from within the human body itself?

[ 17 ] The following consideration reveals the weight that should be given to the scientific account, which is certainly true within certain limits. Even if the individual points I raise can only be outlined in broad strokes, they are consistent—if not in every detail, then at least in the overall spirit—with current scientific research,

[ 18 ] What, then, happens when the organism lies before us in sleep, even from a purely scientific point of view? From a scientific perspective, we must say: the organic substances depleted by sensory impressions and other external influences are, as it were, replenished. So an internal process takes place—a process that is entirely determined by the nature and essence of the human body, of the human organism—and we can, of course, explain what happens internally only in terms of what is contained in the laws of the human body, in the laws of the organism. However, these laws of the organism can never—neither now nor in the future—give us anything other than what, for example, the lungs provide for the process of respiration—a fact that anyone who thoroughly understands the matter must acknowledge. Anyone who studies the human respiratory process will be able to understand it completely based on the laws of lung function. What human beings will not, however, be able to understand is the nature and action of oxygen. This must be investigated outside the lungs; oxygen must first enter the lungs from the outside, and anyone who believed they could understand the nature of oxygen by studying the lungs would be gravely mistaken.

[ 19 ] The process of respiration—everything that takes place within the organism—must be understood from within the life of the lungs. To understand respiration as a whole, it is necessary for us to step outside of lung life and understand the nature of oxygen on its own; we gain no insight into the nature of oxygen from the processes of lung life. Nor do we gain any insight into everything that takes place in waking consciousness from morning to evening—as drives, passions, emotions, ideals, and so on ebb and flow—by examining what occurs in the organism during sleep. Just as pulmonary life is not the same as the nature of oxygen—just as surely as oxygen must enter the lungs from the outside—so it is certain that everything contained within the phenomena of consciousness must unite with, and must be received from the outside, that which we can study and observe internally during the process of sleep as inner bodily processes.

[ 20 ] It is true, however, that one will not be able to fully grasp such a line of thought right away. But if you follow it, you will see that it is not merely an analogy; it is more than that: it is a kind of educational tool for truly and correctly considering, in their entirety, the things we encounter in life in connection with the phenomenon described. And anyone who truly educates themselves about the relationship between the oxygen that is outside and enters the lungs and what happens within the lungs will learn, through such a concept, through such an idea, how to think about what exists outside the physical organism during sleep and how it must just as consciousness must be experienced—in the same way that oxygen must be integrated into the internal organic processes of the lungs if a respiratory process is to occur in a truly living way.

[ 21 ] The matters that might be called a “justification of the humanities” are by no means as simple as is often believed. Precisely because they are not, it often appears as though they could be dispelled by hastily concocted refutations. In the Fichtean sense, the recognition of reasons and counterarguments in this field really comes down to what kind of person one is—that is, what state of mind one brings to bear in order to see things in their proper light. How often does one hear people say: “Oh, here come these spiritual researchers or anthroposophists, claiming that the human being—whom we perceive as a unified whole and about whom we have come to the conviction that he is indeed a unified being—is broken down into various members or parts: a physical body, an etheric body or life body, an astral body, and an ‘I.’” Yes, one can certainly classify everything that way. — But the point is not simply to classify at all, but rather to carry out such research methods in accordance with the legitimate demands of a mode of thinking that truly penetrates to the heart of things. If someone has water in front of them, they will not disagree with the chemist who tells them: As long as you let this be “water,” you will never be able to determine what the chemical components of this water are; to do so, you must break it down into hydrogen and oxygen.

[ 22 ] As long as one remains within such a concrete domain, one may not hear the objection: “You are committing a mortal sin against monism, for water is a monon. You must not split it into hydrogen and oxygen; otherwise, you will become a thoroughly superstitious dualist.” In such a concrete domain, one might not hear such an objection, because here the necessity of making such a separation is all too obvious. What, then, is a key criterion for the justification of such a separation, if one considers not merely water but the entire realm of being at issue here? The essential point is that oxygen cannot exist solely in water but, as the chemist understands it, also in other substances with which it can fully combine; and that hydrogen, likewise, can combine with other substances, so that water can indeed be separated, and the individual parts can form entirely different compounds and, within these compounds, follow their own distinct paths.

[ 23 ] If spiritual research were merely a matter of distinguishing between the various aspects of human existence—let’s say, the etheric body and the physical body, not to mention the others—one might say: “You’re simply making a classification.” — But if you follow spiritual research—and it’s not possible to cover everything here today—you’ll see that it works just as it does, for example, in chemistry. We do not break the human being down into a physical body and an etheric body simply because it is convenient for us, in relation to this particular person, to separate the various manifestations in this way, but because we must in fact demonstrate: just as hydrogen and oxygen, when separated from their state as water, undergo different fates in different substances, so too does the physical body undergo its own particular fates in death, as does the etheric body, and the astral body, too, enters into other combinations. Just as the chemist traces the path of water—not treating it as a single entity but conceiving it as the duality of hydrogen and oxygen—and shows that hydrogen can take entirely different paths than oxygen, so the spiritual researcher traces the paths of the physical body, the etheric body or life body, the astral body, and the “I” in the most diverse realms of life. This gives him the right to speak of a real division. An objection that he would thereby be violating monism would be entirely equivalent to saying that someone who breaks water down into hydrogen and oxygen is violating monism.

[ 24 ] The point, then, is that by truly understanding the facts of the matter, a person comes to grasp the value and validity of the objections, as well as their limitations. True, genuine, serious spiritual science will be recognized—when one engages with it—not for brushing aside objections lightly, but for seeking to arrive at its conclusions precisely by carefully weighing the pros and cons. But since reference has already been made repeatedly today to Fichte’s statement: “One has the kind of philosophy that arises depending on one’s human nature”—one could also say what was already said eight days ago: Everything is indeed traced back to an inner, subjective reality; the power of persuasion is sought not in what is given externally, but in the way in which a person might relate to the phenomena of the world. This brings us to a discussion of what was pointed out in the first lecture: the sources of spiritual scientific knowledge. It was said that these sources arise through the development of the human soul. We will speak further about how this development takes place and what paths the soul must traverse in order to truly ascend to knowledge and insights into the supersensible world. Today, it suffices to say that the soul must undergo inner processes that are described, for example, as meditation or as the concentration of inner life. What is brought about by such processes?

[ 25 ] If someone who truly wishes to become a spiritual researcher wants to turn his soul, so to speak, into an instrument for spiritual research, he must artificially induce in himself a state similar to that of sleep; that is to say, they must be able, through intense concentration of the will, to artificially bring about what otherwise occurs only through fatigue as the state of sleep. He must be able to exclude all external sensory impressions and suppress all thinking bound to the brain; yet he must avoid the state that otherwise occurs during sleep: the complete emptiness of consciousness. He avoids this by devoting himself to very specific mental images—which we will characterize later—that are suited to concentrating and focusing his spiritual powers, so that they become stronger than they otherwise are. Whereas they are otherwise, as it were, thin and therefore, when they leave the physical body during sleep, cannot know anything about themselves or the world—their inner power of perception being too weak—they are strengthened and condensed within themselves through such meditations and concentrations. The person then withdraws from ordinary thinking not in such a way that he is unaware of himself—as is the case in ordinary sleep—but in such a way that he is able to remain conscious and, through the unique nature of this state, experiences: Now you hear nothing through your ears, see nothing through your eyes, and no longer think through the thinking bound to the brain; rather, you now experience yourself in the purely spiritual realm and find reality in the purely spiritual.

[ 26 ] It has been said that a common—and, in turn, valid—objection to such a claim made by spiritual research is this: Through such spiritual development, one can, for example, arrive at inner worlds of imagination that are regarded as an expression of a supersensible world. One might also, based on the way these types of mental images arise, believe that they point to something real, But one knows—so one might say—that those who experience hallucinations, delusions, and visions believe in these with all their might, and it is therefore entirely impossible to truly distinguish between hallucinations, delusions, and the like, and what the parapsychologist experiences. — Why shouldn’t one regard what the spiritual researcher experiences in this way as—admittedly a more sophisticated one, but still—a mere hallucination? Apart from the fact that one can say: What is experienced inwardly in this way is merely subjective and cannot be verified by another at any time, as is the case, for example, with a physical experiment.

[ 27 ] It must be pointed out, however, that it is by no means in the nature of all truths that they can be discovered or even merely confirmed through external events. One might say that, for anyone willing to think, the concepts of mathematics could be convincing in the most fundamental sense, for they are derived from within. To understand this, we need not refer to higher concepts, but only to the ordinary notion that three times three is nine. To grasp this, all that is required is an inner mental image formed by the soul, and it is nothing more than a sensory visualization when, for example, someone uses three times three peas to illustrate that three times three is nine. Whether someone has the knowledge that three times three is nine depends on the inner development of the soul, and they do not need to first confirm it through an external process. They know what they have experienced; they know it without any external verification. There is, therefore, an inner process of the soul for which external verification is nothing more than an illustration that is exhausted in the illustration itself, and from which one can see that what is being experienced inwardly is true.

[ 28 ] In a very similar way, only on a higher level, one experiences the difference between error and truth in the supersensory world. The spiritual researcher must be willing to go through all the experiences that can lead him to knowledge: where do hallucinations, visions, and illusions end, and where does the supersensible reality begin? Where one ends and the other begins can only be understood in a manner similar to how mathematical truths can be understood. But it can be understood. Anyone who is a true spiritual researcher and knows the nature that truly leads to spiritual research will not, in any case, entertain the world with his visions; and if you find someone who entertains people about the supersensible world by recounting his visions, you can always assume that he is very far removed from being a true spiritual researcher. For the true spiritual researcher knows that all imaginary, visionary life known in the outer world is nothing but a representation of one’s own soul life, that it represents nothing other than a projection of one’s own soul into one’s own space. And it is not in this space—not in what is actually meant when one speaks of the spiritual researcher’s imagination as that of a layperson—that the foundation of his science lies, but rather in that which lies beyond this supposed space, after he has fully undergone the process by which the life of the soul objectifies itself and by which the wall is then broken through—a wall that initially erects itself as a reflection of our inner soul processes.

[ 29 ] It is precisely this that is important for the spiritual researcher: that he has recognized the nature of hallucinations, visions, and illusions in their connection to inner spiritual life, and can tell himself long enough: What appears in this way is not to be regarded as objectively authoritative, but purely as inner spiritual processes. And it is not so much a requirement of genuine spiritual scientific training—as one can read in the book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* to induce the soul to have experiences free from the body, to step out of the body; rather, it is more important that the soul form a correct judgment about these experiences outside the physical body, in the purely spiritual realm.

[ 30 ] From a certain point onward, the soul knows—through what it experiences—that it is no longer experiencing subjective processes, but that it has shed its subjectivity and entered into an objectivity that is objective for everyone, just as mathematics is objective, even though its validity can only be experienced internally. The mistake made by people who believe in their illusions is that they cannot maintain their resistance to the illusory world long enough; they come to believe too soon in what they experience; they do not tell themselves long enough, in light of their experiences: “At first, this appears only as a reflection of yourself, and only when you have stripped away everything subjective from yourself—as you must do in mathematics—do you enter the sphere of objective reality.”

[ 31 ] This also dispels the objection that experiences in spiritual research are subjective. They are no more subjective than mathematical truths are. When spiritual science is communicated, the point is not really to provide proof. If that were the case, one would first and foremost have to understand the nature of proof. If no one in the world had ever seen a whale, no one would be able to prove that whales exist. Based on all the knowledge he possesses, he would never be able to prove the existence of a whale, for a whale is a fact, and facts cannot be proven—they can only be experienced. This says something extraordinarily significant about logic, but one must first convince oneself of this significance.

[ 32 ] From this perspective, the findings of spiritual research are not about providing evidence for the supersensible world or, for example, for the immortality of the soul, but about something entirely different. Those who participate in the true work of spiritual research for an extended period of time will come to realize this. This is not a matter of logical speculation, but of gaining knowledge and communicating supersensible facts. When the spiritual researcher, through the development of the soul already described, has reached a point where he can survey the life between death and the next birth, his task is to communicate the facts he has to report regarding the life of the soul during the time between death and the next birth—that is, to communicate what he experiences in the supersensible world. This involves the communication of experiences and facts that he passes through in his soul.

[ 33 ] As for the other, one might say: it becomes clear from these accounts. When it is shown how the soul remains self-contained as the parts of the body disintegrate, how the soul then undergoes certain processes, how it experiences something in a purely supersensible world and gathers its forces for a new life in order to re-enter physical existence in a new body—when all this is described in detail—then it is indeed shown how the soul lives after it has passed through the gate of death. Then reference is made to facts. This is a matter of pointing to such facts, of communicating such facts—and not of abstract proof.

[ 34 ] Now one might say: But then such an understanding of the relevant facts would only have meaning for someone who can glimpse into the spiritual world—someone with a developed soul. Oh, such an objection seems extraordinarily convincing, and this is by no means to be denied. But anyone who knows the true life of the soul will come to view this objection quite differently than many believe. Here we must ask the question: In our normal lives, are we ever truly convinced of anything in our souls simply because someone provides us with abstract proofs? Let’s take an example. Let’s take a painting, for example, the Sistine Madonna. Let someone who has no idea what lies within such a painting stand in front of it. Let another person stand beside him and begin to prove to him what is contained within it. Yes, the one listening doesn’t understand at all what the other person is talking about. The speaker can go on for a long time “proving” that there is something special in this painting; the listener cannot believe his proofs. For the fact that proofs are presented is not yet the essential point; rather, the essential point is that the listener has the opportunity to believe these proofs. — Another person stands before this picture; a second person approaches and speaks to him, and the listener now has the opportunity to perceive something of what the picture is meant to express. Then, through what he has recognized, the other person stirs within him what he believes lies within the picture. The other person may not even speak in a demonstrative way. He merely describes what is at work within him, merely describes what speaks within him; and once the listener has grasped in his soul what the other is speaking of, and then looks at the picture, he sees the other aspect in the picture, and it has the effect that he knows: it is contained within the picture. What matters is not some abstract power of proof, but rather that someone approaches us who knows what lies within the image, and that we can truly take in what lies within the image if we wish to gain an insight into what is within it.

[ 35 ] This is how it is when a person encounters the world and human phenomena, and the spiritual researcher approaches him. If the spiritual researcher were to attempt to present abstract proofs, those who are unable to relive in their own souls what the spiritual researcher describes would never be convinced by such proofs. The spiritual researcher, however, proceeds in the same way as that interpreter of the image I spoke of last. He explains what has unfolded within his soul—a soul he has first made into an instrument for spiritual truths—as standing in the background of spiritual and human life. He presents the facts he has experienced. And if the other person is now in a position to take these concepts and facts into his entire inner life, he will see the world in such a way that what the spiritual researcher has to say emerges for him as the content of his own soul.

[ 36 ] Of course, this cannot always be the case. When the spiritual researcher or spiritual experiencer presents the listener with far-fetched assertions—which may well be truths based on his own experience—and even if he has experienced so much in the spiritual world — tells them about all the kinds of beings that exist there and what they do, then, naturally, the listener, hearing this for the first time, has not the slightest inner obligation to believe what he hears. He will not and cannot believe it. Why can he not believe it? Because the gap between what is experienced in the soul and what such a spiritual seer has experienced in the soul is too great.

[ 37 ] It would be just as unwarranted for anyone to claim that in thirty years a new world savior or a new world messiah will come—one whom we can look forward to—and who will reveal particularly great truths. One could make such a claim to someone else who is not prepared for it only if one had no respect for the human soul or for the achievements of human culture. But there is a way to approach all of this differently, by building upon what truly anyone with an open soul can follow in a certain way. Therefore, it must be stated again and again that the objection is unfounded: that spiritual research applies only to those who, through their own developed soul, can enter the spiritual world themselves. That is not correct. One can explore the spiritual world only by transforming this soul into an instrument of perception within the spiritual world. However, one is, as it were, obliged to cast what one experiences there into terms that can be understood by every person of the relevant era—provided they have an open mind—if they simply approach these experiences with an open mind and do not resist them through anything, such as supposed or false erudition. Therefore, what matters is not so much the communication of the facts of clairvoyant consciousness as how they are communicated to a given age.

[ 38 ] For example, one can observe that when someone admits to having read only one book, they then believe they have an opinion on spiritual research and feel entitled to say: “These spiritual researchers always start using the word ‘esoteric’ when they run out of concepts.” But perhaps it could also be the case that, for the person who says such a thing, the word “esoteric” always results in him feeling a kind of emptiness in his own concepts, so that the word “esoteric” has the effect of erasing his own concepts. So if someone resists in this way and does not draw upon what is within their soul to allow the findings of spiritual research to take effect, then it goes without saying—as we saw eight days ago—that the most profound objections to spiritual research must be raised. But if the soul opens itself impartially to what spiritual research offers, then common sense—healthy, unbiased thinking—is sufficient to experience not what is lost to the untrained soul, but rather what it is capable of understanding. For how does every human soul relate to the soul of the spiritual researcher, who has formed a judgment about certain concrete facts of the supersensible world because he has entered into it? Every soul relates to the soul of the spiritual researcher as a seed of life relates to a fully developed life; and just as the fully developed living being is already contained within the seed of life—for example, in an egg—so too is present within every soul that which only the spiritual researcher can ever reveal to that soul. Just as it can be demonstrated in the undeveloped seed of life how the individual emerges from it, so too can the individual soul, which receives the findings of spiritual research, gain insight into the spiritual worlds—in a nascent form, yet with complete conviction.

[ 39 ] Therefore, it is never justified to accuse someone who relies not merely on his intellectual capacity for logical reasoning but on the full power of his soul of being gullible simply because he is open to what the spiritual researcher has to say. The intellect alone will not be able to comprehend it; but the whole soul will be able to accept it. Therefore, a genuine examination of spiritual research—not mere acceptance on authority—is possible; it has always been possible and will always be possible.

[ 40 ] It should be noted that I have not titled today’s lecture “How Does One Prove Spiritual Research?” but rather “How Does One Justify Spiritual Research?”—that is to say: where does it come from, and how can the human soul establish a relationship with it? For many people, this relationship will indeed be difficult to find, for the reason that many objections to this spiritual research seem to carry weight. How could they not carry weight—and here I return to a point where I must once again speak in abstract and less engaging terms—when someone says: The spiritual researcher claims that, in his supersensible consciousness, he can trace the soul back to the time before birth or conception, see how it lives between death and the next birth, and how it then enters into the present life. Well, one could point out—as might now be objected—how certain characteristics that the soul develops during life are preformed in childhood or even before birth in the mother’s womb! —Perhaps, among the objections to spiritual research, none carries as much weight for many people as precisely such an objection. Those who have frequently attended such lectures will know that I myself also raise such objections—for example, that in the Bach family there have been so many musicians, both great and small, that one could, with some justification, point out how a person receives, purely through the physical line of inheritance, what makes him or her a musician. Thus, one can point out how, through heredity or through acquisition during one’s lifetime, what later manifests as a person’s distinctive traits and individuality comes to them. Oh, this objection—when one engages with it, when one surrenders to its suggestive power—is very significant, and every researcher of the spiritual realm will understand that there are people who cannot shake off such an objection, upon whom the force of the facts that can be cited here has an extraordinarily strong effect.

[ 41 ] But there is something else required to surrender to such a force of evidence, namely, to recognize that causes—true causes—can exist and yet cause nothing, and yet are not truly the reason that something actually comes into being. I am saying something that seems very paradoxical, and for those who allow the weight of the facts of spiritual science to take effect on their souls, it is not at all necessary to accept this. But the point here is to address this issue in light of the spirit of the age, to draw attention to what, from a philosophical standpoint, can show that causes may exist and yet cause nothing.

[ 42 ] Why does a chicken, when it is formed, have feathers, a beak, or this or that physical characteristic? Certainly, one might say: It inherited these from its parent chicken, and the specific characteristics of the beak and so on are due to the inherited traits found in the chicken from which it descended. But now one must realize that something else is required if the characteristics of having feathers, having a specific beak, and so on—which are present in the mother hen—are to appear in the daughter hen as well: something may be a perfectly valid cause, but it is necessary for a specific germ to arise under specific conditions so that the causes can become “causes.” What matters is not that one points to the specific causes from the consequences, but that one shows to what extent the causes can also have causes of their own.

[ 43 ] Here we have reached a point where spiritual science can, based on its own facts, establish a relationship with, for example, Darwinism. No one who is a serious researcher of the spiritual realm—rather than a frivolous one—will dispute the facts and serious arguments presented by Darwin and the Darwinists. Such a researcher will even agree when Darwin asks: Why does the kitten snuggle up like that when a person comes near it? The researcher points out that it already snuggles up to its mother in the nest, and from this one can see how the later is connected to the earlier. One can point to the causes of why a person has this or that characteristic, which he may have received from his mother before he was born. One can point this out; but nothing has been said about the extent to which these causes have actually become causes. Everything that can be said from a worldview that appears to be firmly grounded in the natural sciences—everything that can be explained by inherited traits and so on—is readily acknowledged by spiritual research, and anyone who raises objections from that perspective usually operates under the assumption that these things are not acknowledged. They are acknowledged, but the other party fails to address the fact that causes must first become causes, so that what is at stake is something much deeper than he has in mind. This is generally the case today: what spiritual research strives to draw from the depths of being is always judged solely by the surface that one is currently able to survey oneself. If this were not always the case, then, for example, a feature article like the one that appeared last Sunday in the *Berliner Tageblatt*—which, by its own admission, is based solely on a single book—could not have been written. I would just like to ask: what would one say to a person who has formed a definitive judgment, for example, on chemistry based on a single book? Yet this is precisely what our contemporaries do. It is fair to say that spiritual research still has compelling reasons to feel vindicated in the present.

[ 44 ] For those who have been listening to these lectures for some time, I think I can safely say that much has been cited here from the history of philosophy. Anyone familiar with this subject may perhaps come to the conclusion that many philosophers have provided evidence for the immortality of the human soul. I myself must admit that I have never felt entirely comfortable with the evidence presented from a philosophical perspective for the immortality of the soul or for a supernatural world, for what philosophers usually have in mind are merely the concepts of things. Thus, even regarding the human “I,” philosophers have only the concept of the “I.” But that nothing real can be inferred from the concept of the “I” should be as clear to everyone as it is clear that a mere painted painter cannot paint a picture. Likewise, one should be aware that the image of the “I” says nothing about the “I” itself. Anyone who engages with spiritual science will see that the conviction of the reality of the “I” is gained through something entirely different, namely through the very nature of the “I’s” continued existence after death.

[ 45 ] So, what philosophers of good faith in this school of thought put forward is hardly reassuring. But from the arguments of those opponents who so vehemently rail against these ideas, the person who sees things more deeply gains quite good evidence regarding the nature of the self. For there are, after all, philosophers who say they can only conceive of the “I” as a synthesis of all possible physiological and other activities. One then sees that these researchers cite all manner of things, yet what they cite cannot pertain to an “I.” In this respect, they are in the same vein—only in reverse—as that school of thought which seeks to explain the phenomena of life through the life force. For just as the life force is the fifth wheel on the wagon, so too do the explanations offered for the life of the soul not only fail to explain anything, but are even entirely superfluous when it comes to the true investigation of the soul. One then sees that such explainers truly leave the soul untouched and do not come anywhere near it at all, so that the soul remains in its own right and proves to be something that external explanations cannot approach. Only when a sense arises in contemporary consciousness that spiritual research cannot be judged by its surface appearance but only through a deep immersion into it—only then will any judgment imposed from outside on spiritual research cease to be authoritative.

[ 46 ] The same applies to the scientific objections as to the objections raised in the first lecture against spiritual research from a moral or religious perspective. For example, if it is said that it is infinitely more valuable for someone to do good out of pure selflessness—even with the prospect of being annihilated in death—simply out of the understanding and the will that it should benefit the community—than if they do so with a view to receiving compensation in subsequent earthly lives, then such a judgment is entirely true and should not be disputed. It is true when it is said that a person does good solely out of selfishness if they believe that, through karma, it will return to them as a good deed in a new earthly life as a kind of recompense, or if they refrain from doing evil because it might reappear as a kind of punishment in the new life. It is certain that such a claim can be seen as justifying selfishness, and one may therefore rightly say: Thus, it is precisely what spiritual research has to say about human beings that promotes selfishness among them.

[ 47 ] Schopenhauer once rightly said—and you know that I by no means agree with him on everything—: “It is easy to preach morality, but difficult to justify it.” What does it mean to justify morality? It means bringing about a state of mind through which a person can arrive at moral action. Anyone familiar with the life of nations knows that preaching morality is not only easy but, in most cases, quite useless; for one may very well be familiar with quite good moral principles—and yet act quite badly. If it were merely a matter of listening to moral sermons, there would certainly be far more moral people than is actually the case.

[ 48 ] For example, someone might say: Let’s imagine a couple who would do everything in their power to ensure their children grow up to be decent and capable people. For, as the parents say, if we raise them to be decent, capable people, they will be able to support us in our old age, and we will be able to rely on them in every possible way. If the parents raise their children from this perspective, it is undoubtedly a highly selfish perspective. But let’s now assume that the children turn out to be decent, so that they are capable people when they grow up. Then, although the parents have acted somewhat selfishly, they have not preached morality themselves, but rather established it, and it might turn out that—if they raise their children to be capable people, and those children later turn out to be something entirely different from what they had imagined—they might still arrive at a completely different ethical perspective. In that case, morality would also have been established for the parents, not merely preached.

[ 49 ] Let us suppose that a person did not have the opportunity to calculate the retribution for bad deeds in preparation for his next earthly life. But as he now commits actions under the influence of such a view of karma, a moral worldview will gradually take shape within him. This worldview will be rooted in human nature. Those who are still at a lower moral level will certainly act based on a more selfish conception of karma. But those who have reached a higher level and therefore have a higher conception of karma will fulfill a selfless moral imperative within themselves.

[ 50 ] The point, then, is not to make an abstract reference to something by calling the idea of karma “selfish,” but rather to show how it leads human beings toward higher development. This could be elaborated upon further to demonstrate how spiritual research addresses the reality and the true nature of human beings. If someone were to raise the objection that many might say to themselves: “I have future earthly lives ahead of me, so I don’t need to become a decent person until those later lives; right now I still have time, so I can still be a less-than-decent person”—such an objection could be refuted even on a theoretical level. But to address it properly, one must be familiar with the practical circumstances. One must realize that anyone who believes they do not yet need to be a decent person in their present life—and intends to become one only in the next life—has, through such a resolution, already influenced the course of their next life. If they do not resolve now to become a decent person, they will lack the necessary foundation for doing so in the next life as well. They are thus already depriving themselves of the ability to be a decent person later on; they are themselves destroying the very powers required for it. In this way, one could discuss the legitimate moral objections piece by piece.

[ 51 ] The religious objection is also taken into account. It is said: Spiritual science must explain that there is a spark of the divine in every soul and that human beings develop this divine spark more and more from one life to the next. Thus, the spark of the divine is placed within the human heart.

[ 52 ] In the first scene of my mystery drama *The Trial of the Soul*, I attempted to show how one should approach this matter when one knows how to view it in the proper light. Certainly, one might say that such a view leads to the loss of what might be called the religious principle—the sense of dependence on the Divine, outside of which human beings stand, that childlike looking up to this Divine that lies beyond them. But consider now what can be said from the other point of view: that a person fully realizes that the Divine has placed a spark within them, which they must experience and bring to full development; that they are indeed able to realize: You carry a divine spark within you, and if you leave it undeveloped, you let it wither away! This union with the Divine, and yet again the necessity of first having to develop this spark—this is a driving force of infinitely greater strength than any other religious impulse.

[ 53 ] Anyone who engages with spiritual science will see that it is in no way opposed to any religious creed. People believe—because religious denominations are so quick to oppose anthroposophical spiritual science—that spiritual science will now also turn against religious denominations. But just as with the scientific objections characterized earlier, the same is true of this religious objection: spiritual science does not stand in the way of any religious creed, for it deals with the relationship of the human soul to the supersensible worlds, whereas religion deals with the relationship to the individual soul.

[ 54 ] Anyone who is truly able to see will recognize that it is entirely possible for a person to engage in spiritual research while remaining fully committed to a religious faith that is natural to them. The true foundation of spiritual research, however, when it is embraced by the world, will be able to give people what might be called a deeper understanding of spiritual life—both the life of the individual soul and the interrelationship of souls. Anyone who can convince themselves even a little that all external human coexistence can be nothing more than an external reflection of how souls relate to one another will realize the immeasurable significance for the soul when it comes to understand how the individual soul relates to another, how the individual soul can relate to another, when it has correctly grasped what the destinies of the individual soul are in relation to the other soul in the life between death and the next birth, what these destinies entail for the individual soul, what it means to be separated from another soul, and what it means to establish a new relationship with the departed soul—if the soul that has remained here is able to know something of the supersensible world. New light is shed on all human knowledge and on all other aspects of human life when that which can be drawn forth from the depths of the supersensible world for each individual soul is able to sink into the souls. Living into it—not merely thinking about it—is part of recognizing, beholding, and understanding spiritual truths.

[ 55 ] This insight did not arise only through modern spiritual research; rather, it has essentially always been recognized wherever people have spoken from a genuine understanding of the spiritual world. I do not wish to speak on my own behalf regarding what I have to say about the position of spiritual research vis-à-vis those who reject it without truly knowing it; rather, I wish to speak on behalf of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. If there is anything serious—and perhaps even offensive to some—in this statement, one should bear in mind that it comes from a man who, full of enthusiasm for spiritual research, wished to express his anger toward all those who, without truly seeking to gain insight into spiritual research, reject it and believe they must fight against it. To these, Fichte exclaims:

[ 56 ] “They cannot help but furiously oppose that conviction—which shames them—of a higher nature in human beings, and all manifestations that seek to confirm this conviction; they must do everything in their power to ward off these manifestations and suppress them; they are fighting for their lives, for the finest and most intimate root of their existence, for the possibility of bearing themselves. All fanaticism and every furious expression of it, from the beginning of the world to this very day, has stemmed from the principle: if my opponents were right, then I would indeed be a wretched human being. — If this fanaticism can lay hold of fire and sword, it attacks the hated enemy with fire and sword; if these are beyond its reach, it is left with» (this latter point must surely be noted for our present time as well) «the tongue, which, even if it does not kill the enemy, is very often capable of powerfully paralyzing the enemy’s outward activity and effectiveness. One of the most common and favored tricks employed with this tongue is to attach a universally hated name to the cause they alone hate, thereby denigrating it and casting suspicion upon it. The standing treasure trove of these stratagems and these labels is inexhaustible and is constantly being enriched, and it would be futile to strive for any kind of completeness here. I will mention here only one of the most common and hated labels: the claim that this doctrine is “mysticism.”

[ 57 ] Note here, first and foremost with regard to the form of that accusation, that if, for example, an impartial person were to respond: “Well then, let us assume that it is mysticism and that mysticism is an erroneous and dangerous doctrine; even so, he may still present his case, and we will listen to him; if it is erroneous and dangerous, that will surely come to light on this occasion”—those who, in accordance with the categorical decision by which they believe they have thereby dismissed us, would have to reply: “There is nothing more to hear; long ago—indeed, for a lifetime and a half—mysticism has been decreed heresy by the unanimous resolutions of all our review councils and placed under anathema.”

[ 58 ] According to Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Fichte expresses himself in such a way that his views can still apply to some extent today regarding the relationship between spiritual research and, let us say, those who wish to trust only their senses and who want to organize the world according to what their senses tell them. Fichte compares such people—although this comparison may not be entirely justified—who wish to trust only their senses and refuse to acknowledge that there is a deeper understanding of the truth, to the deaf-mute and those born blind, who likewise would not acknowledge sounds and colors even if those who can see were to tell them about them. Now, of course, one cannot compare those born blind and deaf with those who refuse to accept what can be provided through clairvoyant research, because every soul is capable of entering into a relationship with supersensible truths. But Fichte says:

[ 59 ] “The fact that care is also taken of the deaf-mute and those born blind, and that a method has been devised to provide them with instruction, is something for which we are all grateful—namely, the deaf-mute and those born blind. But if one were to make this method of instruction the standard form of education, even for those born with normal senses, on the grounds that there might always be deaf-mutes and those born blind among them, and one could then be certain of having provided for everyone; if the hearing person, without any regard for his hearing, were to learn to speak with the same difficulty and to recognize words by their shape on the lips as the deaf-mute does, and if the sighted person, without any regard for his sight, were to read letters by touch, this would deserve very little gratitude from the able-bodied; although this arrangement would, of course, be implemented immediately as soon as the organization of public education were made dependent on the expert opinion of the deaf-mute and those born blind.”

[ 60 ] Perhaps one could argue—if one were to raise an objection to this statement by Fichte—that this is not even the case for those born blind or deaf-mute. But if it were up to those who rely solely on the senses and reason to determine how the world should be structured, they would not structure it the way sighted people perceive it. They would certainly rail and rebel against any spiritual interpretation of the world offered by others, yet they would declare themselves infallible regarding what they know about the world. They would react with derisive laughter if it were demanded that only those who know about such a matter should speak of it, and that those who know nothing about it should say nothing. The main reason all deniers of spiritual research deny it is simply that they know nothing about it. Logically, the first requirement would be that only those who know something about a matter should speak of it. But such reasons—denying something about which one knows nothing—are used in our time solely to reject a spiritual-scientific worldview. |

[ 61 ] But whoever can experience in their soul what was said in the first lecture, whoever need not wait for the objections they may encounter within themselves and is able to see through them in their spiritual life, will always find a way to justify spiritual research, so that what I also expressed in the first scene of *The Trial of the Soul* becomes a true word for them, and which can summarize, in the entire structure of consciousness, what knowledge of the supersensible worlds can give us—for our hope in life, for our strength in life, for our security in life, for everything we need for a life worthy of humanity. Everything that can be said—everything that can be expressed as rising within the soul, as experienced and felt within the soul—can be summed up in these words: You are not alone with your thinking, feeling, and willing. Just as you live with your body in the substances that are spread throughout the entire universe, so do you live with your thinking, feeling, and willing in something that is spread throughout the entire cosmos, across the vastness of space. This means that the statement I made at the indicated point in my Mystery Drama can become a conviction:

“Worldly thoughts live within your mind,
Worldly forces weave within your feelings,
Worldly beings work through your will.
Lose yourself in worldly thoughts,
Experience yourself through worldly forces,
Create yourself from beings of will.
Do not end in the vastness of the worlds
Through the dream-like play of thought—;
Begin in the expanses of the spirit,
And end in the depths of your own soul: —
You will find divine goals,
Recognizing yourself within yourself.”