The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Spiritual World and Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] As I have done for a number of years now, I will take the liberty this winter as well of delivering a series of lectures from this venue on the subject of the science of the spirit—the science of the spirit as it has already been addressed in the lectures I have given here over the past several years. This winter, too, I will endeavor, in this series of lectures, to shed light on as diverse areas of life, insight, and knowledge from the perspective of spiritual science; and so, at the beginning of this lecture series, as in past years, I would like to ask you once again not to view today’s lecture as a standalone event, but rather to consider the entire series as a more or less coherent whole, although I will do my best to ensure that each individual lecture is self-contained.

[ 2 ] In this series of lectures, I would like to touch upon the realms of spiritual, moral, and artistic life in order to show how spiritual science can serve as an enlightening cultural force for the most diverse enigmatic questions that must justifiably arise in the soul of the present age. To emphasize once again what has often been said in recent years, the perspective from which these lectures are being delivered is by no means one that is currently recognized or popular. On the contrary: the perspective of spiritual science, as understood here, is currently treated with opposition, misunderstanding, and even hostility; and let it be said from the outset that the person least surprised by this view of the spiritual-scientific standpoint is the one who stands on that very standpoint himself. For just how much can still be advanced today—with supposed justification—against this spiritual science from the perspectives of contemporary ideas and habits of thought, from everything that is currently believed to be scientifically or otherwise valid—this is best appreciated by those who have truly penetrated the very essence of this spiritual science. So please accept my assurance that, for the one speaking here, contradiction, opposition, and misunderstanding are by no means incomprehensible or difficult to understand. The misunderstandings that arise against this spiritual science lie, after all, in various areas. On the one hand, it is believed that this spiritual science is based on certain ancient religious creeds originating in the East or elsewhere, because one believes one can discern a certain similarity in individual points with what such religious creeds have advocated. That the reality of such similarities is quite different can only be recognized in the course of the spiritual science itself. But I will limit myself to this brief hint on the matter.

[ 3 ] That the science of the spirit, as understood here, has nothing to do with any traditions or handed-down teachings, but rather is based on direct research findings attainable in the present—on a method of research that requires no such traditions whatsoever, any more than the research findings of chemistry, physics, or any other science—that is what I would like to state by way of a preface; the lectures themselves will demonstrate how this can be substantiated and proven. From another perspective, spiritual science is met with misunderstandings insofar as it is regarded as a kind of new religious creed, a kind of sectarian belief. But it is no more a religious creed or a sectarian belief than any other contemporary science. Just as one cannot say of those who come together to study chemistry that they are a “sect of chemistry,” so too, once one penetrates the spirit of spiritual science, one cannot speak of it as a sectarian belief. But opposition to spiritual science stems from entirely different premises. Religious denominations of the most diverse orientations believe—let this be noted as a preface today—that they have reason to fear a new religious creed of some kind; they fear that a new faith will encroach upon their domain and endanger religious life in general. People will gradually come to realize that the fate of this spiritual science will be the same as that of natural science when it took its modern direction—let us say, during the age of Copernicus. Just as people believed at that time that the Copernican worldview—because it had to break with so much of the old—endangered the religious life of humanity, and just as Copernicanism was banished for centuries in various religious communities, so it may be in the present with spiritual science, which has a similar task with regard to the spirit as Copernicus had a corresponding task in the natural sciences. Ultimately, it will be recognized that a relationship exists between spiritual science and the religious sciences similar to that between Copernicanism and religious creeds, and that one will be just as unable to oppose what culture demands in the realm of the spirit as one has been in the realm of scientific knowledge. These matters need only be touched upon; for how they stand will become clear in the course of the lectures.

[ 4 ] Another weighty objection, however, comes from the very camp that—if it truly understood itself—would actually have to regard the humanities as a kind of continuation of its own endeavors: it comes from the camp that believes it stands on the solid ground of scientific research, scientific thought, and scientific imagination. Let us first draw attention—albeit figuratively, though this image is meant to convey more than a mere metaphor—to how what modern humanities aspires to be relates to the current of scientific knowledge. No one can acknowledge the high value and great cultural power of the modern scientific way of thinking more than precisely those who stand on the ground of this spiritual science, and those among the esteemed audience who have been listening to these lectures for years will know how thoroughly this appreciation of scientific thought and research is emphasized precisely by this spiritual science. And who would want, today, to introduce into culture a spiritual current that believes it must set itself in opposition to scientific thinking? Such a person would have to be blind to what this scientific way of thinking has created for humanity in terms of cultural achievements over the course of the last few centuries, right up to the present day! They would have to fail to understand how deeply science has penetrated not only the content but the very nature of questions of knowledge and the mysteries of understanding. Certainly, nothing will be raised in these lectures to challenge the legitimate claims of scientific achievements. Humanity has watched this scientific knowledge blossom and surge forth, has seen it permeate the life of our technology and our transportation systems, has seen it transform the external material culture of the world and conquer the social life of peoples across the globe. But precisely because modern spiritual science understands this, it draws the following insight from what natural science can achieve: if natural science is grasped in a living way—not abstractly, not theoretically, or dogmatically— then something can emerge from natural science itself and its modes of thinking that not only enlightens the human soul about the external laws of the sensory world, the external material forces and substances, but also about the life of the soul itself, about the destiny of the soul—which encompasses the questions of death and immortality and the entire scope of spiritual life. For let this be emphasized from the outset: “spiritual science” is not meant here as a summary of the various cultural sciences—for which the term “spiritual science” is often used today—such as history, sociology, art history, legal history, and the like—but rather that spiritual science is meant here as an understanding of a real spiritual life, which is as real as the natural life around us, and to which human beings belong with their spirit and soul just as truly as they belong with their body to that which natural science is able to enlighten us about.

[ 5 ] This, however, immediately takes us into a realm where—and let this be emphasized once again—understandably, many minds of the modern age are not yet able to follow, and cannot yet follow because, for them, the entire way in which this spiritual science approaches the spiritual realm and the mysteries of life is still something entirely fantastical and dreamlike—just as, fundamentally speaking, the Copernican worldview was fantastical and dreamlike to its contemporaries. But natural science and spiritual science—to put it figuratively—relate to one another in roughly the following way: When a farmer harvests his crops in the fall, the majority of these crops are first used as human food, and this portion then plays its role in life as human food by being transformed. However, if life is to continue, a portion of this fruit must be set aside for new sowing. It must not be used as food, but must be processed in such a way that it is returned to its elements—just as the earth and the other elements have processed that which ultimately yielded human food. Thus, the greater part of the brilliant achievements of natural science is rightly destined to be incorporated into technical, social, and commercial life; it is destined to enrich material culture, to permeate it, and to shape the life of humanity in the spirit of progress. But precisely within what natural science gives us, there is also something that can in turn be handed over to the human soul without flowing out into material life—something that can be processed within this human soul in the way I will indicate shortly, and which, when it is not received theoretically or dogmatically but is taken in by the soul in such a way that it lives within it, then takes shape in the soul like a seed that has been sown in the earth. What can be absorbed in this way by the human soul is then transformed within it and becomes that clairvoyant power referred to here—far removed from all superstition and obscurantism—as the clairvoyant power that can then cast its gaze into the spiritual world. For this is what distinguishes spiritual science from other branches of knowledge cultivated today: that this spiritual science presupposes a development of the human soul beyond the perspective otherwise accepted in contemporary scientific thought. In this scientific approach, one takes human beings as they are; one takes them as they observe the world around them—equipped with their power of cognition, sensory observation, and intellectual faculties—seeking the laws of nature and thereby constructing science. One takes, I say, human beings as they are, and human beings take themselves as they are in order to penetrate this scientific approach.

[ 6 ] This is not the case in spiritual science. For human beings—as they are in their immediate state, just as they must accept themselves in other branches of science as well—the spiritual world is, at first, a hidden world, a world that is not accessible to the senses, nor to the ordinary use of intellect and reason, a world that lies beyond the world of the senses, even though what human beings are in their deepest essence belongs to this supersensory world, if we may use that term. Human beings, with their power of cognition—when they regard themselves as they are—belong themselves to this world of the senses and this world of the intellect. In a deeper sense, he belongs to the spiritual world; but he must first develop this deeper sense. In other words: just as it is true that, for ordinary science, a human being takes himself as he is, so it is true that, for spiritual science—for the knowledge of the spirit—he must first transform himself so that he can penetrate the spiritual world. The powers of cognition, the capacity for knowing the spiritual world, must first be developed; human beings must first transform themselves so that the dormant capacity for knowing may awaken within them. But this dormant capacity for knowing is within them, and they can bring it to life. This is, however, a point of view that is not only uncomfortable but, in many respects, incomprehensible to the present age. For when it comes to questions of the higher life, the present age is so inclined to first raise the question: What can human beings know? — And then some who live within the present age’s patterns of thought conclude—and rightly so—that human cognitive capacity is limited and cannot penetrate a spiritual world at all. On the one hand, there are many people who say: such a spiritual world may exist, but human cognitive faculties are incapable of penetrating it. Others are more radical and say: a spiritual world reveals itself to no one; consequently, there is none. This is the view of materialism or, as it is more elegantly called today, monism.

[ 7 ] There can be no dispute whatsoever that human beings, as they are, cannot penetrate the spiritual world if they wish to grasp it scientifically, rather than through mere faith. Such mere faith, however, is no longer sufficient for humanity today—and will become increasingly insufficient, given that scientific education has permeated the past few centuries. The capacity for knowledge of the spiritual world must first be developed within the human soul; the conditions through which a person can penetrate the spiritual world must first be established.

[ 8 ] Now, if one is willing to accept that such a thing is possible, one usually imagines that these must be particularly abnormal forces! They must be forces brought about by abnormal circumstances, through which a person is supposed to penetrate the spiritual world. This, too, is a misunderstanding. What this is really about is that the insight—those powers of the soul through which a person enters the spiritual world—are, in essence, already present in the human soul; that in our ordinary, everyday life—insofar as the soul is a factor in that everyday life—they also govern the soul; but they are, as it were, submerged in this everyday life; they govern subordinate areas of life, or if they govern more important areas, they do so in such a way that one does not notice their powers and their influence. What is always present in the soul, what is never lacking in any soul, but which is present in everyday life only with little power and to a limited extent—this, when developed to a certain height and strength, must provide the powers of cognition for spiritual science. Let me draw your attention to one quality of the soul—since I do not wish to speak in abstract terms but rather to delve directly into the concrete—a quality that everyone knows, that plays a role, but which, only when raised from its low level to a certain intensity, provides a fundamental force for spiritual science.

[ 9 ] Everyone is familiar with what is called focusing the soul’s attention on something. In life, we must direct the soul’s attention—or, we might also say, our interest—toward a wide variety of objects; for we need to form impressions of these diverse objects that remain with us, that stay in our memory, and that continually influence our soul. Anyone who has ever reflected on the strength or weakness of memory will realize the role that attention or interest plays in human life. Those who have studied the strength or weakness of memory will know that a strong, good memory is, in many respects, a consequence of the ability to direct one’s attention to things and to follow them with interest. Something to which we have devoted intense attention, something in which we were fully engaged with our interest—that becomes deeply ingrained in our soul and is preserved in our inner life. Those who pass things by superficially, who do not allow themselves to be captivated by them, will have cause to complain of a weak, useless memory. But in yet another respect, what we call attention—the turning of our interest toward the things of life—is important for human life. For our ability to retain, in our imagination, the things with which we have once been connected is what determines what we might call the inner integrity of the spiritual life that is essential to us. Anyone who has studied the life of the soul knows that it is necessary for a healthy soul life that a person maintain the connection between the present and past experiences. Anyone who, to any significant extent, were unaware of how their self-consciousness—their “I”—has behaved over the past years, so that, looking back, they could not recognize that they had experienced it—for whom the “I” would always be a new experience—would not have a healthy soul life. Ultimately, then, our healthy inner life stems from our ability to direct our attention to the things of life. This is thus a fundamental force of the soul that plays a role in life and is always present.

[ 10 ] Now, someone might say: So, by talking about spiritual science, are you telling us about something quite ordinary and claiming that this awareness needs to be further developed and brought to a special level of intensity?

[ 11 ] And yet it is true! Whatever in life may be weak—no matter how strong it might be in the outer world—whatever may be weak in comparison to the intensity it takes on for the spiritual researcher, that is precisely this attentiveness. For the cultivation of attention is something the spiritual researcher must practice again and again, something he must bring to such an intensity that the degree of attention developed in ordinary life pales in comparison. One might say: It might seem that it would be easy to reach the foundation of spiritual scientific research, because it involves only the cultivation of something that is always present in ordinary life. But the words Goethe used in Faust also apply here: “It is indeed easy, yet the easy is difficult.” It requires years of persistent exercises of the soul to develop the soul power that, in everyday life, presents itself to us to a limited extent as attention; and in spiritual science, we call this heightened state of attention “concentration of spiritual life.” We call it the concentration of spiritual life because the human spirit or soul, as it naturally is, spreads its powers in everyday life over a vast realm—a realm that encompasses everything the external sensory world offers and everything the intellect constructs from these external sensory perceptions. Even in ordinary life, what constitutes the soul’s powers is spread across everything a person wills, desires, or becomes emotionally stirred by, and so on; in short, the life of the soul is initially scattered. What the researcher of the spirit must cultivate within himself—as a development of the apparatus of spiritual science, which he must prepare for in the spiritual realm just as the chemist prepares his apparatus in the laboratory in the material realm—what must happen in this process is to gather these soul forces, which are otherwise scattered throughout life, as it were, into a single point, and to direct one’s attention to that point. What kind of point? A point of one’s own choosing within the soul’s inner experience. That is to say: the spiritual researcher must form some kind of mental image, some kind of soul impulse—an impulse of feeling or will—and place it at the center of his or her soul life. The best such image or impulse is one that initially has nothing to do with the external world: an image, a symbol.

[ 12 ] Let’s take a simple example: Let’s consider a sentence that, at first glance, has no objective truth—but that is not the point: I imagine how light—the light of a star, the light of the sun—shines upon me, and how this light is wisdom rippling through the world. A symbol. Now I focus my entire attention on this symbol. What matters is not that anything about it is true, but that all the powers of the soul are concentrated on this one point. Therefore, it is necessary to choose, as preparation, what is discussed further in the book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and presented in its various methods; here, only the principle is to be briefly outlined by way of introduction. To this end, it is necessary to develop the strong will to truly concentrate one’s entire soul life on this single point. This means, however, being able to artificially bring about what otherwise occurs naturally during sleep. In the state of sleep, our senses slacken; the world ceases to be perceptible to us through the senses. Colors, sounds, and smells cease to make an impression on us. But at the same time, our consciousness fades. For the spiritual researcher, it must be consciousness itself that arbitrarily silences all external impressions, and yet, at the same time, consciousness must be fully preserved. In the same way, whatever comes to a standstill the moment one falls asleep must be brought to a standstill: everything corresponding to the impulses of the will must become completely still. And everything else that a person normally mobilizes to engage actively with the world must also become completely still for the spiritual researcher. He must divert his consciousness from everything it is otherwise directed toward and must concentrate the entire sphere of the soul solely on the one point he has chosen for himself. Then our soul forces grow stronger. And it is precisely those soul forces that otherwise remain hidden in everyday life that are strengthened, and something gradually begins to take place that I would like to compare to what occurs in the realm of external material life when, for example, a chemist conducts research on water. For the spiritual researcher, the human being stands there in the world just as water stands before the chemist. For the spiritual researcher, the human being is a union, an intimate interpenetration of the spiritual-soul aspect with the physical-bodily aspect, just as water is an interpenetration of oxygen and hydrogen for the chemist. And just as the chemist could never discover what water is by examining only hydrogen, so too can one not discover what a human being is in their spirit or soul by considering the human being solely in their physical existence. In this field, the spiritual researcher need not fear being regarded as a dualist any more than the chemist in his field has reason to fear when he breaks water down into hydrogen and oxygen. One has no more right to call the spiritual researcher a dualist because he practices “spiritual chemistry” in his field than one would have to call the chemist a dualist because he does not accept that water is a single entity but consists of hydrogen and oxygen, and because, in order to understand the nature of water, he must separate the hydrogen from the oxygen.

[ 13 ] The spiritual researcher works with the same methods, but within his own field. And as I have just indicated: concentration and heightened attention bring forth the forces that are indeed present in the human soul but lie dormant in everyday life—forces through which the spiritual-soul aspect, which is otherwise inseparably connected to the physical-bodily aspect, can be separated from the physical-bodily aspect just as material hydrogen is separated from water in a chemical experiment. And this is what the spiritual researcher experiences when he engages in this intensification of attention through energetic, often years-long, devoted practice: that what might otherwise easily be doubted in its very reality—namely, the spiritual-soul aspect—becomes a direct experience for him, so that it makes immediate sense for him to say: I experience myself in the spiritual-soul realm, independent of the body; only now do I know what the spiritual-soul realm is, because I experience myself in it! — It is not so much that the researcher of the spiritual would have to add insights of the same kind as those of the natural sciences to them; rather, although his method of research is entirely in the spirit of the natural sciences—namely, in the spirit of knowledge—his research method is of a completely different nature; and precisely because it seeks to remain faithful to the laws of knowledge, it must take a different form than the scientific methods directed immediately toward the material realm. In this way, the spiritual researcher gains, for example, an awareness of the following.

[ 14 ] In our time, one might say—and with some justification—that while natural science may not have provided proof, it has at least offered hypothetical support for the view that human thought, as it appears to us in human beings, is a function or a product of the brain. It is at this point that most of the arguments put forward by opponents of natural science or adherents of the science of the spirit—in a sense that is not entirely modern, that is, not in the sense intended here as “modern”—begin. There are many people who wish to acknowledge the spirit and therefore take a stand against such a claim from the outset: that human thought is bound to the central nervous system, that it is an effluvium of the central nervous system. And much polemic is directed against what natural science has not yet proven, but which it believes it can present as a hypothesis: that human thought is a function of the brain; and many people immediately regard spiritual science as endangered if one feels compelled to admit that human thought is bound to the brain, that one cannot, after all, think without a central nervous system. Not even on this point does spiritual science contradict the legitimate demands of natural science; for it is true that thinking, as we develop it in everyday life, is bound to the central nervous system and the rest of the nervous system. But true spiritual science teaches us to recognize that the very formation, the very structure of the brain and the central nervous system that must be brought about for everyday thinking has flowed forth from the spirit; that the spirit first builds up our body in such a way that this body can become the instrument of thought. Spiritual science does not merely descend into thinking; it does not claim that thinking, as it presents itself to us in everyday life, is eternal and immortal, but rather it teaches us to recognize that what constitutes our thinking apparatus is our true spiritual-soul life—that which lives behind our thinking apparatus, indeed behind our physicality as a whole. And the methods of spiritual science, as they have been outlined, lead to these active, creative forces that underlie all material reality.

[ 15 ] Thus, because the method of the humanities must simultaneously be situated within that which separates it from the body, it leads to a completely different kind of experience and a completely different state of mind than those found in ordinary life and in ordinary science. Let me just point out one thing right from the start, because I would like to speak in concrete terms. What is otherwise expressed in our thinking and imagination—and what is bound to the brain in everyday life—is truly separated from the physical body through concentration, as has been briefly described; and the spiritual researcher comes to experience within himself how he gains inner strength, how he actually feels himself to be outside his central nervous system—to which he is otherwise connected in all thinking, feeling, and willing—and that, like another object one stands before, one’s own physicality stands opposite this spiritual-psychic experience. In other words: Just as one experiences oneself within one’s body in ordinary life, so does one experience oneself outside one’s body when applying the methods of spiritual science to oneself. When one applies these methods of concentration in thought in particular, one experiences oneself outside one’s brain. Only now does one realize what the brain is like as a tool. For I am not telling you fairy tales or conjuring up fantasy images, but rather describing something that can be experienced by the spiritual researcher when I say: he feels, while experiencing himself, as if circling his brain; he feels as if he were within the circumference of his brain. He knows what it means not to think as one does in ordinary life, but to think solely within the spiritual-soul element and to feel the brain outside of this element—indeed, to even feel it as something that offers resistance, against which one bumps, just as one bumps against an external object. I have also described here before the intensification of such experiences into a more comprehensive experience, and I have described it in my short treatise “A Path to Self-Knowledge for Human Beings.”

[ 16 ] If the spiritual researcher continues his exercises and is truly dedicated—not to a single image, but to concentrating his entire inner life on hundreds and hundreds of images—so that his powers themselves increase more and more, then precisely what I described in the aforementioned text as a shattering event will occur. It occurs in one form for one person and in another form for another, but it always has something characteristic about it. As I describe it, it may appear this way to everyone. Even in the midst of everyday life, if a person has practiced long enough—and if the exercises have been done correctly, external life will never disturb them—they may come to say to themselves: What is it that seeks to reveal itself to you from beyond your everyday imagination? — It is something that wants to penetrate you, but to penetrate you like something that otherwise arises only from your own soul. But it may also seek to penetrate you like, say, a dream when one awakens from sleep—though what enters is infinitely more than a dream, and one finds oneself asking: What is happening now? — Something happens that feels like a bolt of lightning striking the room, which you feel passing right through you. And you might say to yourself: It’s as if your body were falling away from you and being destroyed. But now you know: You can be inside yourself without being in your body!

[ 17 ] From that moment on—for this is the significance of this experience, which has always existed, even if it has not been made known in the outer world—when one experiences it for the first time, one understands what the spiritual researchers meant when they said: Whoever experiences the eternal in the human being—the spiritual-soul aspect—must approach the gate of death. One experiences death as an image within oneself. One experiences, in a vivid image—in real, not imagined, imagination—what it means for the spiritual-soul aspect to separate from the body and to continue to exist as it does when a person passes through the gate of death. We will have more to say about all this; today I merely wish to outline, as in a preface, the nature of spiritual life and the spiritual science associated with it. — A series of inner experiences emerges that initially lead to knowing what it means to engage in “spiritual chemistry,” what it means to “to separate the spiritual-soul aspect from the physical,” in order to explore the destinies of the spiritual-soul aspect and to know that there is a real separation of the spiritual from the physical and an independent life of the spirit in relation to the body. Thus, to know oneself to be outside one’s physical body—that is the fruit of heightened attention, of heightened concentration. Even at relatively elementary levels, one notices this state of being outside the body, particularly in relation to the central nervous system. When one feels, as one thinks and imagines, as it were drawn toward the spiritual world—outside one’s brain, so to speak, and thus outside one’s body—then, because one is initially situated within ordinary life as an earthly human being, one repeatedly faces the necessity of returning to ordinary thinking and imagining, and of thinking just as one does in normal life. But one experiences the moment when one must say to oneself: You were just outside your body; you must return to your body and shape what you experienced outside the body in such a way that your brain can grasp it, so that the thoughts you had outside the body become thoughts of the brain!

[ 18 ] One experiences this immersion into the brain, and it is linked to something that must be well prepared—but which can be well prepared if one has completed the exercises described in the book How to Gain Insights into the Higher Worlds. One then realizes, by immersing one’s thinking into the brain, that the brain offers resistance, and that, in fact, the thought process of ordinary life is a destruction of the central nervous system—genuine destructive processes—which are, however, reversed by sleep. All thinking is, in essence, a process of decomposition, and sleep repeatedly compensates for this process of decomposition. But as one progresses in spiritual practice, one experiences oneself sinking into a process of dissolution; and if one has not cultivated the right feelings during preparation, this manifests as a fear of sinking back into the organism. After all, the person now stands outside the actual earthly body. One feels as if sinking into an abyss. And one must therefore engage in precisely those exercises that impart serenity and detachment toward what might otherwise manifest as anxiety or fear. It is, in other words, a certain kind of soul mood, a certain state of mind, that finds expression in what constitutes the power of insight and the methods of investigation for the higher worlds.

[ 19 ] Something else must also be present if true knowledge, true revelation from the spiritual worlds is to penetrate the human soul. Another force must be heightened to its highest intensity: devotion, love for whatever comes our way. Of course, this devotion is necessary to a certain degree in ordinary life. But on the path to the spiritual worlds, this devotion must be heightened to such an extent that a person learns to renounce everything down to the deepest levels of their being and to suppress all activity. Gradual and intensified practice leads to the suppression of the voluntary movements that arise from the human ego, and to being, so to speak, completely surrendered to the stream of existence flowing before us; but not only this, but also, to a certain degree, to perceiving involuntary movements as something external. Through these exercises, a person learns to perceive even into the vascular organs. Then a person can say of the spiritual world: You experience it outside your body; you will experience it as a structured world in which beings appear—just as the natural world is a place where natural beings appear. Through concentration—that is, through heightened attention—and through meditation—that is, through heightened devotion—a person finds the path into the spiritual world, just as they find the path into nature when they observe it with their physical eyes and with their intellect. But only then—when a person has thus separated their spiritual-soul aspect from the physical through a process of spiritual alchemy—do they also perceive themselves in their infinity; only then do they perceive themselves in the existence that lies beyond birth and death, or, if you will, beyond conception and death. Then, in this eternal essence of his, he recognizes himself in such a way that he grasps that idea of evolution—which will be discussed frequently in these lectures—which, in the realm of human spiritual life, corresponds to the idea of evolution to which natural science owes so much in its own field in recent times: then the human being grasps the idea of repeated earthly lives—the fact that the full human life consists of repeated earthly lives, between which lie lives in purely spiritual worlds. The idea of reincarnation distinguishes between life in the body between birth and death and life between death and new birth in a purely spiritual existence.

[ 20 ] All these things—and let this be emphasized once again—are, understandably, very easily dismissed as daydreams and fantasies by those who believe themselves firmly rooted in the habits of scientific thought; and indeed, in our time, research into dreams, hypnosis, suggestion, autosuggestion, and so on often points to how all manner of things can emerge from the depths of the subconscious life of the soul, things that can evoke in a person the deceptive awareness: “You are experiencing something that has significance beyond your physical life.” All these are theoretical objections; those who delve deeper into spiritual science will no longer raise them. For in the course of these lectures, we will raise many objections and show how spiritual science must address them. Today, however, I would like to draw your attention to just one fundamental point.

[ 21 ] It is easy to say: If the spiritual researcher has experienced his spiritual-soul life in its independence and then feels as though he is looking back—as if in an expanded memory—on earlier earthly lives or on his last earthly life, this can be nothing other than his transformed desires, his life of desires, which plays out in the subconscious and shimmers up into his waking consciousness, thereby causing him to experience delusions, hallucinations, and so on. — It is understandable that untrained thinking, in such a case, speaks of self-generated desires, illusions, hallucinations, and so on; but one does not know what is actually involved. Anyone who has separated their spiritual-soul life from the physical through spiritual chemistry will notice, when they truly experience such a look back into a previous earthly life, that it is not a transformed desire or something that can surface from their subconscious; for the word may be used: Usually, what one experiences in the spiritual realm is very different from what one might dream up. After all, a great deal of nonsense is perpetrated in the field referred to here as spiritual science. In no other field is charlatanism as widespread as in the field of spiritual science; and one often hears people who have looked into what spiritual science is, who have taken in some of its teachings, and who have also become convinced that these teachings are true, say: “So-and-so experienced this or that in a past life,” or “So-and-so was this or that in a past life.” Well, one can encounter a great deal of nonsense in this field. Usually, it is quite evident from the statements made in this area that they correspond to certain human desires; for the things that people claim to have been—those who describe how their past lives unfolded—sometimes take on quite peculiar forms. Most often, these are quite famous, outstanding personalities whom one can learn about not only through spiritual scientific research but also through history! But for those who truly penetrate the spiritual worlds, things present themselves quite differently. Hence the following example: After applying spiritual scientific methods to their soul, a person casts a glance into a past earthly life—as is possible and even natural once these methods have taken effect on the soul to a certain degree—and then the image of past experiences from that earlier earthly life emerges. But in doing so, one will notice that these experiences are such that, in the present moment—when one beholds them in this expanded retrospective view of memory—one does not really know what to make of them; apart from the fact that they enrich one’s understanding, one will not be able to make use of them in ordinary life. One realizes that in a past life one possessed certain skills, certain knowledge, and so on. Now this comes to mind as a mental image. But in one’s present life, one is too old to reacquire these skills and knowledge. As a rule, what one never dares to dream of—what no fantasy can conceive—will come to pass; real life is generally quite different from the fantastical image one might form of a past earthly life. Or one realizes: in a past life, you had a relationship with this or that person. But if, at the age when one discovers this, one wants to draw the necessary conclusions for one’s present life, life’s circumstances do not permit it, and one is then referred to what is called the spiritual law of causality. One recognizes this—but one cannot apply this insight to one’s present life. One must also develop a devotional spiritual life in this regard and tell oneself: What you once developed as relationships with people will run its course; but you must wait until spiritual connections bring the causes from past earthly lives to fruition in the present one. What one might dream of in the spiritual realm does not come to pass if the insight is a true one.

[ 22 ] When one looks into that state of existence that elapses between death and a new birth—where one lives a purely spiritual life—all reflection in concepts and the like is of no help in forming a conception of how one lived during that time. What one must first consider as the next form of one’s life tasks and interests, the nature of the environment into which one has grown in the external material world, what one has developed in terms of wishes, desires, emotions, and what character one’s imaginative world has taken on—all of this is, for the most part, completely opposite to what one experienced in the spiritual world before descending into the present incarnation. What one longed for and desired there does not correspond to the desires of earthly life. Let us take a rough example: In earthly life, one can very easily be deeply affected by some stroke of fate. Then—I drew attention to this in my latest book, The Threshold of the Spiritual World, explaining how things stand and how the objections that can so easily be raised from a materialistic perspective are by no means decisive—if one perceives something as painful, and if this painful experience does not correspond to any desire—not even in the subconscious—one can very easily believe that in the spiritual world, where one was before, one’s entire life of desire and one’s attitude toward the spiritual world were similar to one’s current attitude toward life. But that is not the case. The experience in the spiritual world before our incarnation is fundamentally different. Therefore, one must imagine that one has brought all of this upon oneself in order to experience this pain that has now befallen one. What one most certainly does not desire—indeed, what one must admit one desires as little as possible in earthly life—one comes to realize that one had actually desired and longed for it before one’s earthly life, because through experiencing this pain and working one’s way out of it, one can attain the perfection of one’s soul life. For, as we shall yet see, spiritual scientific insight transforms the question of fate into a question of perfection.

[ 23 ] When we envision spiritual life in this way, it does indeed appear to our heightened inner life as a spiritual environment, just as the natural environment appears to the senses and the intellect. And the spiritual researcher has much to overcome in order to elevate what he is able to observe to the status of a science. For, given the entire nature of the process as I have described it, you can imagine that the experiences the spiritual researcher must have—those that reveal the spiritual world to him—must first be attained. They are attained in such a way that they first appear so faint that even the faintest, almost completely faded memories of ordinary life must sometimes be called “strong” in comparison to these manifestations of the spiritual world; and these manifestations—now memories from the spiritual world—must be strengthened and made more vivid. This strengthening occurs only gradually through continued immersion in and practice of spiritual conditions. This strengthening, this fortification of the soul’s life, is the fundamental prerequisite for spiritual research. But then something else must be added as well.

[ 24 ] As we proceed through these lectures, we will see how unfounded it is—though understandably easy to happen—for the materialist thinker to say: “What is achieved through concentration, through the devotion of the soul, through meditation—that is really no different from the illusions and hallucinations of a diseased mental state. One could say, when looking at things from the outside, that what the spiritual researcher experiences is no different from that.” One could even say: When the spiritual researcher describes these things, it is really just as if a dreamer were describing his dreams. In the dreams the dreamer describes, something is expressed that is also experienced in the outer world: reminiscences of the outer world are expressed within them. And so, in a certain sense, one can say: What the spiritual researcher separates as his spiritual-soul aspect from the physical and presents before his soul as the essence of a world of images—when he describes it—is such that the qualities of the images are drawn from the qualities of the beings of the external world. Anyone who looks at what is written in my Outline of Esoteric Science will, if they so wish, be able to say: What you describe there—things that can only be attained in the supersensible worlds through spiritual science—are things that one also experiences in the external world, albeit not arranged in this way. One can say this in a certain sense, even though the objections raised today from many quarters against what spiritual science asserts are somewhat naïve. For example, if someone says that what is written in a book such as Occult Science is a fantastical compilation resulting from a kind of compressed inner experience, and that such a description is actually fantasy and not reality, one very quickly realizes where such logic comes from. For if one examines it more closely, one will realize that it is the same logic as when a child who has only ever seen a wooden lion now says, upon seeing a real lion for the first time: “That is not a real lion, for the real one is made of wood.” This is often how opponents of spiritual science behave. Because they do not truly understand things, they accuse the spiritual scientist of presenting things that are not like the things they know from ordinary life. But one might object that the spiritual scientist’s descriptions are reminiscences drawn from ordinary life. But this objection is worth just as much as, say, the objection of that child, or as the objection of a person who cannot read and who says: “What I see here are all kinds of shapes; I see something with a line from the lower left to the upper right, then a line from the upper left to the lower right, and then a horizontal line!”—whereas someone who can read perceives this as an “A.”

[ 25 ] It is not what one immediately perceives and observes—that which is to pass from the spiritual world into the sensory world—but rather, it is learning to interpret what one sees. For what is seen must first be interpreted correctly. But one learns this interpretation at the same time through the practice by which one enters the spiritual world. And if someone sees in the descriptions of spiritual science only echoes of the ordinary world and says: “When people speak of past earthly lives in this way, these are, after all, just concepts that are found in life elsewhere, just not grouped in this way”—then such a person is like someone who looks at a letter and says to another: “You want to learn something new from this?” But I already know everything that’s in it; for it contains only letters I already know—nothing new at all!” It is exactly the same when people say: “What the spiritual researcher describes are just reminiscences from the sensory world!” But what matters in these descriptions is what lies behind them as an essential reality, what is revealed there.

[ 26 ] Thus, spiritual science is what emerges in the spiritual researcher as a result of the experiences he has had. And this is the difficult aspect of spiritual science—the aspect that is still so misunderstood today, the aspect that seems to be so at odds with today’s established goals in life—namely, that the spiritual researcher, in what for him is experience, becomes experience—he must always be present, must always be fully immersed in it, so that, when he speaks of conditions in the spiritual world and represents true spiritual science, he is offering not his body but his soul. While the ordinary world isolates the human being when he is to perceive something of the “objective,” the spiritual scientist must immerse himself in that to which his science refers; he must become one with it. Today, however, this is regarded merely as a “subjective” experience. People fail to realize that the methods described render the spiritual-soul life independent of everything we experience subjectively. For no matter how intensely we experience it, and no matter how much it is called “mysticism”: what we experience subjectively is experienced within the body; what the spiritual researcher experiences is experienced outside the body, but can be understood within the body by the reason functioning within it, by the ordinary intellect. For even the objection that one who wishes to gain knowledge of the spiritual worlds must oneself be a spiritual researcher is unfounded. One must be a spiritual researcher in order to become acquainted with, discover, and investigate spiritual facts and entities, but not in order to receive and comprehend spiritual-scientific communications. For this, it is sufficient to be able to receive them with common sense and sound judgment, just as one accepts what chemists or physicists discover through their methods.

[ 27 ] When one considers spiritual science in this way, it appears as that into which the natural sciences must, so to speak, flow—that to which the natural sciences must rise. Just as natural science has pointed humanity toward material goals, and has radically transformed material life not only in many areas but in a fundamental way, so spiritual science will enrich and transform what humanity’s soul-spiritual experience must be, in a manner appropriate to the goals of the present and future of human development. Regarding these goals of human development—as they are already beginning to reveal themselves here, even if not yet clearly discernible (they will reveal themselves clearly to spiritual science)—one may say what a contemporary figure who plays a major role today has said, namely what Wilson, the President of the United States of America, said in reference to something more external, but which applies quite generally to the goals of spiritual science. In his recently published book, Wilson speaks of the reforms he has witnessed—I choose this particular example precisely so as not to offend anyone or cause offense where none is intended; for spiritual science is not meant to contribute to conflict, but to peace among people—he says that external, material life has been completely transformed, that entirely different relationships have taken the place of the old patriarchal relationship between employer and employee. Labor unions now stand opposite employers in such a way that the former relationships between the factors of life have been completely transformed. That this has come to pass is a consequence of modern life; above all, for those who understand the matter correctly, it is a consequence of contemporary humanity’s understanding of nature. But now Wilson says: the forms of lawful coexistence that exist today still largely correspond to what took place in earlier times—what was deemed proper when the individual worker faced his employer in a patriarchal relationship. And Wilson now calls for harmony to be created between the lawful coexistence of people today and what culture has created. Much of the American president’s extraordinarily interesting writings culminates in this. What he says about more external circumstances can also be said—with reference to the innermost aims of the present—about the entire spiritual human experience today. When one considers such things in connection with the spiritual goals of the present, one is reminded of thinkers who belonged to entirely different eras of human development: Archimedes, the founder of mechanics, and Plato, the great Greek philosopher. They were of the opinion—and expressed it openly—that the application of science to the technology of life actually does a disservice to the human spirit, weakening it. One can understand that outstanding minds of other eras held this view; but the course of world history is guided just as little by such opinions as by what people believed—though it is less widely believed today—when the first railroad in Germany was to be built. At that time, a highly learned body—the Bavarian Medical Council—was tasked with issuing an expert opinion on whether or not railroads should be built. And this council rendered its verdict as follows: Railroads should not be built, for if they were, the people riding in them would suffer severe damage to their nervous systems; but if it should come to pass that people did ride in railroads, then at least high wooden walls would have to be erected on both sides so that people living nearby would not be harmed by the sight and sound of the passing trains. — Today, some may smile at what an expert medical council believed back then. But even if one smiles at it, one might even find it well-founded. For one can take neither a position for nor against it and can say: even if the Bavarian Medical Council exaggerated the matter fantastically, what it had assumed has nevertheless come true for those who know the story not only superficially but deeply, and one can say: this council had a keen insight. Nevertheless, there is no need to take a stand against it. Why not? Because history itself takes a stand on the matter! And regardless of what individual people may think about it: the course of world development continues, and humanity must adapt to the course of development. That is, after all, the demand that Wilson makes: the course of development has brought about certain cultural processes, and humanity must adapt to them.

[ 28 ] If we extend this to the conditions of the soul, we can say: In what has flowed to the souls from the course of time, goals have emerged that were infinitely more complex than those of past eras. From an external perspective, one can easily imagine this transformation; but life has also changed in terms of what the soul needs for its immediate daily requirements. Anyone who believes that the soul forces which once rightly guided human beings upward into the spiritual worlds could still do so today in the same way fails to take into account what is taking place in the course of world history: they fail to take into account that we have not only four centuries of natural science behind us, but, what is more, four centuries of scientific education, and that it has now become necessary to carry the findings of spiritual science into people’s hearts and souls. And even if it may be true in specific instances that the course of world history does not always permit this, one must nevertheless say: If anyone today objects to what spiritual science seeks to be—whether from the standpoint of a religious creed they believe to be threatened, or from any other standpoint— then it might be that they resemble, in a not-so-distant way, the Bavarian Medical Board, which wanted to erect wooden walls alongside the railroads so that people living nearby would not be harmed: the course of development would simply pass them by. But it is not given to human beings to relate to the goals of world development in such a way that they leave them to their own devices; rather, they are given the power to participate in shaping and building these conditions. Yet what approaches the human soul in external life and from external life as demands—what manifests as external goals—requires inner goals of the soul. And the inner goals of the soul are the goals of spiritual science; they are the goals toward which the soul strives when it realizes: Natural science has transformed the outer world picture, the body of culture. But culture needs a soul. And this soul is to be the creation of spiritual science. To permeate the body of culture with soul and spirit—that is the goal of spiritual science. And when this goal of spiritual science is understood in this way, it will be easy to see that the spiritual researcher can calmly regard everything that still presents itself today as contradiction, opposition, and misunderstanding toward this spiritual science. The conditions of life brought about by the course of human development demand a kind of knowledge of the spiritual world in which the soul feels strong—so strong that it draws strength for its very being not only from what the sensory world provides, but also from what an understanding of the spiritual world can offer. It will become increasingly clear that, for modern life, the soul needs forces that flow to it not only from an understanding of sensory existence, but also from an understanding of spiritual existence, in which the soul ultimately has its true home. At that time, a highly learned body—the Bavarian Medical Council—was tasked with issuing an expert opinion on whether or not railroads should be built. And this council rendered its verdict as follows: Railroads should not be built, for if they were, the people riding in them would suffer severe damage to their nervous systems; but if it should come to pass that people did ride in railroads, then at least high wooden walls would have to be erected on both sides so that people living nearby would not be harmed by the sight and sound of the passing trains. — Today, some may smile at what an expert medical council believed back then. But even if one smiles at it, one might even find it well-founded. For one can take neither a position for nor against it and can say: even if the Bavarian Medical Council exaggerated the matter fantastically, what it had assumed has nevertheless come true for those who know the story not only superficially but deeply, and one can say: this council had a keen insight. Nevertheless, there is no need to take a stand against it. Why not? Because history itself takes a stand on the matter! And regardless of what individual people may think about it: the course of world development continues, and humanity must adapt to the course of development. That is, after all, the demand that Wilson makes: the course of development has brought about certain cultural processes, and humanity must adapt to them.

[ 29 ] I wanted to say just a few words about the present and future of the human soul. All further elaborations will be presented in the individual lectures that follow. In today’s introduction, I have sought only to evoke a sense of what the spiritual researcher carries within himself—a sense that flows from a kind of understanding of the meaning of present-day life and its needs. Speaking from the standpoint of spiritual science, as I would like to do in these lectures, can only take place under two conditions. What the spiritual researcher has to communicate based on genuine spiritual research initially diverges—even though it is the direct consequence of humanity’s development over the last few centuries—from what is widely believed and regarded as true today to such an extent that anyone who asserts these spiritual-scientific truths must either be, in the eyes of this spiritual life, a charlatan, a rambling fool, or a frivolous person—or else he must have the ability to know within himself that what he has to say is the truth. There may be a wide variety of nuances between these two extremes; but there are almost no intermediate stages. With this awareness that one can be regarded as one or the other, one speaks as a spiritual researcher in any case. But spiritual research itself, as we have seen, is something to which a person is so deeply connected that, if he is a true spiritual researcher, he lays his soul bare in it; and since he lays his soul bare in this way, he is also able to bear whichever judgment may be passed upon him. And whoever is deeply immersed in this spiritual science can develop the awareness and the strength to speak about this spiritual research only by, on the one hand, being able to gauge its power of insight and its power of truth through his communion with spiritual truths, and by virtue of this awareness of the power of truth and insight, also being able to withstand the misunderstandings or deliberately false accusations leveled against spiritual science. On the other hand, however, spiritual science also leads into direct spiritual life, as well as into the spiritual life of the age, and teaches the spiritual researcher—even if his inclinations and sympathies may be directed toward goals other than the advocacy of this spiritual science—how this advocacy of spiritual science is a necessity in our time. Even if this need for spiritual knowledge is not often clearly articulated by our own contemporaries, it exists as a latent need for spiritual insights. In the depths of people’s souls today, one can sense the cry for spiritual knowledge, even if this cry itself is often inaudible to the conscious thinking of our fellow human beings; for our time requires spiritual knowledge. And every other science, however appropriate to our time, would stifle this spirit, would extinguish this spirit from the souls—just as it is also at work through other currents of spiritual life—if spiritual science did not kindle it. With these powerful forces, the soul will be permeated as if by an elixir of life; it will sense the meaning of its being extending beyond birth and death; it will experience within itself that quality of the soul which is described by the word “immortality”; and thus, permeated by the elixir of life as its lifeblood, it will prove itself equal to the tasks that the present and the future of human history must set before it.

[ 30 ] We have seen that the human soul must transform itself if it is to attain the Spirit. From this it is evident that it is easier to leave the Spirit where it is and not concern oneself with it than to undertake within the soul what leads to the Spirit. But it is also more convenient—in accordance with what common sense and a healthy sense of truth dictate—simply to understand the material interrelationships of nature than to develop a sharper intellect and use it to comprehend what spiritual science teaches. Life is easier without the spirit. But the spirit has one characteristic: that if one chooses to live without it, it causes just as much harm as it brings in fruit and benefit when one chooses to live with it. If one chooses to live with it, it enlivens the soul, warms it with a zest for life, and imbues it with all the skills we need for living. If one chooses to deny it, it withdraws and stifles and kills the life of the soul to the same extent that the soul refuses to acknowledge it. If one chooses to deny it, it gradually takes away just as much courage to face life—and in return bestows despair, discontent, and anxiety—as it bestows the fruits of life when one embraces it. One can indeed deny the Spirit, but one cannot destroy it. If one denies it, it reveals itself, as in a mirror image, within the soul—and calls for itself within the human soul itself. This is what the spiritual researcher feels, who speaks of spiritual science as a goal of the present. That is why he builds upon it—no matter what may still speak against this spiritual science today—: It will take root, because although humanity can close its eyes to the Spirit, it cannot prevent its mode of action. Ultimately, however, this mode of action transforms into the demand to look the Spirit in the eye. This is what I would like to express—summarizing in a few words the sentiments that today’s lecture was intended to unfold—in the following manner.

[ 31 ] The spirit can be denied; for it is more convenient—much more convenient—to seek to understand the world and live in it without the spirit than with it. But the demands of the Spirit cannot be resisted by denying it. Therefore, what spiritual science seeks to incorporate into culture as an elixir of life will be incorporated into that culture by its own power. For the human soul often denies the Spirit; yet it will always have to demand it from its innermost nature, from its deepest goals!