The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Spiritual Science and Religious Belief

[ 1 ] Before I move on to the individual findings of the science of the spirit—which will be discussed over the course of this winter—in this lecture series, beginning with the next lecture, I would like to begin today with a consideration of one of the many misunderstandings that our contemporary mindset holds regarding the science of the spirit as referred to here.

[ 2 ] Time and again, among the various objections, one hears the claim that spiritual science deters people from what is valuable and dear to them—and perhaps even an inner, intimate necessity—in terms of religious belief, religious life, and a religious worldview. And why, in the present day, should one not, in a certain justified sense, harbor such a fear—especially when spiritual science, as has already been emphasized here and will need to be emphasized even more often, aims to be, in the true and genuine sense, the successor and fulfiller of natural science, as it has developed in our intellectual life over the past three to four centuries? How could one not fear this, given that in wide circles of our current educated public the very opinion is held that the scientific way of thinking—that a worldview which, as they say, is built on the firm ground of natural science—can have nothing to do with those premises that underlie religious life? Indeed, many believe that anyone who, in the present day, truly works their way up to the heights offered by what is commonly called “true science” must free themselves from what, throughout long periods of human development, has been called religious life and religious faith. And in many circles, it is held that the religious mode of thought, religious feeling, and religious thought correspond to a sort of childlike stage of human development, whereas we have now entered the mature age of human intellectual development, which is called upon to cast off the old religious prejudices—which correspond precisely to a childlike conception—and to transition to what is a purely scientific mode of thought or, perhaps, a worldview.

[ 3 ] If one looks around at many people today, one will very often find the kind of mood that has just been described. But even a historical overview of the very most recent phase of human spiritual life—the final years of the nineteenth century—can evoke an impression that might be characterized as follows: Religious minds—people concerned with the preservation and nurturing of religious sensibility—felt—and this is a phenomenon characteristic in many ways of the nineteenth century in particular—that, since they believed religion to be in danger, they were compelled, from a certain perspective, to defend the realm of religious life against the onslaught of modern scientific life. This trend continues right up to the present day. And there are numerous writings and literary works, particularly in our own time, which, from philosophical or other perspectives, set themselves the task of elucidating the necessity of religious life for the human soul in the face of all the demands of scientific thought and worldviews. Admittedly, much would have to be discussed if one were to point out the foundations that so abundantly justify such assertions as those just made. For example—since this is a characteristic, symptomatic phenomenon that testifies to how something that lay dormant in the hearts of many was alive in the minds of individual thinkers—one could point to the endeavors of the Ritschl-Hermann school of theology. This reference is not intended to characterize this school, nor to characterize the outstanding religious thinker Ritschl, nor to characterize what Ritschl and his followers sought to achieve. The focus here is less on the actual content of the Ritschl-Hermann view than on the spirit from which it grew.

[ 4 ] Ritschl is seen as a thinker—a deeply religious thinker—who felt called upon to protect religion, as a religious asset, against the onslaught of scientific knowledge. How did he seek to accomplish this? He sought to accomplish it by saying: If we consider science as it has developed over the course of the last three to four centuries, we see how it has achieved one breakthrough after another in our understanding of nature, and how the human intellect has penetrated the mysteries of the material external world. And when one surveys everything that has been achieved over the course of the last three to four centuries, one must say: To extract from all of this—as Ritschl told himself—something that could move the human soul in the way that religious truths and religious faith are meant to move the human soul—that is impossible. Therefore, Ritschl and his students seek an entirely different source for religious belief. They tell themselves: Religion will always be endangered if one seeks to base it on the kind of knowledge that is customary in the natural sciences, and one will always face the impossibility of extracting from the scientific way of thinking itself anything that could inspire and penetrate the human soul. Therefore, one must once and for all refrain from introducing into religion anything that is the subject of science. But in the human soul there is an original life of faith that need only remain free, remain entirely separate from any encroachment by science, and which, when it unfolds and comes to life within, can lead to experiences that exist within itself—to inner realities—that connect the human soul with precisely what must be the content of religious belief. i

[ 5 ] Thus, this school seeks to preserve religious faith by attempting to purify it of any intrusion of the scientific. When the soul renounces having anything in its religious life that even remotely resembles what is attained through scientific means—when the soul unfolds this life purified within itself—then what signifies its connection to the divine sources of existence rises up within it; then it feels that it carries within itself, as a spiritual reality, its connection to the Divine.

[ 6 ] If one now examines more closely such efforts as those of the Ritschl-Hermann school—which, after all, still dominates many thinkers today, particularly theological ones—one immediately sees: Yes, just as human beings are today, just as their present inner life is—with everything that lives within that inner life—so, in a certain sense, one might say, a kind of highly distilled mysticism can be extracted from this soul; but when it comes to—as the Ritschl school itself demonstrates—actually possessing specific religious or doctrinal truths, then such a school of thought finds itself compelled to fill the soul with content from somewhere, because otherwise it would have to remain confined to a very narrow mystical life. And so, on the other hand, this same Ritschlian school does, after all, embrace the Gospel, embraces the truths conveyed by the Gospel, and leaves a deep chasm between its demand: to develop the truths of faith, the divine truths, solely from within the soul itself—which, however, means that in this school no individual soul could ever develop from within itself the very content found in the Gospels—and leaves a deep chasm between what the soul can gain from within itself and what the soul then nevertheless takes in from outside through the revelations of the Gospels. Indeed, an even deeper gulf can arise, and the followers of this school themselves have noted this when they said: Every human being, if they surrender themselves without prejudice to what sprouts and grows within their soul, can attain a certain connection with the Divine that speaks into their soul. You are, after all, connected to the divine-spiritual realm through your soul. But individual souls could not attain the kind of inner experiences that Paul or Augustine, for example, had. Such experiences must therefore also be received from the outside. In short, the moment such a movement—which seeks to arrive at religious confession purely through religious feeling, while expelling all scientific rigor—the moment such a school seeks genuine content, the moment it seeks not only to weave mystically within the general sentiments of divine inner experience but also to articulate in thought the nature of the soul’s connection with the Divine: it is compelled to shatter its own principle! And we would be led to the same contradictory views if we were to attempt to let the religious-philosophical views of the nineteenth century—as they have developed right up to our own time—pass before our minds.

[ 7 ] But this must be said: It is characteristic that many serious—very serious—thinkers in the field of religious studies have struggled solely for a concept, an idea, or a definition of religion, and that, when one tries to take stock of what has been accomplished in this field, one cannot even find a satisfactory concept of what religion is, how religion arises in the human soul, or from which impulses of the human soul it springs. This is something that, particularly in the serious religious studies of the nineteenth century and right up to our own time, has been thoroughly entangled in a vast web of controversy. There are those who argue that human beings have evolved from a certain way of venerating nature to suspecting a divine, spiritual element behind natural phenomena, and then to venerating this divine, spiritual element within nature itself. There are also researchers who hold the opposite view, namely that the religious need arose from what might be called a “cult of the soul.” To give a concrete example, people saw those dear to them pass away, and they could not conceive that the very essence of their being had ceased to exist; so they placed them in a world where they could continue to revere them. Ancestor worship and the cult of the soul, such researchers believe, are the origin of religious feeling and sensibility. People then went further, extending what they felt and revered in other human beings out into nature itself; thus, the deification of natural forces arose from the fact that, originally, only ancestral souls were believed to live on, but these revered ancestral souls were elevated to the divine and made rulers over natural forces and worlds. — A third school of thought, whose views were clearly articulated in particular by the religious scholar Leopold von Schroeder, asserts that human nature reveals—and that research into even the most primitive peoples attests to this—an instinct, a genuine instinct and impulse, to assume behind all phenomena a benevolent entity that watches over the good in the world; and the development of this drive and impulse can be seen in the various religions and religious denominations.

[ 8 ] It can be shown—though there is not enough time today to do so in detail; I can only hint at it—that each of these views fails to account for something which, if one simply has an understanding of human religious life and religious commitment, one must, in accordance with that understanding, nevertheless describe as religion. Since spiritual science, as understood here, seeks to introduce something new into the development of humanity as part of our spiritual education, it would be of little benefit if this spiritual science were to grapple with all these views regarding the foundations, origin, and nature of religious belief. For it must be said that, fundamentally, a review of all these debates leaves one question unanswered: What is the place of religious belief within the totality of human nature, within the human personality? Therefore, I shall proceed in a similar manner this time as I did last time in my discussion of “antisophy.” Just as I did not address what aspects of antisophy emerge here or there, but rather sought, from the standpoint of spiritual science, to show in my introduction how antisophy is rooted in human nature as such, and why one need not be surprised when it appears here and there; in the same way, I will attempt to describe the basis of religion in human nature in order to then be able to show how spiritual science—which, as such, addresses the entirety of human nature, or at least seeks to do so—positions itself within the whole of life, which, in the human soul, seeks to be sustained by a religious creed.

[ 9 ] Spiritual science, by its very nature and essence, is less suited to engaging in polemical debates; its primary purpose is to describe how things stand, leaving it up to each individual to determine what relationship this spiritual science might have to the various branches and currents of human spiritual life. Therefore, it is not my task today to engage with religious belief as such from the perspective of spiritual science, but rather to show what spiritual science aims to be and what religious belief can be—and then, in essence, to leave it up to each individual to draw their own conclusions regarding the relationship between the two. Above all, the aim will be to draw attention to certain points that have already been mentioned in these introductory lectures on the distinctive features of spiritual science, and to relate them to some of the deeper foundations of human nature.

[ 10 ] Spiritual science and spiritual research, as has been explained, are based on the fact that the human soul is capable of transforming itself and undergoing an inner, intimate development, through which it transcends the ordinary perceptions of everyday life as well as the ordinary views of external science and rises to a special kind of knowledge. Spiritual science presupposes that its research is grounded in a soul that has been made independent of the physical body—a soul that has become independent of physical corporeality in its experiences. When this soul, through its development in the soul-spiritual realm, experiences itself and the world itself, it arrives at perceptions that pertain not to the sensory world but to the spiritual world. The spiritual researcher thus, through the exercises already mentioned—which will be discussed further in the following lectures—transports his soul, after having transformed it, into the spiritual world. He is then within the spiritual world and, standing within it, speaks of the beings and processes of the spiritual world. This immersion into the spiritual world is achieved in various stages, and essentially, I have elaborated on this development that the soul undergoes in the process in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?. For today’s discussion, we will need to characterize these very stages.

[ 11 ] If, through such an increase in attention and devotion as indicated in the two lectures “The Spiritual World and Spiritual Science” and “Theosophy and Antisophy,” the human soul comes to experience independently of the physical-bodily realm, then its experience is initially such that one can call the ideas, the sensations, the entire content of the soul to which the soul then arrives, an imaginative world, an imaginative world—not because this world is a mere figment of the imagination, but because, in fact, what the soul experiences within itself when it, as it were, detaches itself from its shared experience of the sensory world—as if rising up from the sea of inner being—is, at first, an inner, purely spiritual world of images, a world of images fully saturated with meaning. It would be wrong for anyone to see in this world of images—which thus springs forth from the ocean of human soul life—an immediate manifestation of the spiritual world itself; for this world of images, this imaginative world, initially testifies to nothing other than that the inner, soul-life has gained strength and intensified, so that it can not only experience, from within itself, ideas, sensations, and inner impulses based on external sensory impressions, but has also intensified to such an extent that a world of images wells up from its own bosom, in which the soul can live. This world of images, which is attained specifically through an intensification of what is called “attention” in ordinary life, is, so to speak, initially merely a means of penetrating into the real spiritual world. For as this world of images arises, it is never possible to say of any single image whether it corresponds to a spiritual reality or not; rather, something else must come into play—which in turn is achieved through an intensification of devotion—so that content may now well up into these images from a completely different direction than human beings are accustomed to, namely from the spiritual world. Through his further development, the spiritual researcher reaches a point where he can say of such an image: Spiritual content flows into it; through this image, which you have felt rising within your soul, a being or a process of the spiritual world reveals itself to you. Just as you regard external colors as an expression of external sensory processes and external sensory beings, so too may you regard this world—because the spiritual world is absorbed into it—as an image of the spiritual world. You must reject anything else. — In this way, one learns to experience this world of images in relation to the spiritual world in the same way that letters are experienced in ordinary life. Just as letters express something only when one knows how to combine them in the mind into meaningful words—just as letters are means of expression only then—so the images of the spiritual world are truly manifestations of a spiritual world only when they become means of expression for a world into which the soul of the spiritual researcher is able to immerse itself. In this process, what takes place is, in fact, what one might call a complete erasure of the entire imaginative world. For the images are rearranged and combined in the most manifold ways. Just as letters are taken from the typesetter’s case and formed into words, so, as it were, the imaginations are jumbled together in spiritual perception and become means of expression for a spiritual world when the spiritual researcher rises to the second stage of higher knowledge, which one might call—if one will not take offense at the term—inspired knowledge, knowledge through inspiration. Within this inspired knowledge, the objective spiritual world fits into these images, which the soul has become capable of experiencing. But in this inspiration, one attains only what might be described as the outer aspect of spiritual processes and beings. In order to truly enter the spiritual world, one must, so to speak, immerse oneself in these things; one must become one with the things of the spiritual world. This occurs in intuition, the third stage of spiritual knowledge. Thus, the spiritual researcher ascends into the realm of the spiritual world through imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Through intuition, he stands so deeply within the spiritual world that his own spiritual-soul self has become independent of all physical aspects—as described in more detail in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?—and has immersed itself in the spiritual beings of the world to the extent that his capacity allows. This characterizes what may be called the relationship of spiritual research to the spiritual world: a standing within the spiritual world, an empathizing with it, and an experience of the spiritual that goes hand in hand with the beings and processes of the spiritual world. This must be understood as the defining characteristic of spiritual science.

[ 12 ] The question now is this: If a spiritual science of this kind were to emerge—as it might through such research—how might one conceive of the relationship between this spiritual science, this spiritual research, and religious belief?

[ 13 ] This will become clear when we now consider the life of the human soul and personality—as it exists within the totality of the world—in its entirety, in its wholeness. What presents itself to us is what could be called the climax of the soul’s unfolding, and it is this climax of the soul’s unfolding that I would like to speak to you about today.

[ 14 ] In fact, the human soul unfolds in true, full life—one might say—in four stages. To avoid any misunderstanding, and to prevent the belief that the term “climax” implies that one stage is more distinguished or higher than another, I would simply like to say that four distinct stages—about whose value nothing is to be said—can be distinguished in the unfolding of the human soul. First, we have the stage that we can describe as the sensory experience of the external world. In the sensory experience of the external world, the human being is indeed fully immersed in the entirety of world events—albeit only in material world events—and it is simply not possible to view a human being, insofar as they are at the stage of sensory perception, as anything other than standing right in the midst of the material world.

[ 15 ] With regard to what is meant here, one experiences some very strange things, especially in the present day. When those of us who are now more or less well past the first half of our lives were young—and perhaps engaged in philosophical studies at the time—it was taken for granted that one would, at least in one form or another, subscribe to the Kant-Schopenhauerian maxim: “The world is my representation.” I have already pointed out that ordinary experience—as trivial as it may sound—must overturn this statement. For if one wishes to engage with reality, one must—despite all the arguments that have been put forward in this field and which are based on nothing but misunderstanding—say: A person with a healthy sense of experience must distinguish between their representation and what they are called upon to call perception. If there were no difference between imagination and perception—if the entire tableau of the external world were merely my imagination—then a person would have to feel a piece of hot iron at 500° Celsius, which he merely imagines, just as strongly when he holds it to his face as he would a real piece of iron at 500°. Through sensory perception, a person must stand within the flow of the external world. And now one can observe that philosophers such as Bergson, for example, are attempting to restore what was once called “naivety” in one’s youth. It was called “naive realism” when one viewed human beings as standing directly within the flow of the material world. Bergson seeks to demonstrate once more—as if philosophy were beginning anew with him—that this view is the correct one: that one must conceive of human beings as sensory perceivers standing within the world of sensory laws. So there one stands, perceiving sensually from within the world, and what is characteristic is that the individual senses perceive, as it were, separate world structures: a world of colors and light, a world of sounds, a world of temperature variations, a world of hardness and softness, and so on. At this first stage of human experience of the world, the individual senses are immersed in the flow of worldly events. Through perception, standing directly within the sensory, material world, we form a worldview. This worldview accompanies us through life; with this worldview we go about our activities, we act under its influence, it governs us, and we in turn govern a part of the world based on this worldview. Thus, by living entirely within the sensory realms, the human being stands within the flow of world events, insofar as these are material. He is, as it were, himself a part of these world events; he feels and experiences himself, and in this way forms his worldview.

[ 16 ] A second stage of this experience of the world can be called the stage of aesthetic experience, regardless of whether it occurs in artistic creation or in artistic perception and contemplation. If one wishes to grasp, even only superficially, the question: How does one experience aesthetic experience? — then one must say: First and foremost, aesthetic perception, as opposed to mere sensory perception, is an inner experience. When one perceives light and colors, one is, through the eye, immersed in light and colors; when one perceives sounds, one is, through the ear, immersed in the world of sounds; one is, as it were, partially immersed in the external world and stands within the world with a part of one’s being. But anyone who has reflected on artistic creation or artistic enjoyment, on artistic contemplation and on aesthetic perception, will know that aesthetic perception is, first of all, essentially more internal than mere sensory perception; and second, it is more comprehensive, in that it arises from the unity of human nature. Therefore, for aesthetic feeling, it is not enough that we see a combination of colors or hear a combination of sounds; enthusiasm—the inner joy of aesthetic experience—must also be present. When I merely perceive, I perceive colors and seek to form an image of the sensually given object; when I view something aesthetically, my entire personality is engaged. Whatever flows into me from an image that has artistic content seizes me completely. Joy, sympathy, or antipathy, delight, and elation flow through me; yet these seize my entire personality. In the course of these lectures, we will hear that such an experience—which is internalized, even when it relates to things in the external world, to works of art, or to the beauty of nature—requires a second aspect of human nature. Even if such an assumption is frowned upon in our present spiritual life, even if the very expression of such an aspect of human nature is frowned upon, the assumption will prove itself justified. When a person faces the external world with their physical, sensory perception—when they, as it were, merely allow the flow of external events to wash over them, that is, experience these events through their physical body—they, as an aesthetic observer, experience something that is much more intimately connected to them, to their very being: he experiences it with what we call the aesthetic human body or the aesthetic human being, which is not bound to a single organ but permeates the whole human being as a unity. In aesthetic enjoyment, while certainly proceeding from the sensory world, the human being frees himself from that sensory world. An era such as Goethe’s had a much clearer conception of this liberation, of this inner freedom, than our own time does. Our time is, after all—and we will have much more to say about these phenomena—the age of materialism, the age of naturalism. It already regards it as unjustified when a person, in artistic contemplation, seeks to detach themselves from external, sensory perception; therefore, contemporary naturalism, as it were, prohibits artistic creation that breaks away from external, sensory perception.

[ 17 ] The Goethean era, and Goethe and Schiller in particular, did not, however, regard that which is merely an imitation of nature—that which presents before us what already exists in nature—as true art; rather, it demanded that what is to be art must be inwardly grasped and transformed by human beings. But it also points to another idea. Goethe articulates it—and does so particularly beautifully—while traveling through Italy, where his ideal of studying ancient art was fulfilled. Having previously studied the Spinozist concept of God at home with Herder and others, he writes home: “The great works of art, as the highest works of nature, have been produced by human beings according to true and natural laws. Everything arbitrary and imagined falls away: there is necessity; there is God.” This is the same mindset as when Goethe once says: Art is a manifestation of secret laws of nature that could not be revealed without it. Or when he says: the artist is “not dealing with fantasy, but rather enters into the artistic realm precisely through the observation of the external, physical world.” That is why Goethe and Schiller speak of a “truth” in art and bring together the artist’s experience with that of the knower. They sense that although the artist separates himself from external nature, in what he experiences inwardly he stands closer to that which spiritually governs and acts behind all natural phenomena. That is why such people speak of a “truth” in this aesthetic contemplation, in this aesthetic experience. Goethe even puts it very beautifully once, when discussing Winckelmann, an aesthetician he admired, saying that art is a continuation and human culmination of nature, “for, in being placed at the summit of nature, man sees himself once again as a whole nature, which must in turn bring forth a summit within itself. To this end, he elevates himself by imbuing himself with all perfections and virtues, invoking choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and finally rising to the creation of the work of art.” — It would take us too far afield if I were now to demonstrate once again how, in fact, man—while in aesthetic contemplation he indeed distances himself from the external contemplation of nature, yet grasps a truth inwardly—and how, in fact, for those capable of aesthetic experience, it holds profound significance to say, when faced with a painting, a drama, a sculpture, or a musical work, at one moment: “This possesses an inner truth”—or at another: “It is false,” without implying that it is meant to imitate nature. Speaking of artistic truth in aesthetics is something deeply rooted in human nature. There is truth and error in this realm, which does not consist merely in a poor imitation of external nature.

[ 18 ] Nevertheless, when one proceeds to aesthetic contemplation, one moves from the realm of what, in the ordinary sense, can truly be called “perception” into the realm of the imagination, into a world of images. Even viewed from the outside, the world of imagination in art, when compared to the imaginative world of the spiritual researcher, presents itself in such a way that the world of imagination does indeed appear as a shadow image—but as a shadow image nonetheless. The imaginative world of the spiritual researcher, on the other hand, is fully saturated with a new reality. The world of fantasy in art is that which withdraws from immediate sensory perception and, as it were, retains only a tenuous connection with the human soul through inner experience—a connection that is, however, not the same as that with the sensory world. Therefore, art—one need only seek some insight into this in Schiller’s letters on the “Aesthetic Education of Man”—is that which elevates human beings in a free manner above the slavish absorption of the perceptions of the sensory world. Art is that which detaches human beings from the sensory world and gives them, for the first time, the awareness: You experience, even when you do not merely allow the sensory world to flow into you; you stand within the world, even when you detach yourself from the world into which your body is sensually placed. — This mood, which is conveyed through art, is what gives human beings, in their development, a sense of their purpose, of their not merely being bound to the physical world. But in fact, it is as if, in art, the imaginative life were revealed as in a shadow play. The imaginative life is imbued with a fuller vitality than the mere life of fantasy. This would be the second stage in the climax of human soul development.

[ 19 ] The third stage in this climax can now be characterized by saying: Through this third stage, the human being internalizes himself even more. In art, he has moved from the outside to the inside, has detached himself from external appearances. Now it is conceivable that a person might completely disregard external experience, experience things purely inwardly, and focus solely on himself—focusing on himself in such a way that, unlike in art or in the creation of fantasy, he does not imbue what he imagines with what he has perceived (even though he frees it from perception), but rather allows nothing of what has been perceived to enter within him at all. In that case, they would stand even further removed from the sensory world with their utterly isolated, completely emptied inner life; the external world would lie dark and silent around them, a longing for something in their soul, yet nothing present—unless something could enter this soul from a completely different direction, a soul that is thus emptied of all externality. Just as the material world approaches us from the outside when we turn our senses toward it, so does the spiritual world approach us from within when, in the manner described, we allow nothing to enter our soul and yet stand waiting in a waking state. What we experience there is what can truly convince us of our true human nature; it is what first reveals us to ourselves in our truest independence, in our truest inner life. And the fact that something can enter that does not come from the outside is attested to by the existence of religious concepts throughout the ages. In ordinary life, when a person moves from sensory perception toward aesthetic contemplation, they move, as it were, toward a stream of forgetfulness, of non-experience. Across this stream, they swim into their inner life. When content enters their inner life from a completely different world, then this content is religious content. It is the content through which a person can know that there is a world beyond the sensory world—a world that cannot be reached by any external sense organs, nor even through the processing of sensory impressions as occurs in the imagination, but which, through the exclusion of all imaginative life and in pure inner devotion, allows what now spiritually sustains and upholds the soul from within to flow in from the invisible—just as external nature sustains and upholds our body, which could not exist at all if it did not exist as a part of external nature. To feel oneself as a part of the supersensory, spiritual world is just as natural to human beings as it is natural for them, in their external perception of colors, to assume the existence of objects when they perceive such colors.

[ 20 ] At this point, it is necessary to draw attention to something very important. As we shall yet see, there were times in human development when it would have seemed just as absurd to a person to say, “I feel something, but this feeling is not aroused by a divine-spiritual world,” as it seems absurd today to a person who thinks clearly to extend their hand, feel warmth, and not say, “There is an object that is burning me.” For the entire life of the human soul, when one feels something like this, it is just as healthy to say, “A spiritual world is reaching into us,” as it is healthy, when something burns us, to point to a burning object. Now there is something here that will become clear to us if we consider certain views that have not yet fully emerged today; yet these views already exist at the very foundation of the worlds of the soul. Through the natural sciences, the view is spreading more and more that everything a person experiences is merely a product of their imagination. I have already pointed this out. It is already quite common among natural scientists to say: What I perceive as colors exists only in my eye; what I hear as sounds is only in my ear; out there, there are only moving atoms everywhere. — How often one reads this: When I perceive a color, ether waves are vibrating out there at such-and-such a speed; out there, there is only moving matter! It is, of course, inconsistent to deny colors while still assuming the existence of matter! That is why there are already so-called immanence philosophers today who say that everything we perceive is merely a subjective world. And it would be conceivable—though this still lies in the future—that it might be said: It is certainly true that I perceive light and colors with my eyes; but to know anything about what causes light and colors is impossible; it is certainly true that I perceive sounds with my ears; but to know anything about what produces the sounds is impossible. What those who wish to be considered scholars say in this realm is precisely what people in general, moving toward a materialistic worldview, have been saying for centuries in relation to inner experience. Just as the prejudiced philosopher of today says: “The color I perceive exists only in my eye; what causes it, I do not know”—so humanity in general tells itself: “I have my feelings within me; but how they are brought about from the spiritual world—nothing can be known about that.” With regard to inner experience, a prejudice has prevailed for centuries—indeed, for millennia—that no longer relates what is experienced to an objective reality, which in this case would be a spiritual one, just as certain philosophers no longer wish to relate impressions of the external world to actual events of external life. A healthy human soul life, however, feels—just as it feels immersed in the material sensory world through its perceptions of color—that it is immersed in the world of the spiritual, in the stream of spiritual experience, through its feelings. And just as it is absurd for a healthy soul life to believe that color speaks only from the eye, so it is absurd for a truly healthy soul life to claim that feeling speaks only from the soul, that it is not stimulated by a divine-spiritual world outside of us. And this healthy feeling of the soul corresponds to a third member of human nature, that member which we shall show moves out of the physical body during sleep but remains within it during wakefulness: we have called this the human astral body. Our etheric body mediates our aesthetic perceptions; our astral body—provided it does not succumb to the unhealthy belief that its content springs from within itself out of nothing, but rather knows that feelings and so on arise from the spiritual world when it lives within it—our astral body experiences itself religiously. By its very nature, it is the part of our nature that must experience itself religiously. It is no wonder that a denial of, or a rebellion against, religious truths—or rather, against religious experiences—can very easily arise directly from the human constitution; for ordinary human experience is organized in such a way that when this astral body steps out of the physical body during sleep, it becomes unconscious; it then has no experiences of its own, but only regains experiences when it re-enters the physical body and perceives through the physical organs. Therefore, it is only in physical life that the astral body’s own experiences can emerge as if from dark, unknown depths.

[ 21 ] Thus, religious experiences seem to emerge as if from dark, unknown depths, into the ordinary life of the human being, which unfolds in the sensory world during the waking state of the day. But when the spiritual researcher strengthens the soul to the point where it can consciously and wakefully experience—independently of the physical body—what remains unconscious in normal life during sleep, then this soul, prepared through spiritual research, immerses itself in what shines forth as religious content, as a religious experience, as if from dark, unknown depths of the soul in a person living a healthy life. Religious experiences are thus justified precisely within the spiritual scientific perspective. What remains unknown to a person when, in the state of sleep, they return from their isolation within the body to the bosom of spiritual life—and what they would experience there if they were aware of it during sleep—emerges, stimulated by external life, in religious feeling. In spiritual scientific research, however, what stimulates this religious feeling in the realm of the unknown emerges in all its clarity as direct insight. Thus, what may be religious feeling in everyday life becomes spiritual insight within spiritual scientific knowledge. In addition to the world of the sensible, in which we live with our physical bodies, we also live in the world of the spiritual. This world of the spiritual remains, at first, invisible to the outer human constitution. Yet human beings do live within this spiritual world, and it would be absurd to believe that only what a person can see in physical life actually exists. When a person strengthens their soul life to the point where they can perceive the spiritual around them, they then see the beings and processes of the spiritual world that otherwise merely inspire what rises up, as it were, from unknown depths as religious life. In his spiritual experience, the spiritual researcher gains insight into those beings and processes of the spiritual realm that otherwise remain unknown to religious life, but which must send their impulses into religious life and permeate the human being with a sense of his connection to the spiritual world. But here we also see how, when we consider religious life in its very essence, we must delve into our own human nature. We enter, so to speak, into the subjective realm of human nature.

[ 22 ] If we take this into account, however, it also becomes clear to us that, because this subjective aspect is far more diverse than the external physical realm, what flows in from the spiritual world will depend to a greater extent on the subjective nature of the human being than external physical reality depends on the external nature of the human being. We know, of course, that our view of the world changes depending on whether our eyesight is good or poor; we also know that color blindness exists, for example; but the external physical nature is much more uniformly the same for all people than the inner individual nature. Therefore, what becomes perceptible inwardly will vary much more, and—if one only sees through the matter—will naturally not appear as a religious creed spread across the entire earth. The spiritual world, which is of course the same everywhere, will appear in such a way that it seems colored according to the predispositions and the particular characteristics of the human constitution. People differ particularly in their beliefs depending on differences in climate, race, and the like.

[ 23 ] Thus, as we look out across the globe and through the course of historical development—graded according to the various individual aspects of soul life—we see the different religions emerge. If we view religious beliefs in this way—as nuanced by human nature but rooted in the same spiritual world in which all human beings are rooted through their astral bodies—then we have no right to attribute “truth” to just one religion; rather, we must say: These various religions are what can rise, as it were, from unknown depths within the human soul, originating from a particular manifestation of the spiritual world through the human astral body.

[ 24 ] Here we find that, at the climax of human spiritual development, the spiritual researcher ascends to what constitutes a fourth stage, where intuition comes into play. It is at this stage that the true experience of full human inner life first arises, but in such a way that the human being, with his inner life, is now truly outside his physical senses and now truly lives within the spiritual world. There he experiences, regardless of how he is organized as an individual human being on Earth, the unified spiritual world. The fact that we are this or that particular human being with feelings and sensations of a certain nature stems from the fact that the soul-spiritual coexists with the physical. This is what individualizes who we are. As spiritual researchers, however, we become independent of physicality. When we perceive entirely outside the physical realm, we perceive the unified spiritual world—a world in which, admittedly, the human being is present every night when he or she falls asleep, though unconsciously. The spiritual researcher has strengthened his soul life to such an extent that the even weaker forces—which keep human beings unconscious in the spiritual world—have been overcome within him, so that he is conscious in that world in which human beings are unconscious during sleep. Then he experiences the spiritual beings and processes that send their impulses into the human astral body, but which can be experienced in their true nature only when the “I,” the human self, has become completely independent. Then one experiences what people who, from their own perspective, have attempted to penetrate these depths of human being have beautifully described as the greatest experience in human life—as, for example, Goethe does in the wonderful poem “The Mysteries,” where the various experiences that human beings can have with the religions spread across the globe are presented through twelve people who have gathered in a sort of monastic building to experience together—to experience mutually—what they have brought with them from the most diverse regions of the earth, from different climates, races, and eras, in the form of their individual religious creeds, and what they now wish to allow to interact with one another. This takes place under the guidance of a Thirteenth, who shows us how what the Twelve present to us as various religious creeds is grounded in a unified spiritual reality. Goethe depicts in a marvelous way how, as it were, a wondrous organism is spread across the earth in the form of religious creeds—which vary in nuance according to race and epoch—and how, with the ascent into the true spiritual world, what lives and varies in nuance within the individual religious creeds is perceived as part of a great, unified whole. In this way, he anticipates, as it were, what spiritual science is to accomplish with regard to religious creeds: that they are to be recognized in their inner essence, in their inner truth. For spiritual science experiences the spiritual directly in the spirit.

[ 25 ] If, for example, one were to speak about the Christian creed from the perspective of spiritual science by way of illustration, one would have to show how, through this spiritual science, that which constitutes the content of the Christian creed is recognized from the spiritual world—and indeed could be recognized—even if, hypothetically speaking, any tradition or any document existed. Let us assume for a moment that everything contained in the Gospel documents did not exist, for the spiritual scientist initially places himself outside all these documents; then, as he observes the course of history in the spiritual realm, he would perceive how humanity, from primeval times up to a point in the Greco-Roman era, underwent a downward development in terms of inner experiences and perceptions, and how an impulse—which we call the Christ impulse—had to arise to bring about an upward development once more; an impulse that intervened in human evolution and is a unique impulse, just as the fulcrum of a scale can be only one. From spiritual insight, the entire position and function of the Christ Being in the world would become clear. Then, with such insight, one would approach the Gospel texts and find in them this or that statement describing how the Christ Being emerged, as it were, from indefinite depths and inserted itself into the development of humanity—a Being that can be recognized only when spiritual scientific research advances from inspiration to intuition. The entire religious life becomes visible to the spiritual-scientific perspective—which rises to the level of intuition—as emerging from a single, unified source.

[ 26 ] Thus, at the climax of human soul development—as represented by human nature as a whole—it becomes evident that intuition is life in the “I,” just as religious life is life in the astral body, artistic perception is life in the etheric body, and sensory perception is life in the sensory body. And just as this culmination truly expresses the nature of humanity, so it is an integral part of the whole of human life that human beings develop a religious life; and just as this culmination—this fourfold unfolding of the human soul—truly exists, so spiritual scientific experience directly attains an insight into what is experienced in religious life from unknown depths. Therefore, for an unbiased assessment, spiritual science can never be an enemy of any religious creed; for it reveals precisely the fundamental source, the fundamental nature of religious creeds, and it also shows how these creeds all spring from a unified spiritual foundation of the world, — even if it must be pointed out time and again that this insight, as it has now been developed, is worlds apart from those abstractions and amateurish notions that speak of the “equality of all religions” and the equivalence of all religious creeds. For, in terms of their logic, these views take no other stance than if one were to insist solely on the fact that the snail is an animal, and the deer is also an animal, and that one must always seek out the “same” everywhere. It is, of course, nothing but dilettantism in the philosophy of religion to speak of an abstract equality of all religions; for the world is in a state of development. And whoever truly surveys this development—from the perspective of the spiritual world—will also see how the individual religious denominations, in their various manifestations, tend toward what appears in Christianity as a religious synthesis of all religious denominations. Christianity—through its unique position as having emerged from Jewish monotheism—loses none of its cultural mission in the world by viewing these matters from a spiritual perspective.

[ 27 ] One thing, however, must still be said if we are to achieve any degree of completeness in describing the relationship between human beings and religious beliefs. When we face the external world, we face it with our physicality. As human beings, we can only participate quite indirectly in the relationship between our physicality and the entire physical-material external world. The relationship between our body and the entire cosmos is regulated without us truly experiencing it fully within ourselves. And how much can a human being do, when this relationship becomes unregulated, to restore it to regularity through remedies and the like? How much of the relationship between human beings and the cosmic external world—which our senses can convey to us—is something in which human beings do not have a direct share? But the moment a person begins to place their inner self within the spiritual cosmos, everything within them will experience what pulses into them from this spiritual cosmos. Therefore, inner experiences immediately make themselves felt when a person becomes aware of their relationship to the spiritual cosmos. They feel carried, upheld, and supported by this spiritual cosmos, and they perceive their relationship to it in such a way that they say to themselves: Here I am, standing within the spiritual cosmos, and I want to feel this standing within it in my consciousness! Religious life thus becomes an inner experience in a completely different sense than the outward experience of the material cosmos through the physical body. Religious experience becomes an inner destiny. What one experiences in this way is expressed in reverence, in worship, in a sense that spiritual life is bestowed upon one as a grace. This is why religious life expresses itself primarily through human feeling. Herein lies the reason why one can say: religious belief is rooted first and foremost in feeling. But one must first rise to the realization of why it, by its very nature, finds expression through feeling. What is felt—the spiritual processes and spiritual beings that exist to be felt, to stir feelings—is then revealed by spiritual science. Therefore, as we enter spiritual life through religion, we naturally enter into the human emotional life; we enter the realm where human beings seek hope for their humanity, where they seek the strength to be fully situated in the world, to stand securely within it. Therefore, entering the spiritual world via the detour of religion is nothing other than arriving there through the path of feeling. This will become particularly evident to those who come to recognize how necessary it is that human beings—even though they rise in spiritual science to insights, to insights valid for all— must nevertheless, as preparation for objective spiritual experience, pass through their emotional life—the subjective emotional life that they must endure with all its joys and sorrows, its disappointments and hopes, its fears and anxieties.

[ 28 ] I believe that some might say my remarks lacked precisely that emotional element which constitutes the religious creed—that which makes the religious creed so heartwarming and so deeply fulfilling to the human soul. However, anyone who considers the entire mindset that is necessarily brought about by spiritual science will understand that the spiritual researcher simply presents things as they are, allowing feeling to arise from the things themselves. He would regard it as a kind of impurity if, through his words, he were to captivate feeling in a suggestive manner. Each soul must feel for itself in freedom. Spiritual science must present things as they reveal themselves to spiritual research.

[ 29 ] To what extent, then, can spiritual science shed light on and illuminate the very foundations of religious belief? This is what we should discuss today in light of the fourfold nature of the human being and the culmination of the human soul’s development. Religious belief is rooted in human nature. True science that rises to the spiritual realm can never be an enemy—especially not when it is spiritual science—of true, genuine religious experience, which is necessary for human beings. That human beings, at the core, experience everything they experience spiritually in the same way that spiritual research experiences it through its methods will become clear to us through various explanations in the following lectures; and that the objections raised against spiritual science—both from the scientific side and from the side of certain religious denominations—are unfounded; this will become particularly evident when one considers the specific findings of spiritual science. Today, however, I wanted to show—not by engaging in polemics against any single religious denomination—how religious denominations relate to the fullness and wholeness of human nature. In this respect, too, spiritual science brings us into harmony with all those human souls who, in the course of human evolution, having sensed the truth as it is revealed in spiritual science, have staked their convictions upon it. Let us recall Goethe once more; just as I was able to refer to him in the lecture “Theosophy and Antisophy,” so may I do so today as well. Even though spiritual science did not yet exist in the scientific sense during Goethe’s time, his entire spiritual disposition was nonetheless one of spiritual research, one that was theosophical; and what sprang from this spiritual disposition was conceived and felt in the spirit of spiritual research. Therefore, he sensed that any science that truly delves into things must discover the spiritual and, for that reason, cannot be alien to religion. Consequently, Goethe also felt that although human beings free themselves from external nature through art, they do not free themselves from what underlies nature as the spiritual. Goethe was convinced that whoever experiences the phenomena of the world through science and art experiences them in the same way that a religious person must experience them—one who feels their inner being rooted in the spiritual world. No one who possesses science and art, Goethe believed, can therefore be irreligious. When one approaches the world with true science, one learns to perceive it purely spiritually; one cannot, therefore, experience oneself as separated from the spiritual world, but only as placed within it; if one finds the truth through art, then the soul, experiencing this truth, must gradually become devout as well—that is, experience religiously what underlies the world as the spiritual. Therefore, he was also clear about that realm of external life where, for the one who truly understands things, it is simply impossible for the divine not to be felt directly within this realm of external experience. Kant still assumed that the so-called “categorical imperative” is necessary for human moral life: if the categorical imperative can speak within the soul, then duty can take root in human life. This is as if this imperative were to speak into the soul from a world in which human beings do not exist. Goethe did not see it that way. Rather, he was clear that whoever experiences duty experiences God, who lives His way into the soul through duty. Goethe’s view was that by lovingly experiencing duty, one experiences God directly in moral life. For him, morality is the direct experience of the divine in the world. But if one can feel God pulsing through the soul in the moral realm, then one is not far removed from the point where one can experience Him in other realms. For Kant, it was still a daring “adventure of reason” to experience the divine directly. Goethe, however, replied to him: “If, indeed, in the moral realm—through faith in God, virtue, and immortality—we are to elevate ourselves to a higher realm and draw near to the First Being, then it must surely be the same in the intellectual realm: that by contemplating a nature that is ever-creating, we make ourselves worthy of spiritual participation in its productions. Since I had already, unconsciously and driven by an inner impulse, relentlessly pursued that archetypal and typical, and had even succeeded in constructing a naturalistic representation, nothing could now prevent me from courageously undertaking the “adventure of reason,” as the old man from Königsberg himself calls it.” Kant still referred to it as an “adventure of reason”—to experience a spiritual world directly. Goethe is already at the point where he wants to courageously undertake the “adventure of reason.” But he is convinced that one cannot enter the spiritual world except with reverence and adoration—that is, with a religious disposition. Religion, as true and genuine religion, opens the gates of entry into the spiritual world. That is why Goethe says: whoever has already experienced—whether scientifically or artistically—and brings with them a religious disposition thereby brings with them the possibility of experiencing the spiritual world. That is why spiritual science must feel in harmony with Goethe. And in summary, we can apply precisely the creed he expressed in just a few words to our contemporary perspective—in short, what might be called the “spiritual-scientific creed”: Whoever possesses true science, whoever possesses true art, is so deeply immersed in real life that they have the best preparation for experiencing the spiritual world; but whoever possesses neither science nor art should try to kindle within their soul that longing through which religious reverence first becomes possible; then, by taking the detour through religious sentiment, they will be able to enter the spiritual world. Goethe expressed this precisely with the words:

Whoever possesses science and art,
Also possesses religion;
Whoever does not possess those two,
Let him have religion!