The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. What is mortal about human beings?

[ 1 ] I would like to address the question of what is mortal and what is immortal in human beings in two lectures: tonight’s lecture, the first, will be devoted primarily to human mortality, and next week’s lecture, the second, will deal with the immortal nature of human beings. We live, after all, in a time in which materialism—even if it is already more or less on the decline in our day—has nevertheless taken hold in wide circles. And even if one wishes to delude oneself about this fact by often frowning upon the word “materialism”—the way of thinking, the mindset, and the nuance of worldview that must rightly be designated by the word “materialism” are nevertheless in a state of constant growth.

[ 2 ] Now, materialism essentially has a very, very simple answer to the question, “What is mortal about human beings?” Its answer is: Everything about human beings is mortal. One need only point, so to speak, to the “Bible” of the modern materialist era—David Friedrich Strauss’s *The Old and the New Faith*—to corroborate this. It is true that David Friedrich Strauss’s *The Old and the New Faith* is no longer read to the same extent today as it was a few decades ago. But this is not so much because people have distanced themselves from the innermost impulses that govern David Friedrich Strauss’s materialism, but rather because, in our fast-paced times, a book is hardly able to survive for even a few decades.

[ 3 ] We can ask ourselves this question—and indeed must ask it—in light of everything that has come to light and been discussed within today’s materialistic worldview: Can materialism provide humanity with any answers to its legitimate spiritual questions, or can materialism prove that the questions a spiritual-scientific worldview must raise are unfounded—that they, so to speak, refer to nothing? — If one realizes, dear attendees, how deeply rooted the materialistic worldview is in what many people today regard as the only truly scientific perspective, then one must raise these questions with particular urgency. For within modern science—or rather, within the perspective that many derive from modern science—there are powerful impulses that take a stand against the science of the spirit. Within this modern science lie many powerful tools that can be deployed against many of the objections that one or another person might raise from this or that perspective against the materialistic worldview. Anyone who can truly grasp what has emerged through the so-called natural-scientific worldview—which claims to stand solely on the ground of true, real facts—must say to themselves: Only then can a spiritual-scientific worldview—as repeatedly advocated here in these lectures—be equal to the demands of contemporary natural science if it knows how to engage with this natural science in the fullest sense of the word, in such a way that natural science is thereby given its due.

[ 4 ] It must certainly be admitted that natural science can, in essence, quite easily deal with the objections that are still raised from many quarters today; at least to the extent that its arguments against the immortality of the human soul will readily prevail among those who, from the outset, possess a predisposition to deny the free activity of the spirit, independent of the material world.

[ 5 ] Spiritual science—as has often been emphasized—seeks to place itself within the spiritual cultural process of our time, and it seeks to do so on the basis—and this may well be said—of a complete transformation, a complete renewal of what are people’s habitual ways of thinking and habitual modes of perception. Precisely for this reason—because spiritual science must appeal to something that is unknown, truly unknown, in the widest circles today, even in those circles that mostly oppose it—it is so difficult to make this spiritual science of the formation of the age truly comprehensible to any degree.

[ 6 ] Spiritual Science differs fundamentally from what is commonly referred to today as philosophical thinking. Philosophical thinking, which seeks above all to arrive at its conclusions through rational deliberation, through mere conceptual connections, through inferences, and the like, — philosophical thinking, as it is widely understood today, is incapable of grasping that aspect of human nature which truly passes through the gate of death, which is truly capable of living independently of physicality and corporeality.

[ 7 ] For the humanities, however, this purely philosophical approach—which relies on concepts and ideas of the external world—is, from the outset, something—forgive me for the somewhat trivial comparison— this philosophy, which, as is often said, is based purely on rational grounds, is something that can no more yield real results regarding spiritual life, nor bring the spirit into human knowledge, than a person can nourish themselves by eating themselves. Just as the process of nourishment must take in something that lies outside its own structure if it is to serve the human or animal organism, so human cognition must take in something that lies outside the mere connection and chaining of concepts and ideas if the true cognitive needs of human beings are to be satisfied. Precisely where materialism has emerged in a certain way—I would say in the most blatant, but also the most honest manner—in David Friedrich Strauss’s *Old and New Faith*, we have an example from the second half of the nineteenth century of how this materialism, in its strict logic, is indeed capable of progressing from conclusion to conclusion, yet—precisely because it is impossible for it to truly engage with a spiritual reality— it nevertheless becomes entangled in contradictions—contradictions that go unnoticed by this materialist worldview itself, but which are perceived by those who have trained themselves to think with a certain universality. In his book *Old and New Faith*, David Friedrich Strauss thus includes, among the various proofs of human immortality that he seeks to refute, Goethe’s idea of immortality. He takes up this idea and behaves quite strangely in doing so. David Friedrich Strauss does admit that Goethe’s idea of immortality has something heroic about it, but he then dismisses this heroism—one might use the term Nietzsche coined for David Friedrich Strauss—like a true philistine. Goethe made not one, but many statements about human immortality. For Strauss, only the one I am about to mention is of any significance.

[ 8 ] The thought occurs to Goethe that when the human soul attempts to grasp itself, it becomes aware that it possesses inclinations and abilities which it cannot possibly bring to full development and realization within a single human lifetime; and now, from the depths of his being and at the same time from what I yesterday called “the sustaining force of the German spirit,” the following words rise up in Goethe: “If nature has endowed me with such inclinations that cannot be fulfilled in this life, then it is obligated to assign me, after death, another life where these various inclinations can truly come to fruition.”

[ 9 ] Well, first of all, Strauss makes a sort of joke, so to speak, by saying: Perhaps nature is indeed obligated to do so; but who is to tell us that nature actually fulfills this obligation? But he raises another objection as well. He says: Does not the entire field of natural science contradict the view that all predispositions that manifest themselves within the taxonomic ranks of nature are actually developed? Could it not be that, in human nature, there are predispositions that do not reach their ultimate perfection or come to full development? And now it certainly seems very logical when David Friedrich Strauss says: “That not all predispositions come to fruition can be seen very clearly in fish eggs—how thousands of fish eggs are produced and how few of them develop. But it should be clear to anyone who has ever walked through fields or gardens and seen how many apples have fallen and rotted away without ever coming to fruition.”

[ 10 ] Now one might say: all of this is certainly true, and it seems as though it could be convincing. But if one adopts a somewhat more universal way of thinking, one must then ask: Do all apples perish? Do they all fall from the tree before they are fully developed? Or do no fish embryos ever reach maturity? — Does nature not thereby demonstrate that, at its core, it is aimed at the true, ultimate development of all embryos? — If a person then realizes that there are certain potentials within them that do not come to fruition within the span of their life until death, then—according to Strauss’s logic—the fulfillment of such potentials would not be achieved in any human being. But life certainly does not show us that. David Friedrich Strauss, however, shows us that he cannot think things through to their conclusion. Indeed, that is not enough for him; he finds something else as well. One does not even need to read between the lines—it is stated quite bluntly, and I will simply rephrase it in slightly different words. David Friedrich Strauss says something like this: “Strictly speaking, Goethe’s statement isn’t even correct. For if one considers the elderly Goethe, one finds quite clearly that Goethe was actually able to bring all his aptitudes to full development.” He then draws our attention to the fact that, strictly speaking, every human being will find that his or her aptitudes do indeed come to fruition. — If Strauss had been just a little more modest, it might have occurred to him that perhaps Goethe was, after all, more justified than Strauss in speaking of unfulfilled potentials in human nature that are still seeking to unfold.

[ 11 ] Thus, we can see from this example—and hundreds or thousands of such examples could be cited—how, in a sense, a general course of mere philosophical speculation, even if it has a materialistic slant, ultimately leads to nothing other than a contradiction that is easily refuted and destroys itself in the eyes of the universally observing soul.

[ 12 ] If one asks oneself how it is that human beings actually find it so difficult to speak of the immortal aspect of their soul, one must indeed answer: Although human beings live between birth and death—as we shall see in a moment—they do so entirely within that which is mortal within them, that which is transitory in their being. And one might say: what is immortal in the human being—the immortal part—manifests itself only softly and intimately. Indeed, one can say that this immortality manifests so softly and intimately that, in ordinary life, the human soul lacks the strength, the endurance, and—above all—the attention developed in a higher sense necessary to observe what is quietly and intimately making itself known within it as the immortal.

[ 13 ] When we consider the human soul in its life, as it manifests itself, it presents itself to us, so to speak, in three modes of expression: as a thinking soul, as a feeling soul, and as a willing soul. Now, it has often been discussed in these lectures that the path of spiritual science into the spiritual worlds consists in bringing forth from the depths of the soul the powers that lie there, in order to raise thinking, feeling, and willing to a higher level of development, to a sharper and more intense activity than they usually possess, so that through this development and this activity they may become organs that enable human beings not only to grasp the physical, but also to grasp the spiritual, which is all around us. Now, however, the ordinary line of thought that seeks to gain clarity about the mortal and the immortal in the human being usually assumes that it is observing this mortal and immortal aspect of the soul and then asks: Is there anything to be found in this thinking, feeling, and willing that reveals that human beings are capable of carrying something from the mortal into the immortal?

[ 14 ] Here I must build upon what I have already said in one of this winter’s lectures regarding the development of the human faculties for spiritual scientific research that I have just alluded to, in order to explain to what extent it is possible—or impossible—to find in thinking, feeling, and willing that which distinguishes the mortal from the immortal in human beings. One of the paths into the spiritual world that has often been mentioned here is what is called the concentration of the life of thought, of thinking. I would like to briefly draw attention to what this concentration consists of and where it leads. When we place any thought—preferably one we have formed ourselves, that is, not a thought stimulated in us by the external world—when we place such a thought of our own making within the horizon of our consciousness, when we forget everything that lives around us and within us, and become one with this single thought, if we can live entirely within this one thought for a certain time, then we can direct all the soul forces that we otherwise devote to the entirety of human activity toward this one thought; then it becomes stronger and stronger; then our whole being merges with this thought, and we concentrate on it. This experience arises as a result of spiritual scientific practice, which, however, is brought about by never tiring of placing a thought again and again at the center of one’s consciousness and identifying completely with it. For one must often devote this inner energy and perseverance—this intense focus—to a single thought for years on end. Even if, out of caution, one says that one must not overdo this practice, a short time each day must still be devoted to such an exercise; but when one has devoted oneself to such an exercise—in accordance with one’s own aptitudes and the structure of one’s soul as shaped by one’s life experiences—one gains a certain experience and enters into a certain state of experience. Up to a certain point, this inwardly concentrated thought intensifies; it becomes brighter and brighter; this single thought grips us more and more, absorbs us more and more, and as we concentrate, we feel as though we can forget the world; we feel ourselves drawn ever deeper into this thought. But just when we feel strong within this thought, we simultaneously feel how this thought, as it were, slips away from us, and how, with this thought, the power to apply our thinking in this way, as it were, dies away. With this thought, we feel as if the thought—and thus ourselves—were being taken away by forces that live all around us; as if our thinking were darkening for us from a certain moment onward. All of this must, of course, remain an entirely psychological process; only then is it a healthy process. This is not the time to mention that all the objections raised by pathology and psychopathology miss the mark entirely when they claim that a person would, in this way, work themselves into illusions and self-suggestions, and that they would inevitably arrive at ideas of a pathological nature. One need only read the relevant chapters of my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* to see that the path outlined here is precisely the healthiest path for the soul—provided it is followed correctly. When the moment arrives, one feels as if a spiritual power surrounding us were, so to speak, snatching the thought away and allowing it to die within us; one then feels what the soul must go through in order to find the path into the spiritual realm. One feels as if, spiritually—as has already been hinted at here—one were losing the ground beneath one’s feet. One feels as if, in a certain sense, one had become acquainted with nothingness. And a state can easily come over a person that is comparable to boundless fear. But it is precisely such a state that is suited to drawing certain powers—which would otherwise remain undeveloped in the person—out of their soul. For in overcoming such states—which I have just compared to fear—and many others that are part of the spiritual researcher’s experiences, deep powers of the soul that would otherwise remain undeveloped are unfolded; and therein lies that strengthening of the inner life of the soul through which alone a person can find the path into the spiritual worlds.

[ 15 ] Once one has gone through an experience such as the one described here, one has yet another feeling. And all these experiences, which lead to one’s truly entering the spiritual world, are of an intimate nature; they are subtle, quiet processes of the human soul. Upon reaching the point described, one feels as if what one has hitherto referred to as the human capacity for thought—that which thinks within us, that which possesses the power to think—were to leave us and go out into the world, as if one were first to lose it and then to be carried out into the objective world along with it. One must have such experiences; one must have them in such a way that one truly comes to know them in their reality, in their actuality for human beings; otherwise, one cannot speak of them in a genuine sense. But so that a person does not remain stuck at this experience—as if only that which has hitherto lived within them as thought were being torn away, and they were being carried out into the world along with this thought that is being torn from them—so that they do not remain stuck at this experience—for this process of cognition would simply cause them to sink into nothingness—something else must be added. I have described it here on several occasions under the name “meditation.”

[ 16 ] A meditation has already been hinted at here—a meditation on something we customarily speak of as existing outside of human beings, yet which, when we consider the individual human life alone, we can see is intimately connected to the human being. When we look back on what we have experienced in this life between birth and our present moment—what we summarize as our destiny—we are accustomed to saying: this or that stroke of fate struck us here or there. But upon closer reflection, even in ordinary life it becomes clear how one-sided such a statement is. If we ask ourselves: What are you today? What can you do today? What abilities does your soul possess? — then we must look to what we have gone through. We usually do not seek this connection; but when we do seek it, it reveals to us what we actually are in the present moment. It reveals to us that we would not possess this or that ability if this or that stroke of fate, this or that twist of fate, had not struck us twenty or thirty years ago—or more—and guided us to acquire these abilities. But if we did not have them, our self, in concrete terms, would be something entirely different. After all, our self consists of our abilities and our strengths. Yet these are bestowed upon us through what constitutes our destiny. If one thinks this thought through to its conclusion, one realizes: We are much more intimately connected to our destiny than is commonly believed. We grow into our destiny with the most intimate part of ourselves—the “I.” And we finally arrive at the realization: Fundamentally, your self has come into being because this or that stroke of fate—whether good or bad—has befallen you; but you have been shaped by them. What you are now was already contained in your destiny. Our “I” extends beyond ourselves and enters into our destiny. If one truly learns to feel deeply what is usually called fate in this way, if one truly connects with it completely, then one comes to the point where—not one’s thinking, but one’s will—is extended to encompass one’s entire fate, and one says to oneself: If you want to know yourself as you are now, you must develop your will. With regard to your entire state of destiny, you must tell yourself: You are who you are now because your “I” has become what it is now. We are fully immersed in destiny. That is to say: We understand that if we want ourselves now, we must want ourselves within our destiny—in other words, that it is I myself who “reigns, weaves, and dwells” within destiny.

[ 17 ] We come to say of what has befallen us by fate: We brought it upon ourselves; we were present in every single stroke of our fate. Human will—and this, too, can only be shown by experience—is strengthened in a very special way by the fact that, in grasping one’s fate as fully identical with one’s own being, one, by willing one’s fate, — as it is thus strengthened, the human will becomes that which now, in a manner different from what was previously characterized in thinking, detaches itself, as it were, from the human being as he stands before others. While we have driven thinking out of ourselves through concentration, with such a strengthening of the will—as described in the grasping of the thought of destiny—we succeed in entering into something that lies outside of us, something that, as we say, befalls us. We enter with our will into something that we would otherwise attribute to the external world. When we thus temper the will, strengthen it, and intensify it, we then have a second spiritual-scientific experience. It consists in the fact that the strengthening will now, in turn, becomes as it were independent of our being and follows the thinking that has gone out from us. And through this, we are able to strengthen this thinking—which threatens to die out as a result of the first experience—through the will.

[ 18 ] What happens to thought that, at a certain point, has become shadowy and has come to a standstill? It is filled with content; it acquires substance when we direct our will toward thought—when, so to speak, we send the second part of our being along with our thought. When thought and will are thus removed from our being, we come to attain that which, admittedly, is hardly acceptable to the contemporary worldview—we come to be outside of that in which we otherwise live in the waking state. We ourselves have gone out with our thinking and willing; we stand, in reality, outside of ourselves. And that in which we are otherwise always present becomes an object for us, becomes something that is outside of us, just as a table or any object is outside the physical body. We look back upon the physical body, upon the life circumstances this body has undergone. We look back upon the spatial and temporal aspects of our human existence. We come to know that which within us has separated itself from what is mortal.

[ 19 ] Thus, for the spiritual researcher, the question “What is mortal about the human being?” is answered — in such a way that he must say: That which remains when he unites and marries the will—strengthened by this grasping of the facts of destiny—with the thinking that has passed away into the universe through concentration of thought, and feels and perceives himself outside of his being as it is thus grasped in the spirit—that is what is otherwise too faint within us: the eternal, the immortal, — which is so greatly strengthened that we experience it, that we know ourselves to be within it, that we know ourselves—but outside our body—to be within it. And only then do we begin to notice it. But we also begin to notice what ordinary thinking, feeling, and willing—in short, ordinary soul life—actually is.

[ 20 ] If we consider ordinary thinking—as it is stimulated by external, sensory nature and as it proceeds in conjunction with the processes of our brain— then, for those who are capable of viewing the world from a spiritual-scientific perspective in the sense just indicated, it is something that—unlike how it appears to us in our mortal body—belongs entirely to our immortal self. One realizes this when one stands in one’s true being outside the mortal body. For then one realizes: everything that this mortal, this physical body actually is—I would like to use a comparison that is not merely a comparison, but one that points to the truth— one recognizes: this physical body is a mirror capable of reflecting that of which a person knows nothing in ordinary life, of which they can only know if they, as it were, peel it away from the physical, of which they know something only when they stand before the body in their immortal self. One knows that the body is merely a mirror and that thoughts stand in the same relationship to the body as mirror images do to the beholder. Just as if one had a number of mirrors on a wall and walked past them, seeing one’s own form as long as one is there, but no longer seeing it when one is not there, and seeing it again when one returns, — so does a person see that which, though it sustains him, he knows nothing of while he is in the body and the body reflects his own essence back to him. And thoughts exist in the form we experience them in ordinary life only as long as the mortal body reflects them. But what thinks is something else; what exercises the immediate activity—which is reflected as thought in the mortal body—is something else.

[ 21 ] When examining human thought, one cannot say that one might find within it anything that could shed light on immortality; for these thoughts are reflections brought about by the mortal body. And that which is immortal does not now stand before the mirror, but is reflected in the thought-forms. What stands before the mirror—that is, in our case, lives within the mirror—what is that? Is there any way at all to express this in human words? Yes, it is possible. But what is to be expressed here at this point is not observed by human beings; for they are content when they can turn to their thoughts for orientation in the external world, when they can live within their thoughts. That something lives within this thought—which must be described as the will within the thoughts, as the will that is active there—is something people usually do not even become aware of; or if they do become aware of it, they draw a conclusion, as Schopenhauer did. Then they have no direct perception; then they do not grasp themselves in this volitional thinking, in thinking-willing, in what they are, but rather in what this thinking-willing gives them—namely, in the thoughts, which are, however, merely mirror images. Only when a person has managed to bring about that union between thinking and willing, as I have described it, are the soul’s powers so strong that all thinking appears permeated by a supersensible human essence that is of a volitional nature—but in such a way that it reveals its true, volitional nature, reflected as thoughts. Just as it is truly our face when we see ourselves in the mirror, so too are we reflected in our thoughts; but what we see in this reflection is not what we truly are. What we are is reflected in such a way that we can never, in terms of life or power, grasp in thought what lies behind thought—of which thought is merely a reflection. Just as the reflection does not last longer than we stand before the mirror, so too does this thinking in the material body not last longer than it is stimulated by the actual immortal within us, which is reflected in our thoughts.

[ 22 ] Another aspect becomes apparent to us in the ordinary process of volition—the process through which we carry out our actions and move our limbs. While in thought we do not realize that what is essential—that which is reflected—lies behind thought, in action—in the actions we perform—we do not realize that behind human will there is always something that is entirely identical to our world of thought, entirely identical to that which is reflected in our thoughts. The only reason there has been so much debate in philosophy about free will is that human beings do not come to know the will as it truly is. They come to know only the power of the will, but not the living essence that truly weaves within that power. And in the will, this living essence is of a thought-like nature. You see, what is truly immortal in human beings is so quiet, so intimate, so hidden within the external sensory world that the mental aspect remains concealed within the thought process; indeed, in the process of the will, it is not even noticed that every minute act of the will depends on what is reflected in thought—something that cannot be perceived at all. Only then do we perceive it, when we observe the course of destiny in the manner described; when we strengthen the will so that it is united—standing outside of us, outside the mortal human being, as I have described—with thought. Then one realizes how the will is united with thought; then one perceives the two aspects—which in life always appear to us as separate entities, thought and will—as united; for one has first brought them into union. One then lives within a process of thought and will. But only then has one grasped that which transcends death, that which passes through the gate of death. And one comes to realize what a mistake—what an enormous mistake—was made by those who have often reflected on the immortality of the human soul in a purely philosophical manner. Those who have reflected on this immortality of the human soul have always sought to cling to something that is, in a certain way, similar to what lives in sensibility or in sensory thinking. People have spoken of a substance of the soul; they have sought something that, in turn, passes through the gate of death like a subtle materiality. That one must grasp the eternal in the human being outside the body, and that this requires entirely new concepts and ideas—ones that no external perception, no thinking bound to the brain, can provide—is what will become clear to humanity through spiritual science. That the immortal consists, so to speak, precisely in that which bears no resemblance to the sensory—this is what must gradually come to be understood.

[ 23 ] Such things have always been suspected; they will be scientifically substantiated, moving from the present into the future. Schiller says:

[ 24 ] Don’t go on and on to me about misty patches and the sun!
Is nature great only because it gives you something to count?
Your subject is certainly the most sublime in space,
But, friends, the sublime does not dwell in space.

[ 25 ] He thus pointed out that one must go beyond the spatial realm in order to reach what is truly spiritual. However, for those who think materialistically, reality ends precisely where the immortal begins; and since, for them, reality ends where the immortal begins, they cannot arrive at any conception of this immortality. We see once again in David Friedrich Strauss, the representative of materialism in modern times, how strangely people think about these matters. David Friedrich Strauss has a very low opinion of the Church Fathers. To him, they are figures to be dismissed; yet he does recall one of these dismissed figures, one of these Church Fathers, whom he admired. He expresses himself somewhat strangely about this one—admittedly a bit crudely, but nevertheless, in a certain sense, wittily. David Friedrich Strauss offers this characterization mainly because that Church Father said: “Only that which is not is incorporeal.” — This is also David Friedrich Strauss’s conviction: Only that which does not exist is incorporeal. One might just as well say: that which is non-spatial; but “the spiritual—the sublime—does not dwell in space.”

[ 26 ] This is precisely what poses particular difficulties for the worldview of our time. The worldview of our time believes, after all, that in order to understand whatever can be understood at all, it is absolutely necessary to link it to concepts already familiar to it. The way of thinking prevalent today demands that we speak of the spiritual using concepts it already knows. It does not want to be led to unknown concepts; rather, it wants something it already knows. We are supposed to point to something it already knows. This is what all philosophers who have spoken of a “substance” of the soul have done. They say: The soul must simply have a substance; this substance then passes through the gate of death. But one could say: it is precisely the natural sciences that could prepare people for the way in which spiritual science will actually have to approach these matters step by step. After all, everyone is familiar with the very simple principle of how one directs an elastic billiard ball toward another; the other ball then takes on any direction. And the direction the second ball takes depends on the direction and motion of the first ball. Physics is clear that the state of motion of the second ball has arisen from the state of motion of the first, and that everything found in the state of motion of the second ball can be found in the motion of the first. There is a transfer of motion from the first ball to the second. But anyone who were to say, “I simply cannot conceive that the motion of the second sphere depends on the motion of the first sphere,” would be thinking something completely absurd. — Yet just as absurd is the view of the soul held by anyone who cannot imagine that the soul-spiritual is anything other than that which, in its essence, resembles the physical. Just as it would be if one were to demand that the first sphere send something of its substance into the second so that something might be present in the second—so it would be if one were to demand that the life the soul begins after death consist of what can already be found in the experiences the soul undergoes while it is in the body, solely through this body.

[ 27 ] But it is also necessary to recognize the difficulty facing spiritual science, namely that this spiritual science must in fact not only speak of things that go beyond the sensory world, but must also expect people to adopt new concepts—different from those they already have—in order to grasp this spiritual realm; that concepts must be enriched, and that one must not merely go on talking in circles using the same old concepts and ideas. Consequently, what spiritual science has to offer is often incomprehensible to those who stand on the ground of today’s habits of thought, because they actually hear only words that sound fanciful, seem to be mere coinages, and because they are unwilling to engage with what the spiritual researcher draws from his experiences. For when the spiritual scientist has drawn these things vividly from the spiritual world, they become comprehensible to the power of judgment. With sound judgment, one can understand what the spiritual scientist has drawn from the spiritual world. One does not need to be a spiritual researcher to do this; one need only examine without prejudice what the spiritual researcher has to offer, and one will be able to see it for oneself. Anyone who says that it is impossible for anyone to admit that what the spiritual researcher says is true without becoming a spiritual researcher themselves—anyone who says this should also claim that no one can prove through any kind of reasoning that someone is a thief unless they have committed the theft themselves. Such things seem absurd when spoken aloud; but in the light of universal logic, they are all the more true. Above all, however, one thing will become perfectly clear to humanity once the findings of spiritual science become comprehensible to it, once people begin to think about these matters without prejudice—one thing will become clear: that there is indeed something in human nature that, even in everyday life, is a weaving and living that exists solely in the spiritual realm. It is there, but it can only be interpreted correctly with the help of spiritual science. There is something in our everyday life, from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, that is entirely of a spiritual nature; but the materialist will not accept it: — this is the process we undergo in our memory. When we remember something, when we look back on an experience we had in the past, then this remembering—this directing of our soul forces toward something that is no longer taking place—is an entirely spiritual process; one that the soul carries out only in the soul-spiritual realm.

[ 28 ] One will only admit this once one has already grasped the nature of the spiritual. For, of course, from the current state of natural science, it is easy to say: Yes, motion is transformed into heat—physical research shows us this; why shouldn’t the external processes within us be transformed into sensation and thought? — Certainly, they do. They do so by giving rise to processes that serve as the mirror in which our being is reflected. One can say: natural science is quite right. It is only by standing firmly on the ground of natural science—rather than opposing it—while at the same time giving due weight to spiritual experiences—that one makes progress. So someone might say: So the spiritual processes are a transformation of the external processes. Just as motion is transformed into heat, so what exists outside in the world is transformed into what is within us. But this was only valid as long as one could not demonstrate that, when we transform motion into heat, something always remains that is there, that is always there. That has remained heat; it is never anything other than heat. This becomes evident to anyone who truly observes the physical process from outside their own body—who observes what the body is actually capable of. It becomes clear to them that, although when we perceive the external world, the process—which is elaborated by the senses and continues in the brain—is a continuation of the external process, this is not true with regard to what we remember. And it is precisely at this point that the ever-advancing natural sciences will demonstrate that, by directing attention to the physical processes, the process of memory—which is a purely mental process—could never arise in any way from those physical processes. It will be possible to demonstrate, precisely through a strictly scientific approach, that what physically occurs within us when we remember is not the mental process itself, nor does it have any more to do with it than the strokes of the pen on paper have to do with what I am reading. When I have a word—consisting of certain strokes—in front of me, I do not read by looking at the word and tracing its shape with my thoughts, but rather by associating a meaning with this sign through something within me that has nothing to do with what is on the paper. Thus one will come to realize that the process of memory, which takes place within the body, has just as little to do with physical processes as my process of reading has to do with the forms on the paper. Memory will reveal itself as a spiritual process that intervenes in physical life. But then one will also recognize that even in our ordinary physical earthly life between birth and death, the essence is already present that we must grasp in a higher, more intense sense if we wish to look toward the immortal. When materialism asks, “What is mortal in human beings?” and answers, “Everything that human beings experience here in the sensory world!”—then spiritual science can also say to it: “Yes, you are right; everything that human beings experience here in the sensory world is mortal in the human being.” But just as an event in our physical life passes, and we later recall it purely through the spiritual essence of our soul—that is, just as this earlier event is preserved in the spiritual process—so it is with our soul life. As long as we search for a “soul substance,” we are unable to even come close to what is immortal in the human being. As soon as we realize that what goes entirely unnoticed in our ordinary, mortal human being—because it is as if a person were standing before a mirror and saw only their reflection, knowing themselves only through that image—as soon as we realize that what goes unnoticed in ordinary life, of which we know nothing in ordinary life, and which we know only as if through an image, — that it is precisely this which, after our death, retains the memory of earthly life and lives on within it—then we can also understand: What we are here perishes as a fact, as that which lives here; it is mortal in the human being. What remains with the soul—the soul that did not know itself in life—is the memory that will become part of the experiences the human being then undergoes in the purely spiritual world after death.

[ 29 ] Only when one begins to understand what a purely psychological and spiritual process memory is does one point to that which continues beyond death. The power of memory is already present in the formation of thought and will, revealing itself here as something spiritual. In the memory that lives within us, we carry across the threshold of death—not as a substance of the soul, but as a force—the very essence of who we are in life between birth and death. Anyone who does not rise to the level of spiritual science immediately loses the ability to form any thoughts about what has been said, for the reason that they no longer have anything at all that they can recall according to their own conceptions. For in everything they can conceive, they assume they must have something substantial that they already know. They do not want to come to the realization that they possess, as a gift of memory, something they do not know.

[ 30 ] Thus, our memory does indeed provide us with something that leads us to the otherwise unknown concepts of the soul process, which, as an immortal entity, detaches itself from the mortal, so that we must acknowledge it. And so the process of spiritual research reveals to us something else as well: that we must, in a sense, engage ourselves more deeply so that the powers of comprehension may extend beyond that which is otherwise ignored, in order to enter the spiritual world. We can, for example, hold before us an ideal that is yet to be attained, one that is just as absent from the present as a past experience. Then we, too, engage in a purely spiritual process in relation to this ideal. The materialist, however, will lose himself with a kind of relish in a certain dead end; he will want the soul to have a physical relationship with an ideal. The true relationship to an ideal, however, is a purely spiritual one. Only those who know that even memory is a purely spiritual process can understand this.

[ 31 ] However, what people usually experience with regard to the ideal is that they cannot become fully warm—let alone passionate—toward it. There remains a certain coldness, even when they revere it. At most, they become warm when they are directly immersed in a process in which the ideal is alive in the external world in some way, where they can move in step with the ideal. But when the ideal is awakened in their soul purely as a thought, and they can then connect their full range of feelings and impulses of will solely to the ideal—so that they also direct their will toward it—and when they do this more often, when they combine these exercises of the will with their concentration, — then a sense gradually develops in the soul that we possess not only powers of perception and memory, but also something that, while of a volitional nature, can be described as a foreknowledge of future events. There is certainly something of a prophetic character in the human soul. This is not merely attributable to some form of superstition. Spiritual science shows that this prophetic gift manifests itself only with extraordinary difficulty in human beings precisely because, within the physical body, a person must use the forces that would otherwise enable them to intuitively perceive what is approaching them; they must use this force to build up the physical body; it flows into it and is transformed. Because we have already gone through the process of past lives, we are able to apply what we have retained from them in terms of growth forces as a power of memory in the soul and spirit. As we live toward the future in the physical body, we must apply the power we need to sustain the body within the physical body itself. Thus, it is very difficult to become acquainted with certain forces—not, however, in the way people imagine, but in a much more intimate and subtle way. They are present within the human being. Spiritual science, however, can come to know them in such a way that it learns to understand that within what is immortal in the human soul lies something that truly carries this rich content of the soul through death and into the future. Through this spiritual science, the human being truly comes to realize the very force that carries the human being through the gate of death.

[ 32 ] Thus, spiritual science cannot answer the question—as easily as one might think—“What is mortal in the human being?” But it shows the way to recognize what is mortal in the human being by revealing what lives within the human being as the immortal—unnoticed by ordinary attention—and how this immortal can, in a sense, survey one’s own ordinary life between birth and death as something objective. But this can only be the case if a person comes to recognize that their essence is a self-contained entity, separate from the physical body, and that this self-contained entity actually acts upon the body from outside it. Just as a person standing before a mirror acts upon their reflection, so does the true essence of the soul act upon the physical body, causing what it is to be reflected back for this earthly life. Because we have only a reflection of our true being in earthly life—one that can exist only as long as the reflected being stands before the mirror—what we directly experience as present in earthly life is, in essence, the mortal part. Human beings come to know that which underlies it as mortal—that in which their immortal nature dwells as in its instrument—not, I say, in its shell, but in its instrument.

[ 33 ] In this way, one is led to answer the question, “What is mortal about the human being?” in full harmony with current scientific knowledge. And this will be of immense importance for the future of spiritual development. It will be of immense importance because the natural scientist can always point out—whenever one speaks to him of an independent soul or of the substance of the soul—that: “Yes, just look at this soul; it grows with the growth of the body and the brain, and it grows as one ages. When the body becomes ill and dies, the soul is no longer there.” To infer the soul solely from external phenomena makes it impossible to counter the facts. The soul must be recognized in a realm that lies beyond the facts. One must be able to say “yes” to all legitimate objections, not “no.” And spiritual science can do that. Therefore, when those who believe they stand on the firm ground of natural science come and say: “We know that! We know that! We know that! You mustn’t come at us with spiritual science!”—then the spiritual scientist steps forward and says: “Spiritual science denies nothing—absolutely nothing, down to the very last thing you say; for what you know, what natural science knows, pertains only to the mortal aspect of the human being.” Spiritual science does not deny you anything; it merely shows that there is a path of human knowledge leading to something other than what you know. — Then the natural scientist is forced to stop fighting with logical arguments; instead, he must go so far as to forbid anyone from knowing anything other than what he knows. That is his only objection. And that is truly the only objection that can come from natural science. One cannot refute the spiritual-scientific worldview; for the objections that are raised are all acknowledged by the spiritual scientist. One must simply assert: “Only I have the right to decide where research may be conducted; and if you claim anything other than what I permit to be claimed, then you are a fantasist.” — The humanities cannot be refuted from that perspective with arguments, but solely through declarations of authority. Spiritual science can only be eliminated from the world if people agreed, by majority vote, to stifle this spiritual scientific research. Spiritual science can be refuted not through logic, but only through brutality; but it will, of course, be able to hold its own against natural science only if it is a match for natural science, if it does not come up with amateurish ideas and attempt to use them to refute natural science. It must be able to demonstrate that it is capable of conquering a field in which even the old philosophical concepts of the substance of the soul are no longer applicable, but for which new concepts must be created. That is why so much of what emerges in the literature of the humanities still seems absurd. The absurdity, however, lies solely in the fact that people have never become accustomed to such concepts; and that is why they are rejected. Spiritual science brings forth something entirely new. It is not by fighting natural science, but by setting something in contrast to it, that we can pave the way for spiritual science. Even in terms of its mode of thinking, spiritual science can certainly meet the legitimate demands of the natural sciences. For if someone were to say: I stand on the firm ground of natural science; anyone who has their five healthy senses in working order and relies on them—and on what the intellect can grasp on the basis of these five senses—cannot agree with the fanciful notions of spiritual science”—then the spiritual scientist replies: “Take a closer look at yourself! You do admit that for a long time people lived as those who relied on their five healthy senses.” Then came Copernicus. With regard to the external world, he formulated a worldview that directly defies the five senses. It took some people a long time—indeed, right up to the present day—before they could or did acknowledge the truth of Copernicus’s worldview. But just as human truth found its way back then to transcend the five senses in regard to the external science of the world, so spiritual science will lead us beyond what the five senses seek to dictate with regard to the supersensible. For the supersensible permits even less reliance on one’s “sound five senses.”

[ 34 ] Now we see that a person must follow the path of development required to become a spiritual researcher—not everyone needs to become a spiritual researcher; if there were only a few spiritual researchers, and they were to uncover truths, then the intellect would be able to grasp them—we see that the path along which the spiritual researcher is guided consists in grasping one’s own soul life in order to carry it forward. Just as a child must develop by being guided from the time when it cannot yet say “I” to itself to a point where it can say this, so too can the soul—if the spiritual researcher has self-mastery—develop to the point where it becomes a partner of the spiritual world. But the soul must grasp itself. This is a purely spiritual-soul process. Humanity has, however, long been on the path toward this process. One of the leading figures in Central European spiritual development, whom I spoke of here recently, coined a beautiful phrase that, one might say, points the way for human feeling, human thinking, and human willing—the path that ultimately leads to the human being becoming a spiritual researcher. The German mystic Meister Eckhart, who died in 1327, utters a beautiful phrase. A phrase that, so to speak, when one meditates on it, has the power to direct the soul toward the path that leads into the spiritual world. One cannot simply allow such a word to take effect on oneself just once or a few times; rather, one must allow it to take effect day after day. For behind such a word lies a profound spiritual experience that the one who drew it from the innermost depths of his soul had already undergone. Meister Eckhart says:

[ 35 ] “Whoever wishes to attain the highest perfection of his being and to behold God, the highest good, must have a thorough understanding of himself and of that which is above him, right down to the very depths. Only in this way can he attain the highest purity.

[ 36 ] “Therefore, dear friend, get to know yourself; that is better for you than knowing the powers of all creatures.”

[ 37 ] “Know thyself!” — the maxim that was already inscribed on the Sanctuary of Apollo. But self-knowledge, which is so intimately connected with the path into the spiritual worlds, is, in a sense, the most—the very, very most—difficult thing! Even the most superficial form of self-knowledge is difficult for human beings. The philosopher Ernst Mach gives a curious example of this. In his *Analysis of Sensations*, he reveals how he himself fared with self-knowledge even in regard to the most superficial realm. He recounts how he was once walking down the street and saw his own reflection in a slanted mirror. He was startled by the ugly, repulsive face staring back at him—and lo and behold: it was his own. And when he was already a professor, something similar happened to him. He arrived tired from a trip and boarded a bus. On the other side, he also saw a man getting on, and he thought: What a withered schoolmaster is getting on there! And once again, the man who got on across from him turned out to be himself; he had seen himself in a mirror. And he says: That is how I came to know the “professional Habiru” better than my own self. We see from this example that one can even be a famous professor and possess all the qualities and abilities of a famous professor, and yet not have come very far in terms of the most superficial self-knowledge.

[ 38 ] But what is even more difficult to achieve is the soul’s self-knowledge. And it must be said that what is often defined as self-knowledge is nothing more than an egotistical feeling about an inner experience. Truly, genuine self-knowledge can only be attained through spiritual science.

[ 39 ] But—and perhaps this does not seem far-fetched; for everything to which not only logic but also feelings—arising from much of what is happening in the present—lead is not far-fetched either—this path, which must lead to spiritual science, is indicated precisely by impulses such as those just cited by Meister Eckhart, and which can be enumerated in many other ways as well. For humanity is on this path. And if we wish to point to anyone from more recent times who, with regard to extracting the spiritual from the material, was scientifically on the path to spiritual science, we may point to Goethe. Goethe—to cite just one example—sought in his *Metamorphosis of Plants* to show how within the leaf, within the individual leaf, lies that which can be transformed and, in the process of transformation, manifests itself as another organ. But he also strove to apply the idea of transformation in other fields. This proved fruitful for him; it led him to remarkable scientific results, some of which are still bluntly rejected by science today. And yet, many seeds for a future spiritual worldview lie in Goethe’s mode of thinking. When one builds one’s own edifice of ideas and translates this edifice into a living spiritual-scientific experience, only then does one realize how fruitful Goethe’s worldview is—a worldview so vividly expressed, for example, in the short treatise *The Metamorphosis of Plants*. One then realizes that the highest spiritual forces—for which one must first seek words, concepts, and ideas—those processes the soul undergoes when it leaves the mortal body, have already undergone a metamorphosis in the ordinary process of memory. One need only possess sufficient universality of spirit to trace this process in metamorphoses, to recognize it as a life process of the soul freed from the mortal body. Then one realizes that what is mortal in the human being passes away in isolation, just as one understands the remaining flower, which withers, as separate from the seed that goes on to become a new plant. But it was only logical for Goethe to apply this way of thinking to the physical realm as well. It is simply that we do not yet understand him today. It must seem understandable that the physicist, who believes he stands on the ground of truth when he stands on the ground of physical hypotheses, rejects Goethe’s theory of colors. The deeper reason for this rejection is none other than that Goethe’s theory of colors was conceived and formulated by a person who allowed the inner driving force—which lives in the human spirit—to work within him, whereas physicists today seek a theory of colors based solely on those human faculties of cognition that are mediated through the body.

[ 40 ] As spiritual science develops as a fruit of human spiritual striving, something like Goethe’s theory of colors will also find recognition within spiritual science itself. Then people will understand why another thinker, who likewise felt the impulse of the eternal-spiritual in his soul and who, driven by that same impulse, also sought to comprehend the external world—why he championed the theory of colors, and indeed, championed something else as well—Hegel; Hegel, too, was one of those who were deeply connected to the sustaining force of the German spirit, which was described here just yesterday. With all the power of the eloquence that was his own, he opposed the belittling of his compatriot Kepler—the great Kepler, who is known to anyone who has even briefly glanced at a physics textbook as the one who discovered the so-called Keplerian laws. Hegel demonstrated that these laws already contain what Newton merely expressed in mathematical formulas. The world, incidentally, took little notice of this. Hegel showed that Newton substitutes mathematical symbols for Kepler’s verbal formulations of his laws; he merely alters the formulas slightly. Newton, therefore, did nothing more than express Kepler’s laws in mathematical symbols and formulas. For Hegel, however, what mattered was the reality itself, not the form of expression.

[ 41 ] As I said before, I would like to bring up something that, intuitively, belongs here today. I would like to point out that this has happened to us several times recently—as in the case where the one who merely found the form of expression is held up as the great physicist, instead of the one who actually struck at the heart of the matter—Goethe. In accordance with a spiritual worldview, Goethe discovered everything connected with the theory of the evolution of organisms. However, one must be sustained by the spiritual—by which he himself was sustained—if one wishes to regard this spiritual worldview as the natural theory of evolution. Goethe was strengthened, not weakened, by his natural theory of evolution in his understanding of the spirit behind all sensibility. But for humanity, it was often too difficult to comprehend the transformation of organisms in the Goethean way. People understood it more easily when it was presented to them in Darwin’s account, which did not place such great demands on the spirit. And these ideas could still be applied to many, many other things.

[ 42 ] The second half of the 19th century was a time when many fields fell victim to a more superficial way of thinking. In German intellectual life, wherever a more superficial way of thinking has taken hold, the deeper seeds and impulses still lie beneath. The task, however, will be to bring about a reflection on what constitutes “the sustaining forces of German intellectual life”; to bring about a reflection on how the true theory of evolution must be presented—not in the Darwinian sense, but in the Goethean sense. But this leads to the thoughts that, as I explained yesterday, our difficult times today can prompt reflection in many areas—that victories must also be achieved in a different sense than one might suppose: the victory of German intellectual life, the victory of the deeper principles of a worldview as they are prepared within German intellectual life, —as opposed to what has so often come over from England as the more superficial. This is not said from a chauvinistic-nationalist perspective, but simply from an objective historical standpoint. The German spirit will have to recognize that many English influences must be sent back to their origins. And one can say: in this regard, German intellectual life may hope that the seeds within it will come to the fore more and more in the future. But then, that which constitutes the German soul, the German spirit, must be defended just as it is being defended by our self-sacrificing contemporaries. For what is being defended here is one of humanity’s most sacred treasures. Not only are German territory and the German people surrounded on all sides by enemies, as if in a fortress, but the noblest German intellectual heritage is also encircled and besieged as if in a fortress, and must be defended. Truth is the same everywhere; but it is also true that the capacity for truth is not developed in the same way everywhere. With regard to German intellectual life, it may be said: The luminosity, the religious manner in which German idealism has approached the spiritual, is a starting point for ascending ever higher toward a truly spiritual worldview. Therefore, one may give oneself over to the hope—a hope grounded in truthful knowledge, not in mere feelings—that the German spirit will be given the opportunity, through the way it emerges from the present difficult times, to develop that which is known precisely within this German spirit by those who are at all aware of the connection between this German spirit and the path into the spiritual worlds. And like a premonition, there stands a word from Goethe, to which the Alsatian poet Lienhard referred in his remarkable pamphlet *Germany’s European Mission*—a word Goethe spoke in 1813 during a conversation with Luden. He says:

[ 43 ] “The destiny of the Germans is... not yet fulfilled. If they had had no other task to fulfill than to shatter the Roman Empire and to create and organize a new world, they would have perished long ago. But since they have endured—and with such strength and competence—I believe they must still have a great future ahead of them, a destiny...”

[ 44 ] There are still many German destinies to be fulfilled in numerous other areas. But it is certainly also part of Germany’s destiny to lead German idealism toward spiritualism—toward a worldview that is entirely in keeping with the spirit. For whatever may happen—one thing is certain: that which has emerged from such a deeply inner experience will resound fruitfully within these events—such as a word of Goethe’s, which he placed precisely at the end of that poem in which he portrays the deepest human being wrestling with the world spirit. It is no coincidence that *Faust*—this depiction of the struggle with the world spirit to find the path into the spiritual world—emerged precisely from the German worldview. Precisely during the period when Germany, so to speak, allowed itself to be spiritually overcome to a certain degree by a foreign worldview, people repeatedly uttered the strange dictum that Germany is Hamlet. Germany is not Hamlet. It is merely a misunderstanding to believe so. In the innermost forces of German development lies something that can never be expressed by Hamlet—“To be or not to be, that is the question” is a line from Hamlet—but the German spirit speaks: The spirit is the source of all being, and on spiritual ground the soul finds its true purpose, its true essence; and “only on spiritual ground, only in looking beyond the material world”—this is German development viewed in its true light, connected to the spiritual essence of humanity as a whole—so that one must say: Whatever the present painful events may yet bring—it lies within German development itself, as its deepest justification, that one will have to say:

[ 45 ] Such a victory of the German spirit must surely emerge from these painful times—in the face of the onslaught of all enemies of the German spirit—so that, among the other goals of the German people, the one that springs from the words with which the most German, yet at the same time the most profound, poetry of humanity concludes may also be fulfilled, — words that resonate like a victory cry against all materialism, like the heraldic cries preceding every spiritual worldview: “The transitory is not the enduring.” At the end of *Faust*, the following resounds to us like a true motto of a genuinely spiritual worldview: “All that is transitory is but a parable.”

[ 46 ] And the German spirit still has much to contribute to making this the goal of human endeavor. And let us hope that the current difficult times will help it to fully fulfill its destiny in this direction.