The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. How Are the Eternal Powers of the Human Soul Studied?

[ 1 ] I have spoken frequently here, in the course of the lectures I have given, about the great era of intellectual development that can be called the age of German Idealism. And for the most part, it is probably well known even in wider circles today what the entire intimate course of intellectual development—from Kant up through Hegel—means for the intellectual life of humanity as a whole. However, whenever such a topic is mentioned, I do not wish to fail to add that the great thinkers involved in this process are never truly appreciated if one still stands, even to any degree, on the ground that leads one to accept as dogma what a person expresses as a truth they have recognized—or, let us say, intended. One can transcend this; then one is in a position to completely set aside the formulation of any human opinion or human position. But to observe the way in which a person strove for truth—how, so to speak, the drive for truth lived within them—the very manner of their search for truth—that is what remains eternally fascinating when it comes to the figures, particularly the thinkers of the past. And among many other things, what remains—particularly with regard to the thinkers of German Idealism—is what one, so to speak, feels time and again when one delves into their work: that they had attained a certain sense of orientation regarding what a person might call truth, the pursuit of truth, and a worldview; that they knew, as it were, how impossible it is to find one’s bearings in the world if one relies solely on taking in the world’s impressions, allowing them to take effect upon oneself, and being, as it were, at their mercy like a plaything. Above all, these thinkers knew that what can determine a sense of truth and a sense of worldview must be sought in the very depths of the human soul itself and must be drawn up from there.

[ 2 ] A lesser-recognized latecomer among these great thinkers—and one who has also become less well-known—was Karl Rosenkranz. And in the 1860s, Karl Rosenkranz attempted to review, in his mind’s eye, what had developed since the era of German Idealism as a conception of the human soul and its powers under the influence of a more scientific way of thinking. I would like to read to you, in the introduction to today’s reflections, what Karl Rosenkranz—the highly educated, subtle Hegelian—had to say about this thirty-year exploration of the soul that followed the era of German Idealism. Karl Rosenkranz wrote in 1863:

[ 3 ] “Our contemporary philosophy so often returns to Kant’s because it was the starting point of our great philosophical epoch; however, it should not merely take up those aspects of Kant that are convenient for it, but should seek to understand him in his entirety. Then it would also understand that while one can certainly look to Kant as the founder of our German philosophy and as an ideal of philosophical endeavor, one should not stop there. The modesty of science lies in acknowledging the limits one recognizes for oneself, and not in glossing over them with a semblance of knowledge; it does not, however, lie in inflating one’s pride with the humility of uncritical ignorance or feeble doubt, and in proclaiming viewpoints that have been overcome by history to be absolute simply because one could not hold one’s ground on other, self-made ones. “In our contemporary philosophy, the concept of the Absolute—above all inductions, above all physical, physiological, psychological, aesthetic, political, and historical micrologies—has been lost,”—and by “absolute,” Karl Rosenkranz, of course, means the philosophy of the spirit—“without which, however, true philosophy cannot exist. For this concept, all observation, all discovery through telescopes and microscopes, all calculation comes to an end; it can only be thought.”

[ 4 ] This can be said of these thinkers: They had a sense of the productivity of thought; they had faith in the power of thought, which, by strengthening itself from within, can find within itself that source from which springs forth that which is capable of enlightening the world. And they knew: No matter how much the external methods and instruments of natural science may be perfected—in the realm that can be conquered by external methods and instruments, what truly enlivens the human spirit is not to be found. I have often taken the liberty of saying here that the spiritual science which seeks to be represented in these reflections cannot be in any kind of contradiction—whatever its nature—with the scientific worldview of our time; on the contrary, it stands in complete harmony with every legitimate formulation of the scientific worldview. This spiritual science does not seek to be some kind of new religion; rather, it seeks to be a genuine, true successor to natural science itself—or, more precisely, to the scientific way of thinking. And one can certainly say: For those who now look back at the development of natural science in the time that has elapsed since Karl Rosenkranz wrote down what was read to you, it offers—if one is truly able to engage with it—impulses in every field that lead directly into this spiritual science, that press their way into it. And this natural science offers such impulses precisely when one engages with it at the very points where it itself attempts to extend its observations in such a way that they lead into the realm of the spiritual.

[ 5 ] Now there is a branch of science that is particularly well-suited to making it clear where the natural sciences are headed when they seek to approach the realm of the spiritual in a way that is proper and consistent with their nature and methods. This science is called—using a somewhat cumbersome term—psychophysiology, and as a rule, we are dealing with psychophysiologists who understand well, thoroughly understand, how to apply the scientific methods that can be acquired in the various scientific laboratories. Now there are already psychological laboratories, and among these psychophysiologists we also have people who may be thoroughly familiar—I do not, of course, mean by this to give any particular individual a special commendation; that is why I say: who may be thoroughly familiar—with the scientific way of thinking, with the manner in which this scientific mindset approaches the world and its phenomena. We can now get a sense of what has been accomplished in this field of psychophysiology. If you’d like a brief introduction, I recommend Theodor Ziehen’s *Physiological Psychology*, because it provides a quick overview and because, even the older editions, are essentially up to date with current research in this area. But one could just as easily explore this physiological psychology through any other author. Once one engages with this physiological psychology, one gains an understanding of how someone who applies scientific methods in the spirit of scientific thinking approaches human beings in order to investigate what, I would say, can be experienced clinically and in the sense of a physical laboratory—or a psychological laboratory, for that matter—in human beings; that is, what can be investigated in human beings through their mental and emotional expressions. And one may say that, even if what constitutes science in this field is still largely an ideal today, the various paths leading toward this ideal can already be seen everywhere, and anyone who is free of prejudice will want to fully acknowledge the great merits of the individual research efforts in this field. Of course, in keeping with today’s scientific way of thinking, these researchers strive to find the physical and bodily aspects of everything that takes place spiritually and psychologically in human beings—to identify the processes within the human body that occur while a spiritual-psychological event is unfolding within us. And it is precisely in this field, as I said, that new avenues have already been opened. And there one discovers, first of all, something very peculiar. And at this very moment, as I attempt to describe to you what one discovers there, I expressly emphasize that I am, for the time being, standing firmly on the ground of what is legitimate in this field of science. One discovers something peculiar; one discovers that researchers in this field are able to investigate what is called the life of the imagination—that is, the life of human ideas—in a way that is, one might say, truly magnificent. In our inner life, mental images are stimulated by external impressions that we can perceive. These images come together; they separate from one another. This is, in fact, what our inner life consists of, insofar as it is a life of mental images: we form inner images of the external world based on its impressions, and these images group together. This constitutes a large part of our inner life. Now, the psychophysiologist can observe how these mental images come together internally, how they form, and he can track the physical processes throughout in such a way that he always sees: on the one hand, there is the psychological process in the life of the imagination, and on the other hand, there is the physical process. And as long as one is merely free of prejudice, it will never be possible to discover a true inner life in human beings for which a corresponding physical counterpart cannot actually be demonstrated—even if, as I said, such proof remains largely a scientific ideal today. And so it is extraordinarily fascinating, extraordinarily interesting, to trace within the human thinking apparatus—now truly understood as a thinking apparatus in the proper sense, insofar as it is physically constructed—how everything unfolds there as a person internally experiences their imaginative life. And it is precisely in this regard that you will find extraordinarily significant insights in the aforementioned book by Theodor Ziehen—indeed, I would say, insights that are scientifically extremely sound.

[ 6 ] But now for the other peculiarity. The moment one must speak of emotion—and in particular of the will—in the life of the soul, this psychophysiology fails not only, I would say, instinctively, but—in the case of the truly modern psychophysiologist—even quite consciously. And you can find in Ziehen’s book how, the moment he is supposed to speak of emotion and will, he refuses outright to continue his investigations any further. How does he speak of emotions? Well, he says it plain and simple: The natural scientist does not speak of an independent emotional life in human beings, but rather of how, as one receives impressions from the outside—these impressions being stronger or weaker, possessing certain characteristics or others—a certain “emotional tone” is formed. He speaks only of emotional tone, that is, in a sense, of the manner in which first sensation and then representation are absorbed into the life of the soul. This means that the psychophysiologist runs out of steam—forgive the trivial expression, but one really must put it that way—at the very moment when he is supposed to move from the life of imagination and its parallel in the psychophysiological mechanism to the life of feeling. And if he is as honest as Theodor Ziehen, he admits this by simply stating it as he does: In the past, people used to think naively, speaking of three powers of the soul: thinking or imagining, feeling, and willing. But for the natural scientist, there can be no question whatsoever of feeling—of a real soul-being that lives there in pleasure and displeasure as something real. These are all merely sounds in which the nature of the life of imagination and sensation is subtly revealed. Thus, consciously—not merely unconsciously—the researcher loses his breath; consciously, he ceases to breathe scientifically.

[ 7 ] And this is even more evident when we speak of the third soul force, the will. In psychophysiology, you will find nothing about the will other than this one statement: It cannot be found—it is impossible to find it using the methods of rational, scientific thinking. This is an interesting and extraordinarily important finding that demands to be noted and taken seriously. The natural scientist can say: Well, I have my scientific perspective; with this scientific perspective, I find, as it were, the apparatus of thought and imagination for the life of the soul, insofar as it unfolds in the realm of the imagination; I do not concern myself with the rest! - The scientific researcher is fully entitled to say this. The amateur philosopher, who today likes to bestow upon himself the grandiose title of “monist,” will not, however, easily notice that his breath has been arbitrarily suppressed; rather, he will believe that he continues to breathe as he moves from the life of imagination into the life of feeling and will, and he will see the life of feeling and will merely as a kind of developmental product of the life of imagination. Then, of course—truly with a certain matter-of-factness—one arrives at the strange conclusion that such people say—and unfortunately Theodor Ziehen does as well—: “The will does not exist at all; the will is a pure invention.”

[ 8 ] What do we actually have when we speak of “will” in connection with any of our activities? Well, as people tend to think in a trivial, intuitive way, “will” is already present when I simply move my hand. But first I have an impression—a mental image—that prompts me to move my hand. And then my mental life shifts to the perception of my moving hand, which I may also perceive with senses other than my eyes. But I have only a sum of mental images. I simply transition from the mental images of the impressions to the mental images of the movement. That is to say, I am actually just constantly observing myself. And if, in the face of these debates—I am now referring to dilettantish monism, which aspires to be a worldview—one can at all be fully human, then one would have to feel how one is eradicating precisely what constitutes humanity’s most intimate inner experiences: the life of feeling and the life of the will, — if one turns human beings into what they must be turned into, if one does not allow natural science to be natural science, but instead seeks to turn it, in an amateurish way, into a worldview.

[ 9 ] For the spiritual researcher, however, the path taken by the natural scientists is of extraordinary importance, for this path has already been pursued so far today that it clearly demonstrates how far the natural-scientific method of research can go. A distinct boundary can already be identified. Precisely now, when one delves deeply into the thinkers who preceded the natural-scientific approach—the thinkers of German Idealism—one finds in them a clear awareness that the higher mysteries of the world must be explored by immersing oneself in the innermost depths of the human being. In fact, these thinkers were even mocked for wanting to unravel these mysteries of the world—as if they were a tangled ball of yarn—and develop them all from within the human inner being. But it is also characteristic of what these thinkers in particular have achieved, and it is especially characteristic for the observer to see what emerges when he compares what the German idealists have achieved with what has been achieved through the scientific mode of thinking and research. What have these German idealists achieved—these much-mocked German idealists? Hegel—perhaps I may, without appearing immodest, draw attention to the discussions I have provided on Hegel in *The Riddles of Philosophy* and in the new edition of my *Worldviews and Lifestyles in the Nineteenth Century*— — Hegel attempted to grasp, as one might say, in pure thought everything that weaves and lives out there in the world; in a sense, to extract the entire web of thought from the abundance of phenomena, facts, and things in the world. But one must admit, despite all objections, that this web of thought cannot be gained through intuition, nor can it be gained through external observation. For one need only try just once to simply let the external world take its course, without generating within oneself the source of thought that activates the soul—nothing will come of it in terms of thought! But if one does not wish to apply thoughts to the world, if one wishes to deny thought any significance because it must necessarily be spun out—one might say—from within the human being, then one would have to renounce any intellectual discussion of the world. And not even Haeckel would be willing to do that!

[ 10 ] By handling and using thought at all, one lives entirely within thought, in the awareness that through thought one expresses something that has significance for the world itself. The Hegelians were only aware—by engaging with thought—that thought is an inner experience and, even though it is an inner experience, has objective significance for the existence of the world. But let us take a closer look at what the entire idealistic mode of thinking—I will now say: through thought and within thought, for whose mode of observation it has been so well-practiced—has actually achieved. One can hardly expect anyone today, for example, to work through Hegel’s writings for the very point I am about to raise. But if someone were to do so, they would arrive at the following: Hegel is a master in the handling of thought that is not at all influenced by any sensory impression from the outside; he is a master in developing one thought out of another, so that one has an entire living organism of thought in his—well, let’s use that dreadful word—system. But let’s take a closer look at this Hegel with all his thoughts. We can, I would say, divide him into two parts. In the first part, he develops thoughts. But all these thoughts relate to what exists externally and sensually in the world. They are, I would say, merely inner reflections of what exists externally and sensually in the world. And the second part relates to the historical development of humanity, to social and political concepts, and ultimately culminates in what human beings can develop in terms of conceptions, thoughts, and ideas—which then find their expression, in terms of sensation, as religion; in terms of intuition, as art; and in terms of ideas, as science. So what Hegel seeks to bring to light by enlivening the thought within—he regards this as the innermost source of worldly existence, and he traces it all the way to its full blossoming in religion, art, and science. But religion, art, and science—are they not, in turn, merely things that have significance for the external physical world? Or could anyone imagine that the content of religious conviction might somehow have significance for a spiritual world? Or could one even entertain the belief that art, which must speak through sensory means, can have any significance—an immediate significance, of course—within the spiritual world? Or our science? Well, we will speak of that later.

[ 11 ] Hegel may well discover the idea, but he discovers only an idea that, although it lives and weaves within, merely reflects the external world. This idea cannot take root in any world that might exist apart from the sensory-physical world. Hegelianism does not give rise to a spiritual world, but only to a spiritual image of the physical world.

[ 12 ] And what about the natural sciences? It is precisely the natural sciences—which must be taken quite seriously—that have followed in this vein and are now examining this thought, this inner life of thought in human beings, and find that by identifying, as it were, the “thinking apparatus” within human beings as the basis for the life of thought, they reach the realm of emotion and the will; there they must stop. Must one not now assume, if one truly holds both together: Although Hegelianism, for example—or indeed that idealistic worldview of which we have spoken—truly strove, on the one hand, toward a spiritual world, did it not find more than merely the spiritual counterpart of that which is not spiritual? Must we not say, on the other hand: Could not this Hegelianism—could not this idealism—therefore also gain access to that which it must already acknowledge by virtue of its very existence, because thoughts could have no significance as purely spiritual entities in relation to reality if there were no spiritual world? What is interesting is that everything German idealism has recently produced in the way of thought does indeed flow from the spiritual world, yet contains nothing other than that which the scientific mode of thinking can actually accept as a conceptual framework. But to put it another way: If one truly wishes to enter the spiritual world—and to do so in a way that stands up to the scrutiny of the natural sciences—then one must enter the realm of feeling and willing, but not in the sense in which one feels and wills in ordinary life, . but rather in the same way that the natural scientist enters the world of nature. |

[ 13 ] I have often outlined here, from other perspectives, the paths by which one can truly enter the spiritual world while remaining, in the strictest sense, grounded in the natural sciences. My aim today, through this historical overview, was simply to show how thinking as we commonly understand it—even when driven to such purity, to such cold, sober, icy purity as in German idealism—can indeed lead to the conviction: There is a spiritual world—for this thinking is not derived from an external impression; it must itself originate from the spiritual world—but one cannot enter the spiritual world through this kind of thinking.

[ 14 ] Why can’t one enter the spiritual world through this way of thinking? As I have said, I have addressed this question here on several occasions from different perspectives. Let us consider it once more today from yet another angle. One cannot enter because, in recent times, we have increasingly come to eliminate from this way of thinking what the natural scientist no longer finds in it at all—namely, to eliminate feeling and will from this way of thinking. To see that this is so, one need only bring to mind the very foundation upon which the great, primary significance of the scientific way of thinking rests. It rests on the fact that, as far as possible—I would say—one must kill off or numb everything spiritual within oneself when one sets out to observe nature. The natural scientist will want to strictly exclude—whether he is observing things and their facts or conducting experiments—everything that stems from his feeling, everything that stems from his will. He will never allow what he feels toward things—what he would, so to speak, prefer to be true rather than what the things themselves reveal—to influence what he wishes to express about what he has observed, when one approaches nature with one’s own inner life completely set aside and allows nature to speak for itself. One can say, since the scientific development of recent times lies three to four centuries behind us: We have truly already undergone a thorough training in what is called scientific objectivity. Selfless, scientific in the best sense, and in many respects ennobling for human life—that is what one might call the “setting aside of the self” in the face of the language of natural phenomena. Great progress has been made in this regard; we have come a long way. And in psychophysiology, we have even gone so far as to think in such a way that feeling and will are no longer found in thought. This means that what was once a method of research has already become practical and come to life. One is supposed to set aside the psychological aspect when observing nature. We have now learned to set it aside to such an extent that it can no longer be found anywhere in the entire field of observation. When we surrender ourselves entirely passively to the external world—as must be the ideal of the natural scientist, even when he designs experiments, for this must surely be his ideal—what remains unconscious in our thinking is what might be called: will. It is precisely the endeavor to completely eliminate the will from thought when conducting research on nature in the modern sense. It remains unconscious, for one always needs a will when linking one thought to another—since thoughts do not do this on their own—or when separating one thought from another. Nevertheless, it remains the ideal of natural science to suppress this will—which lies within the life of thought—as much as possible. Consequently, it goes without saying that the scientific ideal causes the inner life of the soul, I might say, to wither away in human habit. And more than anything else, it is due to this—and I say expressly: justified—scientific ideal that the exclusion of the psychological has been able to take place as it has; that one must deliberately disregard everything psychological, must exclude everything psychological, if one wishes to follow nature faithfully in the spirit of contemporary natural science.

[ 15 ] But there is another side to this as well. And it is extremely important to consider this other side. What, after all, is a person actually seeking when he seeks knowledge? Well, first of all, when a person seeks knowledge, they seek something that is true apart from themselves. For if they were to conceive of truth as separate from themselves, they could, after all, create it for themselves at any moment. That they do not want this is readily admitted. So when a person seeks an ideal of knowledge, they are seeking to bring to life within themselves something to which they themselves contribute as little as possible. Just consider the objections raised today against self-constructed concepts, particularly in the scientific realm! Thus, one strives to have in knowledge something that, I might say, reflects external reality, but which has just as little to do with this external reality as, say, a mirror image has with what is reflected. Just as the reflection cannot change what is being reflected, so, too, what comes to life in the soul as the content of knowledge should not change what is taking place outside. But then one must eliminate everything psychological; then the psychological can have no significance whatsoever for knowledge. And if one strives so intensely to exclude the soul, it is no wonder that the spiritual cannot be found in this realm. Therefore, spiritual research must begin precisely where the scientific way of thinking must end. That is to say, one must seek within thought that which is will within thought. And this occurs in everything the soul must undergo in those inner experiments—which have been discussed here on several occasions—in which the soul must strengthen and reinforce thinking from within, so that the will active within thinking is no longer unconscious to thinking, but rather becomes conscious, so that the human being truly comes to experience himself in such a way that he, as it were, lives and weaves within thinking, is right inside the life and weaving of the images themselves, and now no longer looks at the images themselves at all, but at what he is doing. And in this process, a person must increasingly—I would say—become a “technician,” acquiring more and more inner practice, becoming attuned to what is happening within them as the life of ideas unfolds. And everything a person discovers within themselves in this way otherwise remains hidden between the lines of life. This is always alive within a person, but it does not rise to consciousness; the will is suppressed within the life of imagination. When one develops such inner vitality, such inner liveliness within oneself that one not only has ideas but enters with one’s own experience into this ebb and flow, into this coming into being and passing away of ideas, and if one can take this so far that one no longer brings the content of the ideas into one’s attention at all, but only this activity, then one is on the path to experiencing the will in the world of ideas—to truly experiencing something in the world of ideas that one otherwise does not experience in life. This means that, precisely if one faithfully adheres to what the scientific mode of thinking itself leads to, one must go completely beyond the way in which natural science conducts its research. One must, so to speak, not take what natural science investigates, but rather observe oneself engaging in scientific inquiry. And what is practiced in this way—and what can truly lead to success only if it is practiced for years (after all, all scientific results are achieved only through long, painstaking work)—what is achieved in this way is a true immersion of consciousness into a completely different world. What is achieved can only be experienced; it can be described, but it cannot be demonstrated externally—it can only be experienced. For what is achieved is, I would say, in practice precisely what the scientific way of thinking already points toward. This scientific way of thinking tells us: If I continue on my path, I come to a boundary; I go as far as I can still find something human. There I do not find a world in which there is will and feeling. — But this world, where one discovers feeling and will just as objectively as one otherwise discovers plants and minerals here, this world is found when, between the lines of one’s ordinary life of imagination, one can bring this inner experience of the ideas to life within the soul. Only now does one actually experience what one can otherwise only intuit. The natural scientist today will already be more or less inclined to say: It is blind superstition for anyone to claim that what is known in the physical world as thinking or imagining could somehow take place without a thinking apparatus, without a brain, without a nervous system. The natural scientist asserts this on the basis of his theory. One might easily believe—and amateurs in the field of spiritual research do believe—that spiritual research must prove the natural scientist’s assertion wrong. That is not the case. On the contrary, insofar as this assertion follows logically from scientific facts, the spiritual researcher stands firmly on the ground of natural science in this field. It is simply that the spiritual researcher actually experiences what the natural scientist treats as a theoretical concept. For when one experiences—in the world of the imagination—this weaving and living that I have alluded to, then one knows: Only now has one arrived at that point where the thinking apparatus can no longer provide anything. All the thinking one has done up to this point is bound to the thinking apparatus. Only now has one arrived at that inner experience, that inner weaving, which is no longer bound to the thinking apparatus.

[ 16 ] But at the same time, one has arrived at something that, when spoken of, naturally seems crazy at first in light of the familiar ways of thinking in the present. Yet everything that has ever emerged in science and had to find its place in the spiritual development of the world was, after all, crazy at first and then became self-evident. It seems crazy at first, but it is nevertheless a truth. By truly awakening this inner weaving and life within oneself, one has stepped outside the outer world—the one one experiences here on Earth between birth or, let’s say, between conception and death—one is outside it. One is in a world that cannot be experienced in the physical body. Rather, one is in the world to which one belonged before birth—or, let us say, when the spiritual-soul aspect had only just begun to gradually adapt itself to what had been given to it from the hereditary stream in terms of the physical, or what it gives itself—we will not go into that today. One is immersed in the forces that do not use the thinking apparatus to develop a life of imagination, but rather in forces that first form the thinking apparatus and only fully develop it, strictly speaking, in life after birth. For the inner nervous life—the inner nervous tissue—is only chiseled out and shaped in the course of the first few years and long beyond, once we have entered our physical existence. One is immersed in the forces that, as formative forces, shape this human being from within so that he can become what he is; so that he is a creation of his own spiritual-soul self. But one must not believe that one need not take this “being outside” in full—and I mean now, in practical—seriousness. For you see, out of a natural weakness of human nature, the spiritual researcher will time and again be required first to recognize what is immediately present—what is, I might say, more the confused spiritual aspect of the physical-sensory world. Here in the physical-sensory world, one comes to know things through the senses, But that which first shaped these senses themselves—that which, as the architect, underlies these senses—one comes to know this when one knows how to transport oneself beyond physical life into the time—in the manner that has been described—that preceded physical life and will follow it. One comes to know a world with which this world here bears, in essence, no resemblance. And in what I have described as the inner experience of thought activity rather than thoughts, a truly spiritual world opens up; in it, the world truly opens up in which human beings are together with other spiritual beings when they are not embodied in a physical body. This world that unfolds there is just as concrete and just as vividly perceptible inwardly as the outer, real, physical world. Only, as I have already explained here, something else must be added.

[ 17 ] We see that, in the path taken through thinking, everything comes down to a strengthening of thought, to an inner, powerful experience of thought. Thus, it is essential that, ultimately, the content of thought lie before this inner, powerful experience—of course, only in consciousness—and that the soul can truly experience itself in the weaving of imagination. But there must also be, as a parallel experiment, I might say, in our lives, a cultivation, a development of the element of will, of the elements of will and feeling. Now, while everything depends—in the development of thought into the spiritual world—on strengthening this thought inwardly, or, I would say, on experiencing it as such, everything in the other development of the will depends on developing the opposite qualities: serenity, composure; that one becomes capable of approaching what we call our actions—the manifestations of our will—in the very way one can learn to do so through the study of nature. Not that one becomes a cold person, drained like a lemon; one does not become that. On the contrary, everything that otherwise often remains unused—the deeper “temperament” and “affects”—truly comes to the fore in the soul when subjected to observation that arises from serenity and inner calm. Once one begins to practice—as Goethe, for example, practiced in observing plant and animal types—once one begins to observe the external world in such a way that one truly practices self-denial, and then does not pedantically or theoretically apply this to self-observation, but rather appropriates the corresponding affirmation and then turns the gaze, which one has sharpened through nature, turn it back upon oneself, then one finds the possibility of viewing one’s own inner life—insofar as it develops from will and feeling, from sympathies and antipathies, and flows into actions as impulses of the will— —one gains the ability to observe this inner life in such a way that one now stands beside oneself—not in a figurative sense, but truly—and consciously looks at this person, just as one might look at another person, or, as I said eight days ago: just as one carries one’s own life from yesterday in memory, because one does not alter it either. One observes this by drawing a consciousness out of ordinary consciousness. One truly arrives at the point where one can say to oneself: One remains still within the otherwise ceaseless stream of soul experiences that arise from feeling and will. By remaining still oneself, by attaining complete inner peace, by truly standing still—not going along with the emotions, not going along with the impulses of the will, and so on, but simply standing still with the soul—one naturally doubles oneself. For it would be a misfortune if, as I said, one were to become a squeezed-out human lemon, if one did not remain fully present within the whole temperamental being who now moves on; if one could not live along with all his emotions and temperaments. But the other one—whom I called the “spectator” in the previous lecture—remains still: through this, he remains there, and one’s own soul life truly begins to revolve around him, just as the planets revolve around the sun. It is all a spiritual process! It is difficult to learn this art of standing still, but one cannot observe the life of the will unless one can stand still. If one goes along with the flow of the life of the will, one is always caught up in everything. If one stands still, then one can observe it, because—if I may use a crude expression—it rubs against one, so to speak, as it passes by, as it moves away from one. But all this must not remain theory—remaining theory is of no use—rather, it must truly become an inner practice of life. Then it is no longer a mere image but reality that a second human being emerges from the first and unites with it. Just as, under certain conditions, oxygen combines with hydrogen, so too—as I have just described—the second human being unites with the person who has been grasped, the one who lives and weaves together with the life of imagination. And this is truly a human being who lives outside of thoughts. Whereas one used to discover in thoughts a spiritual, concrete world in which spiritual beings exist, just as animals and minerals exist here on earth, one discovers—when what I have just described is added, through the second human being’s state of calm in the face of impulses of will— — one does indeed discover that which constantly develops out of this spiritual world and into the physical world, finding its way to the physical; that which perpetually strives in the spiritual world to find a physical expression, either through union with the physical, as is the case with human or animal life, or through direct formation, as is the case, for example, with a crystal.

[ 18 ] And now, for inner experience, that which people today often regard as madness begins to become inner experience; what Lessing said, what he so beautifully expresses in his *The Education of the Human Race*, now begins to become experience. Now, having attained this inner stillness in relation to his life through impulses of the will, the human being knows that something lives within him that, on the one hand, sought to unite itself with this very body—because it developed such forces in the past as it is now developing again, as they now manifest themselves, and as they live within this body, just as the seed lives within the plant. And just as the seed in the plant is the source of a new plant, so what is now perceived within the human being is the source of a future life that will be realized when the period between death and birth—or a new conception—is completed. The idea of repeated earthly lives becomes a concept that is a true continuation of the scientific concept of evolution. And only those who cannot extend their thinking far enough to realize that what lives within the human being truly lives in that human being—insofar as he is a physical being—just as the plant seed physically lives within the plant for a new plant; that a spiritual-soul human being lives there in such a way that this spiritual-soul human being, I would say, first of all has its shell within the physical human being, but the germ is for a subsequent earthly life—only those who cannot think clearly enough, who cannot truly follow through on the ideas that already exist today and are also used in natural science, may fail to grasp the necessity of seeking, from the perspective of the scientific way of thinking, these eternal forces of the human soul, which are sought entirely in a scientific manner by first simply, I might say, taking science seriously at its word: that it must stand aside from the life of feeling and will, but will then penetrate precisely into this life of feeling and will by seeking it out where it otherwise remains unconscious—in thinking. And that, on the other hand, thought is sought out where it is otherwise concealed; for this thought is hidden in the will, into which it flows. But precisely by taking this natural science very seriously, these eternal forces of the human soul are revealed—forces that cannot be reached if one merely views the human being in such an abstract way and says to oneself: “Well, there must also be something eternal in this human being”—and extends the lines backward and forward for my sake; for that is not how one arrives at this eternal. These lines are not straight, continuous lines. Just as I—when I have a plant before me, and this plant forms the seed, and within the seed lies the potential for a new plant—must move from plant to plant, joining one link to the next, so too must I seek within the human being, in his present existence, that which leads him to his next life, and in that life the seed for yet another life will in turn be found. And likewise—when we attain precisely this second stage: tranquility in the life of the will—I would say, like another memory that dawns upon us, the retrospect of earlier earthly lives. Admittedly, most people will come to a halt quite early on if they are to undergo a form of inquiry that is not as comfortable as the study of external nature. There, one has the object or the experiment before one; there, one surrenders passively; there, one observes. No, the spiritual world cannot be observed in this way! The spiritual world can only be grasped if one truly transforms one’s inner self, making it alive to the spiritual world. For the physical world, one has one’s hands; for the spiritual world, one must first develop within oneself that which can grasp the spiritual world—like inner hands, like inner organs of perception. The researcher is always active, always at work, when he truly stands within the spiritual world.

[ 19 ] But then I said that people usually give up early; a path that is arduous will not easily lead to a successful conclusion. However, the desires that can be fulfilled through this exploration of the eternal forces of the human soul—many people certainly have such desires—for isn’t it “beautiful,” “infinitely beautiful,” to look back on past earthly lives? One sees time and again how people find this beautiful. Those who have gotten a little taste of what spiritual research is—and then call themselves spiritual researchers—we see time and again that they look back on their past earthly lives. These past earthly lives, of course, are those of significant people, whom one also finds when one opens a history book here or there. I once took part—as I’ve mentioned before—in a gathering at a café table in an Austrian city. There were gathered together: Seneca—no, Marcus Aurelius, the Duke of Reichstadt, the Marquise de Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, Emperor Joseph, and Frederick the Great. And all these people truly believed in their recollections of past lives!

[ 20 ] When one truly looks back, there is something unpleasant about it for ordinary desires. For this reflection truly satisfies nothing other than knowledge. And one must have a pure pursuit of knowledge if one wants to achieve anything at all in this field. If one does not have this pure pursuit of knowledge, then one cannot achieve anything. One cannot achieve anything even with regard to external nature unless one can develop precisely that selflessness—in both the positive and negative senses—of which I have spoken. But this must be taken even further if one wishes, for example, to develop the ability to look back on past earthly lives. And when this recollection arises in one’s own experience—first of all, it usually disappoints one in the sense that has just been explained; but it can never arise—this is simply a principle derived from experience—if one could in any way make use of what one learns through it in this present earthly life. I say: arise within oneself. So whenever a review of past earthly lives truly arises within oneself, it can only satisfy the intellect. It can never help anyone in any way to satisfy any desires in the earthly life in which one is currently living. So if someone believes they must know their past earthly lives in order to truly appreciate their place in the world, they will go very astray if they attempt to gain knowledge of these past lives through their own research. And in many other respects as well, the desires that anyone may have are very rarely satisfied in any way through genuine spiritual research.

[ 21 ] With regard to these wishes, the following must be noted, for example: First of all, anyone who enters the field of spiritual research as a layperson or dilettante—but of course anyone can do this; you can read about it in my book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* —who approaches it as a layperson—strives above all to see a great deal, to observe a great deal in the spiritual world. That is only natural and to be expected. And so they might then believe that the experienced spiritual researcher advises them to immerse themselves as much as possible and to devote all the time they have to spiritual research. The spiritual researcher who is aware of his responsibility and is knowledgeable will not do that at all. Nor will he practice this himself; rather, he knows that it is a great evil to withdraw ordinary thinking—the thinking one must apply in the outer world—from the outer world after becoming a spiritual researcher; that it is an evil to withdraw the thinking that is oriented toward the outer world and no longer wish to know anything about the outer world. If one becomes, so to speak, an ascetic of thought and uses all one’s thinking solely to delve into the spiritual world, one will in reality achieve nothing. One will become a fanciful brooder. One will experience within oneself something that could, I might say, border on some form of religious madness. But if one truly becomes a spiritual researcher, it is necessary to observe all precautions—and you will find them all listed in my book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* — in order to remain a reasonable person, the same reasonable person, as I said eight days ago, that one was before embarking on spiritual research—at least no less reasonable. And to achieve this, the spiritual researcher strives precisely to keep his interest alive in everything in the external world that can arouse his interest. Indeed, precisely when one is engaged in spiritual research and remains a reasonable person within that context, one will feel an ever-increasing need to broaden—not narrow—one’s horizons with regard to observing the world and participating in it, and to engage with as many aspects as possible that are connected to experiences, observations, and events in the external, physical world. For the more one is distracted from what one is currently striving to achieve, the better. In this way, one ensures that thinking is repeatedly—I would say—disciplined by the external, physical world and does not set off on the free course of flight that the soul can so easily take when it withdraws from the external world and buries itself as much as possible in that which it believes it is living in as a spiritually expanded state. So, interest—that is what, like an external, practical anchor, is an essential part of spiritual research.

[ 22 ] For this reason, beginners in spiritual science, in particular, will need to be advised not to make significant changes to their usual way of life, but rather to enter into spiritual science, as it were, imperceptibly, while maintaining this outward way of life. If one changes one’s outward way of life too drastically, the contrast—which must be great—between inner experience and experience of the outer world will be too small. Everything that is so often sought today by people who—well, how shall I put it—seek their salvation in withdrawing from the world, founding colonies, wearing long hair when one previously wore it short, or—if one previously wore it long as a lady—wearing it short afterward, or donning special clothing and so on, and also adopting different lifestyle habits—all of that is harmful. This is harmful because one demands two things of oneself: to become accustomed to a new way of life and, at the same time, to become accustomed to and settled into the spiritual world. But what I explained here eight days ago—which I tried to explain quite sharply—must remain true: Whereas in any pathological state that develops in consciousness, that pathological state is present and the rational human being is absent, in the development of self-consciousness for spiritual research, the old self must remain entirely as it is, and the other consciousness must stand alongside it—the two must always exist side by side. To put it simply: For the spiritual researcher, the developed consciousness—the experience of another world that he possesses—stands completely separate from what he otherwise is in the world.

[ 23 ] Nothing has changed in terms of who one used to be in the world; it is just as it was before. And one looks back on who one used to be in the world just as one looks back on yesterday’s experiences. And just as one can no longer touch those experiences of yesterday, so one does not touch upon what one was before entering the spiritual world. If one is a madman, or a hypnotized person, or someone who must be regarded as pathological in some other way, then one is that—and cannot at the same time be a rational person. For you will never discover that someone is both sane and a fool at the same time. This is precisely the crux of the matter: one can say that pathological consciousness is an altered consciousness; consciousness has undergone a metamorphosis. In the case of a true inner life in the spiritual world, consciousness has not undergone any metamorphosis at all; rather, the new consciousness has simply taken its place alongside the old. And that is the essential point: so that a person can truly grasp both states of consciousness in their entirety.

[ 24 ] Another—I would say—inconvenience in achieving such intellectual goals, as they have been stated, stems from the fact that, naturally, the scientific thinker becomes accustomed to remaining within his own field and wishes to encompass the entire world with what arises from that field; and therefore refuses—if he were to do so only for himself, it would not matter—to seek, as a worldview, that which lies precisely beyond his own conception of the world. All the greatness of ordinary life, even of practical life, and all the greatness of the natural sciences rests upon the mode of thinking that has developed over the course of the last three to four centuries. And for the most part, spiritual science does not regard what natural science contributes to life—including external life—as any less, but often as more; it is fully acknowledged by spiritual science. But spiritual science itself also knows that natural-scientific thinking—forgive me again for a trivial expression—is easy when one rejects what one needs as thought. Truly, it is already the case today that the invention of the experiment involves far more than the mere observation of what the experiment reveals. It is easy and convenient to derive thoughts from nature. This requires little inner activity. This activity cannot be compared at all to the activity required if one wishes to develop within oneself what has been discussed today. And so it happens that those who, in their consciousness, stand on the rigorous ground of science, but who, by instinct, surrender to the comfort of thought derived from observation, naturally say: Well, this is just something contrived and fanciful that comes from this spiritual science. But there is precisely this fact, which one must perhaps admit without arrogance or conceit: It takes a more discerning mind to grasp the truths of spiritual science. Yet they reveal themselves to a discerning mind, for example, even if the person to whom they are meant to be revealed has not become a researcher in the humanities. People today do not want to be believers in authority; but, hand on heart—I have said this many times before: How many people believe, even though they have never witnessed the corresponding experiment, that water can be decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen, or other things! For when one gets to the bottom of things, no era has been as permeated by a belief in authority as the present one, and no era has been as subject to dogma as the present one. Except that today one can say—as I stated decades ago in my introduction to Goethe’s scientific writings—that people believe in the dogma of experience, whereas in the past people accepted the dogma of authority. Just as one can apply in practical life, without having been in the laboratory oneself, what comes out of the laboratory, so too can one, through appropriate and truly rigorous thinking, apply to one’s worldview what the spiritual researcher brings to light and which he knows he has truly discovered within the spiritual world.

[ 25 ] These are some of the difficulties people face when it comes to spiritual research; yet many such difficulties could be listed. The main point is this: people very easily shy away from what must inevitably arise as a kind of spiritual disposition when one embarks on the path into the spiritual world. First of all—and I would like to present what I have to say in a sort of historical context—there are considerations regarding historical development. Most people say, for example: “Oh, there have been so many philosophers and philosophies in the world, and they’ve all claimed something different.” Oh, it’s best not to concern oneself with these philosophers and philosophies at all! But such a judgment arises only under the influence of the belief that one can grasp a philosopher only if one regards him as a dogmatist and not, I would say, as an inner artist of thought. One can grasp him as an inner artist of thought; then one will gain a great deal from him precisely when one studies him quite intimately, allows him to work on oneself quite intimately, and—if possible—believes nothing of what he says, then moves on to the next one and again sees a serious striving that lives within the pursuit of truth, and one becomes versatile. It is precisely through this that one will acquire a sense of being immersed in the spiritual world. However, one then comes to realize—precisely when one genuinely follows the paths of contemporary natural science—that everything one derives from observation and experiment is, at its core, an inner experience; and the external should never be called a law of nature or anything of the sort, but rather—as Goethe so magnificently put it—a primal phenomenon, a primordial manifestation. And when more is experienced in the outer sensory world, it is experienced through the activity of the inner self. Thinking must reach beneath the phenomenon. One cannot descend beneath the phenomenon without thinking. This requires an inner strengthening of thought, a truly powerful inner experience and continuation of the line of thought.

[ 26 ] Under the influence of the scientific way of thinking, this is not what one wants. Therefore, from this perspective, the scientific way of thinking today truly still retains something of the last remnants of ancient magic, as paradoxical as that may sound. Here it becomes clear to us that what we today call scientific experimentation and observation has developed in a straight line from ancient magic, where people believed that through rituals—and, in the course of these rituals, through the ceremonial practices on which they were based—they could somehow experience what they did not experience inwardly. They shuddered at the idea of inner experience. People did not want to go deep into things; instead, they wanted to be dictated to by the spirits outside—those that magically dwell within the phenomena—regarding what can be discovered solely by allowing inner experience to flow into the outer world. But all of this is just as if someone were to say: The hands of the clock move forward because a little demon sits inside it, a little elemental spirit. Admittedly, it’s only faintly perceptible today, but in scientific experiments, or when physiologists come along and dissect little frogs to examine their internal parts, you still feel in your heart that same shudder of awe before the mysteries of nature that was present in ancient sorcery. That, too, must be cast aside! One need not succumb to a sense of helplessness when expanding one’s thinking about nature. One must have the strength to truly reach beneath natural phenomena with one’s thinking. Among modern achievements—and they are all achievements, after all—this particular weakness reveals itself in what is commonly expressed as the desire to explore the spirit once again through external events, as people set out, for example, to sit around a table in order to seek the spirit through all manner of mechanical, again external means—not by immersing one’s own spirit in the essences of the world, but through external means. Of course, they seek the spirit only—well, let’s say—in knocking sounds or something else. That they might find it much closer if they considered that when eight people sit around the table, there are eight embodied spirits present who can be perceived differently from the very spirit that is knocking on the table through all sorts of nonsense—people do not think of that. And so, as the other side—as a grotesque counterpart—the opposite of experimentation has become the order of the day, where people truly seek the spirit in the crudest, most clumsy way possible through the very things they are trying to overcome.

[ 27 ] But there is another side to what is today commonly referred to as a “worldview.” It is only natural that, little by little, a certain reluctance has developed—I would say—to truly cultivate this inner activity of the soul, because it is regarded as something purely subjective. People believe that they are merely working out something subjective. That one finds the objective beneath the subjective—one only becomes aware of this when one truly delves into the matter. One shrinks back from truly developing the inner life. It would be just as if, before birth, one were to shrink back from developing arms and legs because one believed that in doing so one would bring something subjective into the world, and that arms and legs could never perceive anything objective. One shrinks back; one therefore does not want to unfold the inner self. One wants to develop only that which, as we have said, is rightly linked to the mere thinking apparatus. That is to say, one wants only to allow the thinking apparatus to work within oneself; one truly withdraws into an inactive life of imagination. And the consequence of this is that all sorts of worldviews develop—views on which one could actually find common ground with the modern psychiatrist, if only one were to adopt a completely objective, unbiased standpoint. One can, in fact, agree with the modern psychiatrist, for example, on what is today called monism. It is clear that those people who are monists in today’s crude, materialistic sense lack the courage to develop their inner activity; they merely allow their thinking apparatus to operate, and from that apparatus they can, of course, obtain only a reflection of the external physical world. If you open any book on psychiatry, you will find the definition of this phenomenon: a set of ideas arises that the person in question considers to be true, because he is not aware that they originate solely from the thinking apparatus; he regards these ideas as true in an absolute sense. In psychiatric terms, this is today called delusional ideas, as opposed to obsessive ideas. Many delusional ideas today constitute a worldview! If you examine the spiritual-scientific worldview, you will see that it cannot fall into either of these errors—neither into the superstition of the external view of nature, which is still based on something akin to magic—that is, superstition, nor can it drift into the realm of delusional ideas, because the spiritual researcher makes it perfectly clear to himself that what he generates internally for the purpose of exploring the world, he generates himself, brings forth himself, and also knows: he is permitted to generate it himself, to bring it forth himself. Then it can touch the external world. In this way, he can never fall into a worldview that would be nothing more than a delusion.

[ 28 ] But, as has often been suggested: The issues that have been discussed again today arise when the scientific way of thinking—as it has developed over the past three to four centuries—is continued. But it must be continued in such a way that the truth is not merely observed, but experienced. Therefore, a certain artistic sensibility that penetrates into the most spiritual life is a far better preparation for spiritual scientific experience than any other preparation. And one will therefore always find that the ascetic withdrawal from art—as is so often evident, particularly among people who strive to explore things spiritually—is a great evil; for it is indeed through this artistic realm that a person’s horizon is broadened by spiritual research. Hegel, for example, could not find a metaphysical significance in art. For him, art was merely the highest flowering of what develops here in the physical world. But for those who truly penetrate the spiritual world, it is clear: that which must remain imagination here, as long as it operates in the physical world as a human soul force, is in fact born of the spiritual; it is the physical image of the spiritual; it is the messenger who comes from the spiritual world. And if one can only grasp this supersensory mission of art, then one already has, I would say, a starting point for a truly living, atmospherically vivid penetration into the spiritual world. Otherwise, however, this spiritual science will continue to fare as every spiritual impulse has fared that has had to find its place in the spiritual development of humanity. I have often pointed out here that the vast majority of people were hostile toward the Copernican worldview—understandably so, for it contradicted all their established ways of thinking. Until then, people had believed: The Earth stands still; one stands firmly on the stationary Earth; the Sun moves; the stars move. Now, all of a sudden, one was supposed to rethink everything. And one cannot even say that this Copernicanism became significant precisely because it, as monism demands today, looked only at the external sensory world; for the external sensory world is precisely in harmony with what people had previously thought. The external sensory world itself shows us—for this sensory world itself—that the Earth stands still and the Sun moves. Copernicanism achieved something new precisely by contradicting sensory perception. And today we must arrive at something new by naturally contradicting the conventional conception of the soul—by recognizing that precisely that which we are so inclined to believe is, at first glance, something that can be described as an eternal power of the human soul—namely, thinking, feeling, and willing—that one designates precisely this as that which now proves to be an inner appearance, an inner reflection of what is truly eternal, and that what is truly eternal—the truly eternal forces of the human soul—lie beneath this appearance. And only when one deepens one’s imagination and thinking to such an extent that one moves beyond ordinary thinking to active thinking—where thinking becomes will (but will as experienced, not merely as contemplated, as in Schopenhauer), and where willing becomes thinking through the ability to interpret it calmly— only then does one discover the eternal powers of the human soul, and one becomes aware that one is this physical human being—I would say, entirely in accordance with a law of nature, only understood in a higher sense. One is this physical human being through being transformed by spiritual powers. In the natural sciences, everyone knows: when one rubs one’s hands together over a table, heat is generated. There, one believes in the transformation of forces. Today this is called the transformation of energies. The transformation of energies and forces also exists in the spiritual world. What we are otherwise in the spiritual realm is transformed into the physical. This transformation of the spiritual is exactly like the generation of heat through friction.

[ 29 ] All that will be necessary is a change in thinking habits. This is difficult for some people. For not only do they have thinking habits from which they cannot break free—these thinking habits have even solidified into concepts. And when someone today speaks of the continuation of the natural sciences—of a living continuation, as is meant here—then the person who is so deeply entrenched, so thoroughly entrenched in those habits of thought, looks on and says: “He wants to found a new religion; that’s perfectly clear—he wants to found a new religion!” One must find all of this understandable, take it for granted. And one will find it understandable if one allows one’s soul’s gaze to wander even a little over the course of humanity’s spiritual development. But from a certain point of view, spiritual science does, I would say, offer a certain satisfaction regarding what the best of humanity have strived for. Not a superficial satisfaction. People even fear this superficial satisfaction—which is, in turn, something that stands in the way of spiritual science. For example, there was once someone who objected: “Yes, this spiritual science wants to answer the questions, the mysteries of the world. Oh, how dreary life will be then, when all questions have been answered; for it is precisely in the fact that one can have questions that life lies.” — People who think this way would be surprised at what happens to them when they enter into true spiritual science! Of course, the complacent person believes that spiritual science is something like a spiritual morphine to soothe him. It is nothing of the sort. For the questions do not diminish, the mysteries do not diminish, but rather increase. Ever new and new mysteries arise. And if, as an ordinary materialist, one picks up Haeckel’s *The Riddle of the World* or his better works, then one will find answers! For the spiritual researcher, however, the questions are what come first; it is the questions that leap out at him. And he knows that the questions that arise for him are answered not by theories, but through experience. He looks upon a development of infinite perspective. And by raising questions, he actually enlivens the life of the soul, preparing it for the answers provided by ever-new events. Life becomes richer—infinitely richer—because the questions multiply. Yet again, this is an inconvenience for many who seek comfort rather than knowledge.

[ 30 ] But on the whole, the science of the spirit is indeed something that the finest people have sought, and something that even the young Goethe had in mind when he echoed a sage whom he keeps so hidden:

The spirit world is not closed off;
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Come, bathe, disciple, undaunted
Your earthly breast in the morning glow!

[ 31 ] Yes, one just has to find it, this dawn! Anyone who seeks it simply because they fear the sun will not find this dawn in the true sense. And that is the person who, as a spiritual researcher, would fear the whole, full, living human existence. Anyone who now wishes to retreat into some aesthetic cloud-cuckoo-land in order to find the spiritual world is like a person who seeks the dawn because they fear the sun—the sun shining in all its fullness. But one can also seek the dawn in another sense—in the sense that it is the afterglow of the sun, which always shines and which was already shining there before it rose for us to begin our day, for other realms, If one seeks the spiritual dawn in this way, then the spiritual insight thus revealed becomes a means, a tool for the realm from which one emerged before the transformation into physical human existence and to which one returns after the transformation of physical human existence—that spiritual power through which one truly and scientifically reveals to oneself the law of repeated earthly lives. Spiritual science then becomes the dawn that one experiences as a lingering glow of the Sun’s activity—an activity one cannot directly perceive by observing the solar radiance allotted to one in the realm in which one currently stands here in the physical world— to that solar radiance that spreads throughout the spiritual world, into which one enters precisely by having the courage and strength to step out of the sensory-physical world in order to enter another, and in this other world—which one can experience, in the sense that Hegel, in turn, correctly intuited when he said: “Oh, how wretched is the thought that seeks immortality only beyond the grave. If you seek the immortal, if you seek the eternal powers of the human soul, you can already find them. But they must be sought.”

[ 32 ] Because human beings are such dual beings, they can indeed discover the other side of their nature. And for those who, from the standpoint of ordinary monism, disapprove of the search for the eternal forces of the human soul—because this tears the soul apart into two parts—the following must always hold true: Indeed, is one no longer a monist if one admits that the “monon”—water—breaks down into hydrogen and oxygen, and must do so for the sake of knowledge, if one wishes to come to know it? One is truly no less a monist if one admits that true knowledge of the truly spiritual essence—that from which the “monon,” the unity, the wholeness of the human being arises—must be sought. But the one who embarks on such paths—as they have been attempted to be characterized today—can be certain that he loses nothing of what the world is to him and of what he himself can be in the world by entering the spiritual world; that what ensues is not an impoverishment of life, but an enrichment of life, and from this perspective, a higher fulfillment of life. Something new pulsates through the senses and the mind, through thought and the heart, when that which can be stirred—by the absence of fear of powerlessness and the absence of hesitation in the face of the courage required to transcend oneself inwardly—penetrates the senses, the mind, thought, and the heart. And that, in essence, is what the greatest minds have strived for.

[ 33 ] But just as everything else could only enter into the development of the spirit at a specific point in time, so too could spiritual science only emerge at a specific point in time. But no matter how much it may be opposed, no matter how hostile the attitude toward it, no matter how much it may be ridiculed or mocked, it will live on just as truly as other things that have been ridiculed and mocked have lived on. When the first person to say, “All life comes from life,” appeared, he expressed something for which he was, at the time, made to meet the same fate as Giordano Bruno. Today, it is taken for granted. Thus, in the world, truths in human perception transform from follies into self-evident truths. For many, spiritual science is a form of madness today. In the future, it, too, will share this fate—that of becoming a matter of course.