The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. Why is Spiritual Research Misunderstood?

[ 1 ] I have already taken the liberty of presenting some of the answers to the question: “Why is spiritual research misunderstood?”—in the lecture I gave here a few weeks ago on “A Healthy Spiritual Life and Spiritual Research.” Today I would like to address other points of view that can provide a more comprehensive answer to the question posed. Of course, in keeping with the general approach that my esteemed audience has come to expect from these lectures, it is not my intention today to address individual attacks—here and there—against what is referred to here as spiritual research. If, out of wounded pride or other motives, opposition arises here and there—perhaps even from the ranks of those who previously believed themselves to be staunch adherents of this spiritual science—these are matters which, upon closer examination, reveal just how insignificant such objections actually are in comparison to the great tasks that spiritual research must fulfill. Therefore, only here and there may it be necessary, for external reasons, to address one point or another. As I said, that is not my intention. My intention is to show how one can truly encounter difficulties in understanding the spiritual science referred to here—how, due to the spirit of the times, due to the habits of thought, feelings, and worldviews one can acquire from our present age—how all of this can make it difficult for the soul to grasp spiritual science. In a sense, I do not wish to explain the grounds for the unfounded objections, but rather those objections that, to a certain extent—one might say—are entirely justified given the spirit of the times—those objections that are understandable to a soul of the present.

[ 2 ] Spiritual science is not only confronted with objections arising from other contemporary intellectual currents; one can safely say that spiritual science today still faces opposition from almost all other intellectual currents in a certain way, precisely from the perspective just mentioned. When materialistic or mechanistic worldviews—or, as people today prefer to put it more elegantly, monistic worldviews—emerge, opponents arise who draw on a certain form of spiritual idealism. The reasons that such spiritual idealists put forward for their worldview against materialism are, as a rule, extraordinarily weighty and significant. These are objections whose significance the spiritual researcher can certainly share; he can certainly understand them and interpret them in the same way as one who proceeds solely from a certain spiritual idealism. However, the spiritual researcher does not speak of the spiritual world merely in the same way as, say, spiritual idealists of the ilk of Ulrici, Wirth, Immanuel Hermann Fichte—who, as we saw yesterday, does, however, delve deeper—and others. He does not speak merely in abstract terms, hinting that there must be a spiritual world beyond the sensory world; he cannot leave this spiritual world undefined, nor can he grasp it in mere concepts—he must move on to a concrete description of the spiritual world. He cannot content himself merely with a conceptual hint at a spiritual world that remains unknown—but which must exist, in the sense of the spiritual idealists—but must present a concrete spiritual world, one that emerges in descriptions of individual entities possessing not a physical but a purely spiritual existence; in short, there must be a spiritual world that is as diverse and as rich in content as the physical world is—indeed, it would actually have to be much, much richer in content if it were described in reality. And if, therefore, he does not merely speak of the existence of a spiritual world in general—one that can be proven through concepts—but if he specifically speaks of a spiritual world as something credible, as something just as perceptible as the sensory world is, then his opponents are not merely the materialists, but also those who wish to speak of the spiritual world only in abstract terms from the standpoint of a certain conceptual idealism. Finally, his opponents include those who believe that spiritual science could undermine some form of religious sentiment—those who believe that religion is endangered, that their own religion in particular is endangered, when a science of the spiritual world emerges. And one could certainly name many other individual currents that the spiritual scientist, in essence, must face opposition from in the manner indicated—and, understandably, still must face opposition from today. These are weighty objections, justified to a certain degree from a certain point of view; I would like to discuss them by name.

[ 3 ] And time and again, the first objection—one that is particularly significant in our time—to the endeavors of spiritual science comes from the perspective of the natural-scientific worldview, the worldview that seeks to shape a picture of the world based on the advances of modern natural science, which are rightly regarded as humanity’s greatest triumph. And time and again it must be said that it is difficult to see that the true researcher of the spirit, in fact, fundamentally denies absolutely nothing—not a single thing—of what justifiably follows as a worldview from the findings of modern natural science; that, on the contrary, he stands, in the fullest sense of the word, on the ground of this modern natural science itself, insofar as it provides a legitimate foundation for a worldview.

[ 4 ] Let us take another look today, from a certain perspective, at this newer scientific movement. Of course, we can only ever highlight individual aspects. We are faced, above all, with those people who rightly raise objections to spiritual science, because they say: Doesn’t modern natural science, through the marvelous structure of the human nervous system—and the human brain in particular—show us how what a person experiences psychologically depends on the structure and functions of this nervous system and this brain? And it is easy to believe that the spiritual researcher wants to deny what the natural scientist, from within his own field, must actually say. Only the amateur spiritual scientist—and those who wish to be spiritual scientists but who, in truth, can hardly lay claim to the dignity of an amateur—cause a great deal of harm here, because true spiritual science is constantly being confused with their charlatan-like or amateurish antics. It is difficult to believe that, for example, particularly with regard to the significance of the physical structure of the brain and nervous system, the spiritual scientist actually stands on even firmer scientific ground than the natural scientist himself.

[ 5 ] Let’s take an example. I am deliberately not choosing a more recent example, even though, given the rapid pace of modern science, many things change quickly and older research is easily superseded by later studies. I am deliberately not choosing a more recent example, which one could certainly do; rather, I am choosing the distinguished neuroscientist and psychiatrist Meynert, as I would like to take as my starting point what he had to say, based on his research on the brain, about the relationship between the brain and mental life. Meynert is a great expert on the human brain and the human nervous system, both in healthy and diseased states. His writings, which were particularly influential in his field at the end of the nineteenth century, must inspire the highest degree of respect in anyone who becomes acquainted with them—not only for the purely empirical research itself, but also for what such a man has to say about the question at hand. And this must be particularly emphasized: When people who have casually stumbled into some worldview purporting to be based on the humanities—without knowing anything, without ever having looked through a microscope or a telescope, or having done anything that would even remotely give them a chance to form a conception of this marvelous structure of the human brain, for example— when such people speak of the baseness of materialism, then it is understandable that, on the other hand—given the conscientiousness of research and the meticulousness of its methods—one does not want to engage at all with what is countered from the seemingly spiritual-scientific side. When someone like Meynert embarks on the study of the brain, he first discovers how this brain, in a complex manner — Meynert estimates about a billion — in its outer cortex consists of a billion cells, all of which work together, sending their extensions to the most diverse parts of the human body, sending their extensions into the sensory organs, where they become sensory nerves, sending their extensions all the way to the motor organs, and so on. It then becomes apparent to such a brain researcher how connecting fibers lead from one fiber system to another, and he then comes to the conclusion that what a person experiences as the world of imagination—what separates and connects for them in concepts and ideas when the external world makes an impression through their sense organs—is taken in and processed by the brain, and that the manner of this processing brings forth what is called mental phenomena. When even philosophers come along and say: “Yes, but mental phenomena are, after all, something entirely different from movements of the brain, from whatever processes occur in the brain,” — when even philosophers come along and speak this way, then one must counter that what emerges from the brain as mental life for such a researcher does not arise in any more miraculous way than, say, a clock—which one would not assume contains a special spiritual being that indicates the time; or, say, a magnet that attracts a body through its purely physical forces. What manifests itself as a magnetic field active around the physical object—why shouldn’t that, understood in terms of greater complexity, be the human soul life emerging from the brain? In short, one must by no means underestimate what comes from this side. One must by no means deny its validity under any circumstances without examining the matter more closely. One may scoff at the idea that this brain, through the unfolding of its processes, is supposed to produce what constitutes the most complex inner life; yet one likewise finds more than enough such processes in nature where one would not, from the outset, even consider speaking simply of an underlying inner life. Not by starting from preconceived notions, but by engaging with what is legitimate for people who have difficulty approaching spiritual research—only in this way, I would say, can order and harmony be created in the confused minds of worldviews.

[ 6 ] Thus, there is absolutely nothing to prevent the possibility that a purely mechanical process—insofar as it takes place within the mechanics of the brain and the nervous system—could produce what is commonly understood as “mental life.” The nervous system and the brain may be structured in such a complex way that the unfolding of their processes gives rise to human mental life. Therefore, no one can deny the validity of a scientific, materialistic worldview based solely on such an observation of nature. And it must be said that precisely because natural science has attained such perfection and such a well-founded ideal in its own field, it is actually difficult for the humanities today to stand in opposition to natural science—for the simple reason that the scholar of the humanities must have the capacity and ability to fully acknowledge precisely what is valid and legitimate on that side. For this reason, however, it must be emphasized again and again that a spiritual worldview can never—absolutely never—be created merely by compiling what can be set against the external observation of nature, even when it extends to our own human life. If one wishes to arrive at the life of the soul, then this life of the soul must be experienced within oneself; it must not flow from external processes; one must not say that the brain cannot produce the processes of the soul on its own, but rather one must experience the processes of the soul.

[ 7 ] In a certain realm, everyone can experience the spiritual—an experience independent of brain processes. This is in the moral realm, the realm of moral life. And here it is clear from the outset that what appears to human beings as moral impulses cannot arise from any sequence of mere brain processes. But I say explicitly: what can arise for a person as moral impulses—insofar as the will is at work there, insofar as feeling is at work there, insofar as the moral is experienced. Thus, in this realm, where the soul must grasp itself in its immediacy, anyone can come to realize that the soul has a life of its own, independent of physicality. However, not everyone has the ability to add to this inner grasping—to this inner strengthening in moral life—what Goethe, for example, added in the essay mentioned yesterday on “Contemplative Judgment,” but also in many other places in his works. Not everyone can say, as Goethe did from the deepest inner experience: If, even in the moral realm, one rises to impulses that act independently of the physical, why should this soul not be capable—with regard to other spiritual matters, as Goethe says in contrast to Kant—of “courageously enduring the adventure of reason”—as Kant called any going beyond sensory perceptions—“the adventure of reason”? That is to say, not only to transition to a spiritual-soul life by inwardly experiencing how moral impulses rise up from the depths of the soul—that they do not arise from brain activity—but also to have other spiritual experiences that bear witness to the fact that the soul perceives spiritually just as we perceive the sensory world with our sensory organs. But this requires that, alongside the ordinary life in the world—to which one passively surrenders—there be added another life: a life of inner activity, a life of inner action. And this is what many people today are losing, having become accustomed to having the truth dictated to them from somewhere else whenever they are called upon to address anything they regard as truth. People want to base themselves on something that is not an inner experience but appears from the outside, something that provides a firm foundation. What is experienced within the soul itself appears to them as something inwardly arbitrary, not firmly grounded in anything. What is supposed to be true must be firmly grounded in what is externally established, to whose existence one has contributed nothing oneself.

[ 8 ] This is indeed true when it comes to the field of natural science. One will only introduce all sorts of useless nonsense into natural science if, in addition to what the external senses provide and what can be derived from observed sensory data through experimentation or method, one adds all sorts of products of the imagination. This is entirely justified within the realm of natural science. But we will see shortly how little it is justified within the realm of spiritual science. But even if one accepts the validity of the scientific worldview, one can see how it is weakened by this unfamiliarity with drawing strength from within, how it becomes weak when it is called upon to perform an activity that is indispensable if one wishes to make even a little progress in spiritual science. To make progress in spiritual science, it is not necessary to engage in all sorts of nebulous activities, to train oneself to attain certain experiences that are clairvoyant in the ordinary sense of the word—through hallucinations, visions, and so on—that is not the first thing, nor is it the last; this was already discussed in the lecture on “A Healthy Soul Life and Spiritual Research.” But what is indispensable if one wishes to attain a deeper understanding—I will not say to become a justified adherent—of spiritual science is a thoroughly worked-out thought process, a truly thoroughly worked-out thought process. And the thorough working out of thought suffers greatly from the fact that we have become accustomed to observing only the outward form. Externally, in the sensory world, in external observation or in experimentation, we rely on what external nature reveals, and in this realm we accept what the experiment tells us. One does not dare—and again, one is right in this regard—to say anything as a general law that is not dictated from the outside. But this hinders the inner activity of the soul. People become accustomed to passivity; they become accustomed to trusting only in what is, so to speak, interpreted and revealed to them from the outside. And seeking truth through inner effort, through inner activity—that falls completely outside the habits of their souls. But it is necessary above all, when one enters the field of spiritual science, that one’s thinking be refined—that it be refined in such a way that nothing escapes one regarding certain easily raised objections that might be made; that one be able to raise these objections oneself, above all; that one anticipate what objections might be raised; that one raises these objections oneself in order to gain a higher perspective that would uncover the truth by taking the objections into account. Here I would like to draw your attention to an example—one among hundreds and thousands that could be cited—from Meynert. I do this for the reason that I have just mentioned to you that I regard Meynert as an outstanding scholar, so that no one might say I am trying to belittle people in any way here. When it comes to refutations, I do not choose people whom I hold in low esteem, but precisely those whom I hold in the highest regard.

[ 9 ] Here, Meynert presents us with his view of how, for example, the concept of space and time arises in human beings. Meynert argues as follows: Let’s assume—since this example is particularly relevant to us right now—that I am listening to a speaker. I will form the impression that his words are spoken one after another, in time. Where does this come from, asks Meynert, that one has the perception that the words are spoken one after another, in time? So you can now imagine that Meynert is speaking of all of you, who perceive my words in such a way that they appear to you one after another, in time. He says: Yes, this sense of time arises only through the brain’s perception; the fact that we think of one word following another arises only through the brain’s perception. The words reach us; they reach our sense organs; from these sense organs, they travel onward to the brain. The brain has certain internal organs through which it processes sensory impressions. And there—internally—the concept of time arises through certain organs. The concept of time is thus created there. And in this way, all concepts are created from within the brain.

[ 10 ] You can see from a certain remark in his lecture “On the Mechanics of Brain Structure” that Meynert does not mean merely something secondary; in it, he discusses the relationship between the external world and human beings. He states there that the ordinary, naive person assumes the external world exists exactly as he constructs it in his brain. Meynert says: The bold hypothesis put forward by realism is that the world as it appears to the brain would exist even before or after the existence of brains. However, the structure of the brain capable of consciousness—which makes it the agent responsible for shaping the world—leads to the negation of this hypothesis. That is to say: The brain constructs the world for itself. The world, as humans imagine it, as they perceive it before them as their sensory world, is created from within by processes of the brain. And so humans not only create images, but they also create space, time, and infinity. For all of this, says Meynert, certain mechanisms of the brain exist. From these, humans create, for example, time.

[ 11 ] It is a pity that in lectures such as these, which must necessarily be brief, one cannot always delve into every single transition in these lines of thought. That is why some things may seem obscure. But the true essence of this way of thinking will become apparent. For it must be said: As soon as one is on the path to viewing the brain as the creator of the life of the soul—as it initially exists in human beings—then what Meynert says here is entirely justified. This is the path one must take; one must arrive at this conclusion. And one can only avoid such a conclusion if one’s thinking is so well-developed that the often very simple counterarguments immediately strike a chord within one’s soul. Just think what the conclusion would be if Meynert’s argument were correct: You are all sitting here, listening to what I am saying. Because of the structure of your brains, what I am saying is organized for you in time. Not only does your auditory nerve convert this into auditory images, but what I am saying is even organized for you in time. So you all have a kind of dream-like image of what is being said here—including, of course, the person standing here before you. As for what lies behind this, naive realism, according to Meynert, assumes that there is a person standing there, just like you, who is saying all of this. But there is no necessity for this; for you create this person and his words in your own brain; there could be something entirely different behind it.

[ 12 ] The simple thought that inevitably comes to mind—that it does, after all, matter that, for example, I now arrange my own ideas in time, so that time does not merely exist in your brain, but that time already exists within it as I place one word after another—this easily grasped thought does not occur at all if one keeps drilling deeper in a certain direction. So the fact that time has an object, that it exists out there—one can see this very easily in the case I have cited for you. But once someone is locked into a very specific line of thought, they do not look to the left or to the right; instead, they continue in their chosen direction and arrive at incredibly astute, highly remarkable conclusions. But that is precisely not what matters. Any astute conclusions that may emerge in the course of such a train of thought can be rigorously proven; the proofs can be rigorously interlinked. You will not be able to discover a single flaw in Meynert’s reasoning anywhere if you follow his train of thought. But what matters is that thinking is worked through so thoroughly within itself that counterexamples come to mind, that thinking finds within itself what throws the entire stream out of its bed. And making thought so agile, so active, is precisely what prevents the otherwise very justified immersion in the external world—the kind that the natural sciences must strive for. Therefore, as you can see, what we have here is not a subjective difficulty but a wholly objective one, arising from the nature of our times. One can experience this in all manner of fields.

[ 13 ] How the philosophers have been gnawing away at that old Kantian phrase for well over a hundred years, with which he seeks to upend the concept of God. If one merely conceives of a hundred talers, they are not a single taler less than a hundred real talers. One hundred imagined, one hundred possible talers are exactly the same as one hundred real talers! Kant’s entire refutation of the so-called ontological proof of God is based on this: that, conceptually and mentally, one hundred possible talers contain everything that one hundred real talers contain. Now, anyone with a flexible mind will immediately raise the most decisive objection: for those with a flexible mind—that is, a mind capable of elaborate thought—a hundred imagined talers are precisely one hundred talers less than a hundred real talers! They are exactly one hundred talers less. The point is precisely to draw one’s attention to how one ought to think, not merely to the fact that what one thinks can be logically proven. Of course, Kant’s web of ideas is so firmly grounded that logical errors within it can be demonstrated only with the utmost acumen. But what matters is that one does not merely keep in mind what arises within certain familiar currents of thought, but that one’s thinking is so well-developed that one is truly immersed in the objective world with one’s thinking—that one is not merely immersed in oneself with one’s thinking, but in the objective world, so that counterexamples flow toward one from the objective world itself. Only a well-developed way of thinking can reach the point where such counterexamples flow toward it, and only in this way does one’s thinking attain a certain kinship with the thinking that objectively pulses and sweeps through the world.

[ 14 ] I said that what matters is, in a sense, to grasp the soul in action. That what is really at stake is this: when a person wants to grasp the soul, they must not merely draw conclusions based on the idea that it is impossible to develop a life of the soul out of the brain and its processes; rather, this life of the soul must be experienced directly, independently of brain activity. Only then can one speak of soul life. Today, people view this very inner, active experience as if something were merely being constructed internally in the imagination, whereas the true researcher of the soul knows exactly where imagination ends and where, through the development of one’s own soul life, that which begins—where one is not spinning fantasies out of imagination, but has connected with the spiritual world and draws from the spiritual world itself—that which one then shapes into words, concepts, ideas, or images. Only in this way will the soul be able to attain knowledge of itself.

[ 15 ] I will now have to present to you a view that may seem quite paradoxical, but one that must nevertheless be expressed, because it is the only way to truly shed light on the essence of spiritual research. Based on what I said earlier, you can already see that the spiritual researcher is by no means averse—nor can he be averse—to the assumption that the brain generates certain ideas on its own, so that whatever may arise in the life of the soul without inner cooperation can truly be nothing more than a product of the brain. And a certain habit, which has arisen precisely through modern education, consists of the following: For the reason I’ve indicated, people become reluctant to seek, through inner activity, anything they are supposed to regard as true. They dismiss all of this as fantasy or daydreaming, and then they apply this not merely theoretically in their views, but practically to the point where they actually shut out what the soul develops within itself—shutting it out as much as possible in their work toward forming a worldview. When one excludes the life of the soul in this way, the ideal that emerges is the image of the materialistic worldview. What is one actually doing when one excludes this inner life? Indeed, when one excludes this inner life, it is roughly as if one were to separate one’s physical life from the life of the soul. Just as the watchmaker who has worked on the watch, who has woven his thoughts into it, leaves the watch to its own devices once it is finished, and the watch itself then produces the phenomena that were first placed within it by the watchmaker’s thoughts—so, in fact, the life of the soul can continue, can continue in the brain, without the soul being present. And this is precisely what people are becoming accustomed to under the current educational system. They are becoming accustomed not only to denying the soul, but in fact to shutting it out; in short, not to engaging with it through inner activity, but to resting on the cushion of what is produced solely by the brain. And the paradox I wish to point out is that the purely materialistic worldview, as it appears, is in fact a product of the brain—that it is, in fact, automatically generated by the brain’s own activity. As the external world is reflected in the brain, setting the brain passively in motion, this materialist worldview arises. The curious thing—the peculiarity—is that the materialist is actually quite right in his own eyes, provided he has first set aside the life of the soul. Because he has settled onto the cushion of pure cerebral life, nothing else can appear to him but that very cerebral life, which now generates spiritual life out of itself, just as the naturalist Carl Vogt crudely put it in a metaphor: “The brain sweats out thoughts just as the liver sweats out bile.” — The thoughts that arise in the realm of materialism are, indeed, “sweated out.” The image is crude, but they have indeed arisen from the brain, just as bile flows from the liver. This is how errors arise. Errors do not arise simply by saying something false, but by saying something true that applies within a limited field—a field that one wishes to be the only one that exists.

[ 16 ] The materialistic worldview arises from the tendency not to exert one’s thinking, not to delve deeply into it—as has been explained here, particularly in the most recent lectures—and not to stimulate one’s inner spiritual life; it arises from this tendency to simply surrender to what the body is capable of. The materialistic worldview does not arise from a logical error, but rather from the mind’s tendency to refrain from any inner activity whatsoever and to surrender entirely to what the physical body dictates. Herein lies the secret of the difficulty in refuting materialism. If the person who does not wish to engage his inner life rules out such engagement from the outset and, deep down, finds it more convenient to produce only what the brain produces, then it is no wonder that he remains stuck in the realm of materialism. He cannot, however, acknowledge that this brain itself—thank God he has it, for he would not be able to form it with all his materialistic worldview!—that this brain itself is created out of the wisdom of the world and that, because it is created and built up from the wisdom of the world, it is arranged in such a way that it, in turn, can function just as a clock continues to function; so that it can be entirely material and continue to produce through itself. This wisdom is a kind of phosphorescence, a phosphorescence that exists within the brain itself; it brings forth what has already been spiritually implanted within it. But the materialist need not concern himself with this; rather, he simply entrusts himself to what, emerging from the spiritual, has—I might say—condensed into matter and now, like the workings of a clock, dispenses spiritual products.

[ 17 ] You see, the researcher of the spiritual realm stands so firmly on the ground of a valid view of nature that he is compelled to say something that might seem as paradoxical to some people as what has just been said. But you can see from this that one must already get to the heart of spiritual science if one wishes to judge it. And it is also understandable—because what can be said here is so well-founded—that so many objections and misunderstandings arise. Serious spiritual research is all too easily confused with everything that is pursued in an amateurish manner—and which, outwardly, can very easily be mistaken for true, thorough spiritual research. I, in particular, have often been criticized for the fact that the writings I have produced on spiritual science are, as they say, not popular enough; that even the lectures I give here are not popular enough. Well, I neither write my works nor give my lectures on this subject to please anyone, to speak to anyone’s heart exactly as they might wish; rather, I write my works and give my lectures as I believe they must be written and given so that spiritual science can be properly represented to the world. Spiritual science has, of course, existed in earlier times as well—I have mentioned this often—although spiritual science had to change with the progress of humanity and arose from different sources back then than the spiritual science of today. From the very beginning, only those deemed ready were admitted to the venues where spiritual science was presented. Today, such an approach would be completely nonsensical. Today we live in public life, and it goes without saying that what is researched must be brought into public life; that any secrecy or the like would be folly. This secrecy can be nothing more than what is otherwise present in public life today: that those who have already worked through a certain amount of material are then offered the opportunity to hear further insights in more intimate lectures. But this is also done at universities; it is the case throughout public life. And when people speak of some kind of secrecy in this context, it is just as unjustified and equally unfounded as when they speak of secrecy in university lectures. But so that not everyone who is unwilling to make the effort to delve into the subject—and who instead turns to so-called popular writings that suit their tastes—can delve into it, or rather, believe they can delve into it, the writings are composed and the lectures delivered in such a way that some effort is required and one must already engage in a certain amount of thinking on the path toward the esoteric science. I am fully aware of how “prickly” and scientific some of what I present is for those who do not want such “prickly” scientific content. But this is necessary so that spiritual science can take its rightful place within the spiritual culture of the present. It is no surprise, then, that when here and there—in smaller or larger circles—people engage in spiritual science who have no idea of the advances of science in our time and yet wish to present themselves with a certain authority, spiritual science is then denigrated by scientists. Thus, even in the form and manner of these communications, something special, something significant must be recognized. This must be seen in the fact that inner activity—the activity of the soul—is necessary in order to perceive how the true soul lives as something that makes use of the body as an instrument, yet is not identical with the physical.

[ 18 ] Well, if you look at all this properly: Where do these misunderstandings® come from? So when the soul develops—when it develops the powers lying dormant within it, as has often been explained here—then the first of these dormant powers is the power of thought, which must be developed in the way that has just been indicated once again. If the soul wishes to develop the powers lying dormant within it in this way, it needs a certain inner strength, a certain inner power. It must exert itself inwardly. This inner exertion is something people, particularly under the influence of the present age, do not like. Artists are still the ones most likely to appreciate it. But even in the realm of art, we have already progressed so far today that people would prefer simply to copy nature and have no idea that the soul must summon its inner strength, must work something out within itself, in order to add something special and new to what mere nature is. The power of thought, then, is the first thing that must be strengthened. Then, as the lectures of the past few weeks have shown, feeling and will must also be strengthened. And this development of strength—that is what people actually mean when they say: “Yes, in this spiritual science, everything arises solely through inner processes.” People shy away from the idea of developing anything through inner processes, and they fail to recognize the considerable difference that must exist between the perception of external nature and the perception of the spiritual world.

[ 19 ] Let us take a good, hard look at this difference—a difference that is truly significant. What difference are we seeing here? With regard to the external world, our organs are already given to us. The eye is given to us. But Goethe once uttered these beautiful words: “If the eye were not sun-like, how could we perceive the light?” Just as it is true that you would not hear me if I did not speak—that you must first meet me with your listening in order to understand what is being said—so it is true for Goethe that the eye arose from the sunlight itself, albeit indirectly through all manner of hereditary and complex natural processes, the eye has arisen—that the eye not only creates light in the Schopenhauerian sense, but is itself created by the light. This must be noted. But one might say: Thank God for those who wish to be materialists: they no longer need to create their own eyes, for these eyes are created out of the spiritual realm; they already have them, and as they perceive the world, they use these already formed eyes. They direct these eyes toward external impressions, and the external impressions are reflected; with their whole soul, they are reflected in the sense organs. Let us suppose for a moment that human beings, with their present consciousness, could only witness the formation of the eye. Let us assume that. Let us suppose that a human being enters nature as a child, possessing only the predisposition for eyes. The eyes would first have to emerge through the influence of sunlight. What would occur during the human being’s growth? What would occur is that, through the rays of the sun—which the human being cannot yet see—the eyes would be drawn forth from the organism, and as the human being senses, “I have eyes,” he feels the light within the eye. Because he recognizes the eye as his own, as part of his own organism, he feels the eye alive within him in the light. This is essentially how it is today with sensory perceptions as well: a person experiences himself by experiencing in the light—with his eye in the light, he experiences what has developed in sensory perception, where we—as I said, thank God—already have eyes.

[ 20 ] But this must also be the case in spiritual research. There, the organic must truly be drawn out of the still unformed soul; there, spiritual hearing and spiritual seeing must first be brought forth. The organic aspect—the spiritual eye, so to speak, the spiritual ear—must first be drawn forth from within, to use Goethe’s expressions again and again. One must truly feel one’s way into the spiritual world through the development of one’s soul, and then, by feeling one’s way within it, one forms the organs, and through these organs one experiences the spiritual world just as one experiences the physical-sensory world through the organs of the physical body. So first, one must create what human beings already possess here for sensory perception. One must have the power to first create the organs in order to experience the spiritual world through them.

[ 21 ] This is countered by what—and it is truly nothing else—can be called the inner weakness of human beings produced by today’s education. Weakness—that is what holds people back from taking their inner life—it’s a silly expression to say “taking it into their hands,” but let’s say it anyway—taking their inner life into their hands in such a way that it is truly as active inwardly as it would be if a person were first to create hands in order to touch the table. In this way, they create their inner being in order to touch what is spiritual, and with the spiritual they touch the spiritual. It is weakness, then, that prevents people from advancing to true spiritual research. And it is weakness that gives rise to the misunderstandings that stand in the way of spiritual research—an inner, psychological weakness that prevents one from seeing any possibility, since one is still caught up in Faustian thinking—of transforming inner reality into inner spiritual organs in order to grasp the spiritual world. That is one thing.

[ 22 ] And there is a second point that one can already grasp, if only one is willing to do so: Human beings always have a strange feeling when faced with the unknown; above all, they feel fear in the face of the unknown. Now, first of all, everything that can be experienced in the sensory world is, in a certain sense, a complete unknown—something that not only can be explored in the spiritual world but must also be addressed when speaking of the spiritual world. One feels fear toward the spiritual world, but a fear of a very special kind—namely, a fear that does not rise to consciousness. And how does the materialistic, mechanistic—or, as one would say more “culturedly” today—monistic worldview arise? It arises because there is a fear in the soul of breaking through sensuality, for one fears precisely that, if one breaks through sensuality to the spiritual, one will enter the unknown, into nothingness, as Mephistopheles says to Faust. And Faust says: “In your nothingness I hope to find the whole.” Fear of what one can only sense as nothingness—but a masked fear, a fear that wears a mask! One must first acknowledge that there are subconscious or unconscious soul processes—processes that thrive deep within the life of the soul. It is strange how people deceive themselves about so many things. For example, a very common delusion is this: one does not admit to oneself that what one actually wants—out of sheer, thick-as-a-club selfishness—is wanted out of selfishness. Instead, one invents all sorts of excuses about how selflessly, how lovingly, one wants to do this or that. They thus spread a mask over their selfishness. This occurs particularly frequently, for example, in societies that come together specifically to cultivate love. Indeed, one could frequently conduct studies on such masking of selfishness. I knew a man who declared time and again that what he was doing, he was doing entirely against his true intentions and against what he loved; he did it only because he considered it necessary for the salvation of humanity. I had to tell him again and again: “Don’t kid yourself! You’re doing this out of selfishness, because it pleases you, and it’s actually better to admit the truth to yourself. Then you stand on the ground of truth when you admit to yourself that you enjoy the things you want to do, and you don’t put on such a mask.”

[ 23 ] It is fear that leads to the rejection of spiritual science today. But people do not admit to this fear. It lies deep within the soul, but people do not allow it to rise into consciousness; instead, they invent reasons—arguments against spiritual science—and evidence to support the claim that a person must immediately slip into fantasy the moment they leave the solid ground of sensory perception, and so on. Indeed, people invent very complicated arguments. They construct entire philosophies, which in turn may be logically irrefutable. People invent entire philosophical worldviews that, for those who have insight into such matters, actually mean nothing other than that everything they invent—be it transcendental realism, empiricist realism, more or less speculative realism, metaphysical realism, or whatever these “-isms” may be called—stems from fear. People invent these “-isms,” which are elaborated from very rigorous lines of thought. But they are, at their core, nothing other than the fear of setting the soul on the path that leads to experiencing, in its concreteness, what one perceives as the unknown. These are the two main reasons for the misunderstanding of spiritual science: weakness of the soul life, and fear of the supposed unknown. And anyone who understands the human soul can analyze today’s worldviews in this light. On the one hand, they arise from the inability to strengthen one’s thinking to the point where opposing viewpoints are met with equanimity; on the other hand, there is the fear of the unknown. In fact, people sometimes go so far as to say that, because they are afraid to penetrate the so-called unknown, they prefer to leave the unknown as unknown, and many say: “Yes, we admit: behind the sensory world lies a spiritual world, but human beings—we can prove this conclusively—cannot penetrate it.” Most people then begin, when they want to prove a point, by saying, “Kant already said,” because they always assume that the person to whom they say, “Kant already said,” understands nothing at all about Kant. People thus invent proofs that the human spirit cannot penetrate the world that lies beyond the sensory realm. These are merely excuses—however ingenious they may be—excuses born of fear. Yet they do assume that something lies beyond the sensory realm. They call this the unknown and would rather establish agnosticism—in the Spencerian sense or in some other sense—than find the courage to truly lead their souls into the spiritual world. |

[ 24 ] Recently, a peculiar worldview has emerged—the so-called “as-if” worldview. Indeed, it has also found its way into Germany: Hans Vaihinger has written a thick book on the “as-if” worldview. In this “as-if” worldview, it is said: One cannot claim that concepts such as the unity of one’s consciousness truly correspond to reality; rather, one must first regard the phenomena of the world as if there were a unified soul, as if there were something underlying it that is conceived as a unified soul. Atoms—the “as-if” philosophers certainly cannot deny that no one has ever seen an atom and that one must conceive of the atom precisely in such a way that it cannot be seen, for even light is said to arise only through the vibrations of the atom. So the “as-if” philosophers have at least gone so far as to refrain from speaking of that fanciful nonsense about the atomic world that still haunts us here and there. But they say: Well, it simply makes it easier to conceive of the sensory world if one thinks of the sensory world as if atoms were there.

[ 25 ] Anyone who has an active inner life will notice the difference between moving within a spiritual reality—within the unified fabric of the soul—with that active inner life, and merely asserting a concept within an external, intellectual realism, as if the phenomena of human activity were encompassed by a single soul entity. At least if one truly stands on the practical ground of worldviews, one will not be able to apply “as-if” philosophy effectively. For example, Fritz Mauthner is a philosopher highly regarded today, who is indeed viewed as a great authority precisely because he has finally “over-Kantianized” Kantianism. While Kant still conceived of concepts as something by which reality is summarized, Mauthner sees language alone as the very medium in which the worldview is actually contained. And so he has now successfully produced his *Critique of Language* and written a thick *Philosophical Dictionary* from this perspective, and above all, he has gained a following that regards him as a great man. Well, I do not wish to go into detail about Fritz Mauthner today; I will merely say this: One could now attempt to apply the “as-if” philosophy to this Fritz Mauthner. One could say: Let us leave open the question of whether the man possesses intellect or genius, but let us consider what he is intellectually as if he did possess intellect. One will see, if one sets to work sincerely, that one cannot succeed in this. The “as-if” cannot be applied where the thing itself is not present.

[ 26 ] In short—and it is necessary to say this once again—one must address the very essence of spiritual science itself and, precisely within spiritual science, recognize what spiritual science must acknowledge as valid on the very ground where misunderstandings can arise. For just as true as it is that these misunderstandings are, on the one hand, misunderstandings, it is equally true, on the other hand, that these misunderstandings are nevertheless justified if the humanities do not fully possess the capacity to think along the same lines as the natural scientist. The scholar of the humanities must indeed be able to think along with the natural scientist. Indeed, he must even be able to scrutinize the natural scientist from time to time—and particularly those who always emphasize that they stand on the solid ground of natural science. However, even if one sometimes examines—albeit only superficially—the state of affairs regarding a seemingly purely positivist worldview that rejects everything spiritual, the following becomes apparent. As you know, I do not underestimate Ernst Haeckel; where appreciation is warranted, I fully acknowledge him. But when he speaks of worldview, it is precisely in him that one sees that weakness of the soul’s life which is incapable of pursuing anything other than the single current he has set in motion. And this brings us, for example, to what must be emphasized time and again when one stands on the ground of serious work in the present. One encounters the infinitely widespread superficiality of thought and the sheer falsity of life. There, for instance, one sees how Ernst Haeckel points out that one of the greatest figures to whom he himself wishes to refer is Karl Ernst von Baer. And time and again we find Karl Ernst von Baer cited as a man who is supposed to serve as proof for the purely materialistic worldview that Haeckel derives from his research. How many people now go about seeking insight into what actually lies at the heart of today’s scientific enterprise—how many people now go about and grapple with such matters? How many people stop to consider, when reading Haeckel, that Karl Ernst von Baer can be regarded as someone who speaks in the way Haeckel infers from his work! Naturally, one then believes that Baer says exactly what Haeckel can infer from it. Well, I’d like to read you a few passages from Karl Ernst von Baer: “The physical body is merely the seedbed on which the spiritual heritage of humankind flourishes, and the history of nature is not merely the history of the spiritual’s progressive triumphs over matter. This is the fundamental idea of creation, for the sake of which—no, in order to achieve which—it causes individuals and generations to fade away and builds the future upon the framework of an immeasurable past.”

[ 27 ] The person whom Haeckel constantly cites as an example of his way of thinking has a wonderfully spiritual view of the world! One must keep pace with scientific development. If that were the case even a little today among those who claim to be called to this work, we would not have to struggle so terribly against the superficiality that gives rise to the countless prejudices and errors which, as misunderstandings, then stand in the way of such an endeavor as spiritual science.

[ 28 ] Or let’s take a look at a truly honorable man in the ideological pursuits of the nineteenth century: David Friedrich Strauss, an honorable man—after all, they’re all honorable! Having started from other perspectives, he ultimately wishes to stand firmly on the ground that the spiritual is merely a product of the physical-material. Human beings have emerged entirely from what contemporary materialism calls “nature.” When one speaks of volition, there is no real volition present; rather, brain molecules are somehow circulating, and from this arises volition as a kind of mist. Yet David Friedrich Strauss says: “In human beings, nature has not merely striven upward in general; it has willed to transcend itself.” That is to say: Nature wills! To be a materialist, one has reached the point of no longer even taking one’s own words seriously. One denies that human beings possess volition because human beings are supposed to be like nature, and then claims that nature itself has willed. One can, of course, easily overlook such matters. But anyone who takes the pursuit of a worldview seriously will surely recognize that in such things lie the sources of countless aberrations and that these ideas take root in the public consciousness. And from what then arises from this taking root come the misunderstandings regarding true spiritual science and true spiritual research.

[ 29 ] And from the other side come the objections raised by those who adhere to this or that religious creed, who believe their religion is endangered by the advent of a spiritual science. I must emphasize again and again: It is people of exactly the same mindset who opposed Copernicus, Galileo, and so on, arguing that religion would be endangered if one had to imagine that the Earth revolves around the Sun. All one can ever say to these people is: How timid you actually are within your own religions! How little you have grasped your religion if you immediately fear that it might be endangered whenever anything is investigated! Here I must mention again and again that theologian—who remained a good theologian and a devout follower of his church, with whom I was friends—who was elected rector of the University of Vienna in the 1890s and who, in his inaugural address, which he delivered on Galileo, said: There were once people—as we know, within a certain religious community such people existed right up until the year 1822, when it was finally permitted to believe in the Copernican worldview!—there were once people who believed that something like the Copernican or Galilean worldview could endanger religions. Today, said this theologian—this devout priest and lifelong follower of his church until his deathbed—we must have reached the point where we find our faith deepened and strengthened precisely by gazing into the glory of the Divine’s works and by learning to recognize them more and more. That was a Christian perspective!

[ 30 ] But more and more people will come forward who say: Yes, this spiritual science says this or that about Christ; one must not say that. We imagine Christ to be this way or that way. One can then even go up to these people and say: What you claim about Christ, we certainly accept—exactly as you say it. We just see a little more. We do not regard this Christ merely as a being, as you do, but as a being—indeed, as a cosmic being—who gives the Earth meaning and significance within the entire universe. But one must not do that. One must not go beyond what certain people regard as correct. Spiritual science provides insights. Through the knowledge of the truth, one can never in any way seek to establish what is called a “religious creation,” even though there will always be fools who say that spiritual science aims to found a new religion. Spiritual science does not aim to found a new religion. Religions are founded in an entirely different way. Christianity was founded by its founder through the fact that Jesus Christ lived on Earth. And just as no science will seek to justify the Thirty Years’ War once it recognizes it, so too will it not seek to justify anything else that actually existed. Religions are based on facts—on events that have actually occurred. Spiritual science can only claim to understand these facts differently, or perhaps not even differently, but simply to understand them in a higher sense than is possible without spiritual science. But it is equally true that by understanding the Thirty Years’ War—even from the highest vantage point—one does not in any way justify anything in the world that is connected to the Thirty Years’ War; just as little is any religion justified by what spiritual science is meant to grasp. It is always superficiality that sometimes feels limited even in one’s feelings and refuses to engage with the things that are actually at stake. If one were to engage with spiritual science, one would recognize that, while the materialistic worldview easily leads people away from religious feeling and religious deepening, spiritual science actually establishes within the human being precisely that which can be a deeper religious experience, but does so because it lays bare the deeper roots of the soul and thereby leads people in a deeper way to experience what has emerged historically as religion. Spiritual science will not establish a new religion. It knows all too well that Christianity once gave meaning to the earth. It will merely attempt to deepen this Christianity even further than others—who do not stand on the ground of spiritual science—are able to do. From materialism, however, something of this nature has emerged, as David Friedrich Strauss, for example, concluded when he called the belief in the Resurrection a hoax and then said: The Resurrection had to be contrived, for Christ Jesus spoke many noble things, many truths. But, according to David Friedrich Strauss, simply speaking truths does not make a particular impression on people; one must embellish them with a great miracle—the miracle of the Resurrection. This would mean that all Christian development is, after all, the result of a hoax! That, however, is what materialism has produced. That is not what spiritual science will produce! Spiritual science will attempt to grasp, from its very foundations, precisely that which lives in the mystery of the Resurrection, in order to present to humanity—which has now advanced and can no longer comprehend it in the old way—that which materialism has called a hoax, in the proper light. But the intention here is not to engage in religious propaganda, but merely to draw attention to the significance of spiritual science and to the misunderstandings that stand in its way—misunderstandings that stem from a supposedly religious way of life.

[ 31 ] Today, people are not yet at the point where materialism has already produced serious moral consequences on a broad scale, but it would soon do so if people are unable to penetrate, through spiritual science, back into the spiritual, self-acting foundations of soul life. Spiritual science will also play a significant role in providing humanity with what it needs for moral life—something that can offer people a rebirth on a higher level of that moral life.

[ 32 ] These matters can only be characterized in general terms. Time does not permit a detailed description of them. I have endeavored at least to characterize some of the misunderstandings that arise time and again whenever spiritual science is evaluated. I would really rather never engage with what stems from the overall superficiality of our time—at least not in the sense of refuting anything. At most, one might occasionally engage with it simply to provide a little something to smile or perhaps even laugh at.

[ 33 ] As I said, one cannot give in to the kind of superficiality that is spreading today and that, in a certain sense, sets the tone—because ink on white paper still exerts a powerful magical effect—one cannot give in to this superficiality. But one must nevertheless speak of it, insofar as the objections that are raised—even if they mean absolutely nothing—take root in the public consciousness. And the misunderstandings that arise from this indoctrination are precisely what anyone who takes something like spiritual science seriously must contend with at every turn today. Time and again one encounters objections that do not arise—well, let’s say here as well—from any activity of the soul, but are instilled by the general superficiality that prevails and permeates our time. But those who are deeply immersed in spiritual science know—as I have often explained here—that this spiritual science must and will develop in the same way as everything else that, in a certain sense, must be incorporated as something new into the spiritual development of humanity. From a certain perspective, such an encounter has been granted to the newer scientific worldview until it has become powerful and can act through external factors of power, no longer needing to act solely through its own strength. Then comes the time when one can build worldviews upon such powerful factors, even without actively engaging the soul oneself. Is there really such a great difference between these two things? Those who today frequently advocate monistic worldviews consider themselves wonderfully exalted, magnificently superior to those who perhaps stand on the ground of a religiously and theologically colored worldview and, in the view of the former, are entirely dogmatically limited, swearing only by authority. For anyone who looks closely at how misunderstandings arise, there is no greater merit—in terms of what the human soul truly achieves—in swearing by the Church Fathers Gregory, Tertullian, Irenaeus, or Augustine—and regard them as authorities—or whether one regards the “Church Fathers” Darwin, Haeckel, and Helmholtz—insofar as they truly are “Church Fathers”—and swears by them. What matters first and foremost is not whether one swears by one or the other, but rather how one stands within the process of developing a worldview. And in a higher sense—in a much higher sense than mere abstract idealism could ever achieve—the following will hold true for spiritual science: At first, it will be met everywhere with misunderstanding and error; but then what at first appeared as fantasy or daydreaming will become a matter of course. This is how it was with Copernicanism, with Keplerianism—and this is how it is with everything that is to become part of humanity’s spiritual development. At first it is nonsense; then it becomes a matter of course. This is also the fate of spiritual science.

[ 34 ] But this spiritual science has something of great significance to say to humanity—as can be seen from everything I have said in other lectures, and no doubt also from today’s lecture. It has something to say to humanity that points to that living, essential reality which makes a person human only insofar as it does not present itself to him for passive contemplation, does not reveal itself to him from the outside, but rather requires him to grasp it vividly for himself, so that he can recognize its existence only through his own active participation. We must overcome the weakness that regards as mere fantasy everything whose essence cannot be grasped through passive surrender, but only through active, inner cooperation with the whole of the world. Only then will human beings know what they are and what their destiny is, when they realize that knowledge of this can come to them only if it becomes an active form of knowledge. The spirit already possesses the strength to prevail, and it will prevail against all misunderstandings—justified in the sense commonly understood today—and all the more so against those arising from the superficiality of the times. For there is a beautiful saying that Goethe claims to have composed in harmony, as he himself says, with an ancient sage:

If the eye were not like the sun,
How could we see the light?
If God’s own power did not dwell within us,
How could the divine delight us?

[ 35 ] The divine-spiritual essence that weaves, flows, and lives through the world is that from which we originated, from which we emerged. Our material nature, too, is born of the spiritual. And only because it has already been born—and because human beings do not need to create it through their own activity—do materialists today believe in it in a one-sided way. The spiritual must be grasped in living activity. The divine-spiritual must first weave itself into existence; the spiritual sun must first create its organs within the human being. Thus one could adapt Goethe’s saying by stating: Unless the inner eye becomes like the spiritual sun, it can never behold the light that is the very essence of the human being. If the human soul—let us conclude today’s reflection with this—cannot unite itself with that from which it springs from eternity to eternity, with the divine-spiritual, which is one essence with its own being, then the glimmer of light into the spiritual will not dawn upon it; then the spiritual eye will not be able to arise within it, then it will never be able to find delight in the Divine in the spiritual sense, and then the world will be empty and desolate for human knowledge. For we can find in the world only that for which we create the organs.

[ 36 ] If the outer, physical eye were not like the sun, how could we perceive the light? If the inner eye does not become like the sun of the spirit, we will never be able to perceive the spiritual light of the human being. Unless a person’s own inner activity truly becomes spiritual-divine in itself—truly—then what makes a person a true human being can never pulse through their soul: the Spirit of the world that lives through, weaves through, and permeates the world, and which becomes human consciousness within them, even if not divine consciousness.

[ 37 ] I will then speak here again on March 23 and 24, building on Nietzsche’s tragic worldview in connection with Wagner and discussing some more intimate, precise truths that can lead the human soul to truly break through the sensory world and enter into a living spiritual life. I will then speak even more precisely about this path of the human soul into the spiritual world than has been possible so far.