The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. The Question of Immortality and Spiritual Research

[ 1 ] The situation of a person who, drawing on the foundations of the humanities, wishes to speak about the spiritual nature of the human being—insofar as it can be described as immortal—has perhaps been characterized for a very long time by the fact that I am speaking, by way of introduction, about the publication of a book. This book is titled *Athanasia, or the Reasons for the Immortality of the Soul*.

[ 2 ] I would like to expressly note, so as not to be misunderstood, that modern spiritual research cannot regard this book as one that was written in the spirit of that research. Spiritual research in the modern sense did not yet exist at that time, as has become abundantly clear from many of the lectures I have given here. Nevertheless, I would like to say that, given the fate that has long befallen all those debates that have paved the way for what is now emerging as spiritual science, what transpired with the publication of this book is, I believe, not without significance. So, in 1827, a book titled *Athanasiia, or the Grounds for the Immortality of the Soul* was published. The person who edited this book wrote a curious introduction—or, as they say, a curious preface. He writes that he was with a dying man and found the manuscript of this book at his bedside; that he then took possession of this manuscript with the dying man’s consent; and that it was no longer possible to determine exactly where the dying man had obtained this book, which apparently held great and profound spiritual significance for him during the final days of his life. Then the person publishing the book waited, because the content seemed so significant to him—it appeared to contain such important insights into the life of the soul after the shedding of the physical body—that he could not imagine this book not being intended to make its contents accessible to a wider audience. However, since—after waiting long enough—he saw no publication of the content coming from anywhere, he has now undertaken to publish this book himself.

[ 3 ] What can legitimate research into the origins of this book tell us? There is the curious fact that the person who published this book—with this preface in which he recounts the book’s remarkable fate—actually wrote the book himself, from beginning to end, and published it anonymously; that he merely felt it necessary—if one may put it that way, and I mean this in the very best sense of the word—to invent such a fairy tale about the book as has just been recounted. It becomes somewhat clearer why the author of this book resorted to this tale when one realizes that he was a figure well-known at the time in the broadest philosophical circles—a philosopher who addressed the most profound questions of philosophical thought: the Prague philosopher Bernard Bolzano, who had a large number of students—students who were active for many decades, particularly at Austrian universities, and who always acknowledged the profound influence they derived from Bolzano’s teachings. So Bernard Bolzano—a famous, compelling philosopher—published a book in which he discusses the reasons for the immortality of the human soul, and had to present this book to the public in the manner described, in accordance with his own views. Why did he do that? Well, the reasons are quite obvious. This book does not merely state, as is often done in philosophical writings, that for such and such reasons—derived from human logic— the human soul is immortal, but it discusses how a person finds within himself a being that can perfect itself between birth and death—perfecting itself in terms of thought, in terms of feeling, and in terms of will; how this being, when correctly understood by human beings, reveals not only that it possesses within itself the powers that lead to its perfection up to the point of death, but also that it possesses powers that further perfect and develop this soul-being—powers that can continue to be filled with content even after the human being has passed through the gate of death. This book then explains how one must conceive of the human soul—once it has passed through the gate of death—as living in a certain environment. It also suggests how this human soul, after death, interacts with other spiritual beings that cannot be perceived while the person is still in the body. It is suggested what kind of relationship the human soul may have, after passing through the gate of death, with the family members and friends left behind, and with the souls who were dear to it in love. All these details concerning the soul that has passed through the gate of death are discussed, as mentioned, not from the standpoint of modern spiritual science, but with subtle, delicate reasoning developed by a philosopher who does not merely philosophize with abstract concepts, but who is fully engaged—with his whole soul, with his entire human being—when forming his thoughts, particularly those concerning the inner workings and essence within the human being itself that we call the soul. But Bolzano knew all too well: as long as one remains a logician and examines how one concept relates to another, what logical reasons there are for the truth or probability of a judgment; as long as one examines how attention takes shape in the human soul—and perhaps even the reasons for memory and volition— in short, as long as one articulates everything the soul performs while it dwells in the body—for as long as that is the case—one can maintain the reputation of a scientific philosopher. But if one speaks of the human soul as Bolzano did in his *Athanasia*, then that reputation as a philosopher is gone. Then one is an unscientific person. Then one is a person who spouts all sorts of nonsense, who can no longer be taken seriously by those who understand how to think scientifically. Even those who have not learned to think scientifically, but who swear by the authority of those from whom they have heard—or of whom it has been publicly established—that they are capable of scientific thought, will then believe that they can thoroughly refute the scientific value of such a figure. If Bolzano wanted to save his reputation as a philosopher, he had to carry out the maneuver described; he had to leave it to later researchers to recognize that the book was his own work. And no expert on Bolzano today doubts—for the very best reasons, which can be proven externally through scientific and historical evidence—that the book in question is by Bolzano himself. This reveals something that was true then and remains true today: if one wishes to advocate openly and candidly for that which does not belong to the physical-sensory world or cannot be described in terms of the physical-sensory world, one must, in a sense, be prepared to be regarded as a completely unscientific person. And as a rule, the “fact” that one might recognize—from the way such things are spoken of—that the person speaking is not an unscientific person does not apply either.

[ 4 ] And yet, just as the humanities must address the question of immortality today, this discourse—as I have often emphasized here—is, in the fullest sense, a continuation of that human intellectual endeavor which, particularly in the field of the natural sciences, has led to such great achievements of human life and endeavor—achievements that the humanities must fully acknowledge.

[ 5 ] That is why I would like to begin today by touching on a few points that may illustrate how spiritual science approaches the question of immortality in such a way that, in fact, everything that can be called spiritual science in this sense today is the direct, immediate continuation of what scientific thinking has contributed to a worldview throughout the nineteenth century and up to the present.

[ 6 ] In my book *The Riddles of Philosophy*, you will find a chapter titled “The World as an Illusion.” This chapter does not set out to argue that one should actually regard the world—as it presents itself to the external senses and to human thought, which is bound to the brain—as an illusion; rather, it demonstrates how many nineteenth-century thinkers, grounded precisely in the natural sciences, came to the conclusion that to conclude that everything first perceived by the senses—and, of course, everything that thought has to say about sensory perception—does not flow into the human soul from the outside, but is, so to speak, first constructed internally by the human soul itself. As far as this can be done in a popular manner, I would like to address these ideas by way of introduction, even though they will be foreign to many in this distinguished audience.

[ 7 ] We see with our eyes, we hear with our ears; we perceive the world through our sensory organs. Now, those who base their views on modern natural science and the latest physiological research say: What the senses perceive actually arises only through an interaction between the senses and something completely unknown in the external world. The researcher says: When the eye perceives a color, when the eye receives any kind of light impression, one must consider that what acts upon the eye from the outside remains entirely unknown to perception. With its soul, a person experiences only the effect that the external world exerts upon the soul. This is why, as we go through the world in ordinary life, we see things as colored, as expressions of their light effects. But if, for example, we strike the eye, we can likewise have a light impression in the eye, even if it is indefinite. Or if we can in some other way evoke what can take place internally within the eye—say, using some kind of electrical device—we also get a light impression. That is to say, the eye responds to everything that acts upon it from the outside with a light impression. So whatever may be happening out there, if what is happening out there affects the eye in any way, a light impression arises in the eye. The eye creates the impression of light from the influence of a completely unknown external world. The same is true of the ear. The same is true of the other senses. That is why, for example, the philosopher Lotze—an outstanding philosopher of the nineteenth century—completely agrees with Schopenhauer when he says: Everything we perceive as light or color has actually come into being in our eye only through the influence of an unknown world. What we hear as sounds has come into being in the ear through the influence of an unknown world. Were it not for human beings, who have eyes and ears, the world would be dark and silent, and one could never say that in this dark, silent, and unknown world there is anything at work that resembles what the eyes see or the ears hear.

[ 8 ] In other words: In the nineteenth century, under the influence of Kantian philosophy, it was concluded that in order for human beings to gain knowledge and perceptions of their environment, they must engage in an inner activity, and that it is only through this inner activity that what they call their environment comes into being as an image. One can then truly say that, precisely for these people—who, as genuine thinkers, stand on the ground of natural science—the world is like an illusion. For if out there—where we see columns here and all manner of images on the walls—there is something completely unknown that acts upon the eye and from which the eye creates colors and forms, then one can only say: What appears to us there as our environment is an image created from the very essence of the human being. And what lies behind it can at best be constructed through hypothesis, as modern physics does, which posits all sorts of vibrations in the ether and the like behind our perceptions. Thus, as a person walks through the world, interacting with an unknown external world, he constructs what he calls his world simply through the very nature of his being.

[ 9 ] Taken as it has just been explained, there is absolutely nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing—to object to in this line of reasoning. This line of reasoning is entirely consistent with everything that scientific research in the nineteenth century has yielded. One might say: A statement such as that made by Hermann Helmholtz, the famous physiologist and physicist, is entirely understandable: When a person perceives the external world, they do not perceive what is, what is actually happening, but only perceive signs. Not even images, says Helmholtz, do we perceive of what really is, but only signs. For what our eyes and ears create from the external world are merely signs of the external world. As I said, there is absolutely nothing to object to regarding the seriousness and logic of this line of thought. Taken directly, as they present themselves, this is indeed the case.

[ 10 ] One must delve much, much deeper into the nature of the human being if one wants to know what actually lies behind this line of thought. I have attempted to show—precisely for the philosophical world—what lies behind this line of thought and how it offers the possibility of finding one’s bearings with regard to the human concept of reality. I attempted to point the way toward this in a lecture I gave at the last Congress of Philosophers. But today, such discussions are met only with general misunderstandings, if not something far worse. Anyone who has the task of finding their way within the line of thought just outlined must turn to spiritual science. And then it becomes clear, in fact, that one can truly say: The human soul, by perceiving through the senses, creates what it must initially call its world. It creates this. It truly creates it. But why does it create it, even though creation already prevails in reality? Well, it creates it for the reason that the human soul—that which is the human soul—is not connected to the human being in such a way that one can say: Here is the human body, and within this human body dwells the immortal soul, just as any person lives in their home and, from within that home, influences the outside world in some way or looks out at the outside world through windows. The relationship between the human soul and the human body must be conceived quite differently. It must be conceived in such a way that, so to speak, the body itself holds the soul within it through a process of cognition. Just as colors and light, and sounds, exist outside of us, so too does the human soul itself exist outside the body; and just as reality enters us through the senses as colors and sounds, so too do the contents of the soul, in a sense, live on the wings of sensory perceptions. The soul must not be conceived merely as a more subtle physical entity dwelling within the outer, coarser body, but as an entity that is itself so connected to the body that the body performs, in holding the soul, the very same activity that we otherwise exercise in cognition. Only when we understand how, in a certain sense, that which we call our “I”—the bearer of our self-consciousness—exists outside the body in the same way as sound or color, do we understand the relationship of the human soul to the human body. When a human being says “I,” as a physical being, he perceives this “I,” so to speak, from the same aspect of reality from which he perceives colors and sounds. And the essence of the body consists precisely in being able to perceive this “I”—that is, the very essence of the soul itself. In order to fully experience within oneself the reality of what has just been said, it is necessary for a person to undertake the exercises—that is, inner activities with one’s soul—that have often been discussed here.

[ 11 ] Today, too, I will not repeat what has been said time and again—for anyone can read about it in my books *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, *Esoteric Science*, or in the brief sketch at the end of *Theosophy*. Today, too, I will not describe these inner soul processes in detail; rather, I would like once again to point out certain perspectives that can show what a person achieves when they engage in inner soul work in the sense that has often been described here and can be read about in the relevant books, so that what otherwise takes place in the soul as thinking, feeling, and willing develops further through inner impulses that the soul gives itself in meditative life; that it becomes something different from what exists in ordinary physical life.

[ 12 ] When a person engages in the acts of thinking—as has already been discussed here in the previous lectures—that lead thinking beyond the very nature of the thought life one must have in ordinary life and also in ordinary science, then one comes to think, that is, to perform the inner activity of thinking, but no longer to have a specific thought. Meditation consists, after all, in the fact that—whereas one otherwise thinks, so to speak, under the influence of the external world and reflects on things—one evokes thinking as an inner, voluntary activity of the soul; and in this evocation of thinking, one directs one’s attention not to what is being thought, but to the activity of thinking itself, to that subtle volitional activity that is exercised in thinking. I have already described this in the last lecture. One thinks, so to speak, with a thought content that one has brought into one’s consciousness, into one’s soul, through one’s own volition. One thinks so intensely, so strongly, with such inner power, that one truly achieves what one did not even intend to achieve at the outset, but which is achieved under the influence of such inner mental work: Thoughts fall away, and one lives only in the inner weaving and working of—well, let us use the term—an ethereal world. The word “ethereal” is used here in a different sense than modern physics uses the term. One lives in a weaving, in a pulsating, and one knows, if one has pursued this experience long enough: What one has thus discovered in one’s thinking, what one has thus separated from one’s thinking—just as a chemist separates hydrogen from water so that he can demonstrate the property of hydrogen that cannot be demonstrated as long as the hydrogen is contained within the water—one knows, once one has separated the activity of thinking from thinking itself, that one is now truly in an experience outside the body. By continuing this inner work of the soul, one must then become ever clearer and clearer about what the experience actually is that one has evoked in the soul in this way. When one perceives colors and sounds in ordinary life—as I said, this can already be considered a result of natural science—then one knows through natural science: An unconscious activity is at work within our human being; for the fact that the world of color and sound is evoked through the eye and the ear is an unconscious activity. An unconscious activity is at work through which something external speaks into the soul and reveals itself within the soul. What one experiences in the inner grasp of thought, when one performs the corresponding soul exercises, is not experienced in the same way as if it were springing up from our muscles or our blood; rather, it is experienced as if it were coming in from the entire surrounding universe, as something to be recognized, as something that enters us as a spiritual being and that exerts only a certain attraction toward our body, so that it recognizes our body, as it were, as the means through which it wishes to reveal itself in the sensory world. By meditating as described, one steps into the external world itself. One immerses oneself in this outer world, from which colors and sounds come to us. That is to say: one frees one’s experience from the body. This freedom of experience from the body must be experienced inwardly; it must be lived through. Through spiritual exercises, a person must come to know that they are weaving and pulsing within an element that is not bound to their body as its instrument. But will, inner volition, is now present in everything, which thus leads the human being to freedom from the body—inner activity, but inner activity on a higher level. Let us just consider for a moment what it would be like if the human being were in the following situation: Let us assume—assuming the truth of what I have explained to you as a result of recent physiology and recent natural science—that the human being were conscious of this: There must be some unknown thing there, a silent, dark world. I stand within it; I open my eyes. By acting through my eyes, I create color; I create forms. By acting through my ears, I create sounds. I place the sounds and the colors into the world. What would a person have to say? They would say: Well then, the whole world is a dream—of course it’s a dream. Then nothing I see or hear is real. It is only because this inner activity remains unconscious—because one does not know that one is doing it—bringing forth colors through the eye, bringing forth sounds through the ear—that one remains undisturbed in one’s external experience. For if people were always conscious that they are doing what modern natural science attributes to them, then they would most certainly speak of the entire sensory world in exactly the same way as they now speak of what human thinking—developed in the manner described—conceives of a world and experiences through a world that is just as real, just as tangible as the sensory world, but which must be arbitrarily set before us by the effort of the free will born of thinking. One might say: It is a blessing for most people that they are gifted with the ability to know nothing of how they create colors and sounds for themselves; otherwise, they would already be in a position to speak about this colorful and resonant world in exactly the same way as they speak about the world that the spiritual researcher places before them. For that is, after all, the defining characteristic of the world that the spiritual researcher sets before the soul: that the activity one otherwise unconsciously performs for the sensory world is now performed consciously—fully consciously—at this higher level of volitional action, which is detached from thinking. Otherwise, however, there is no difference at all compared to the sensory world. But people are not strong enough to hold fast to this, to have trust in what they must first call into being within themselves. One might say it is good that a benevolent God has spared people from knowing that they themselves create the light of the sun; otherwise, they would deny it, just as they deny the nature of the spiritual world. — People are dependent on allowing the external world, on the authority of the external world, to dictate to them what is, what is inherent in being. If they are to do anything to bring this Being to the fore, they are not strong enough, nor do they have sufficient trust in this inner activity of theirs, to accept as a reality—as a fact—that which they must now co-create themselves.

[ 13 ] If, through the suggested exercises of thought, one truly grasps the will within thought—that reality which does not play itself out in thoughts of a sensory world—then one has, at first — as has often been suggested from a different perspective — not yet a spiritual reality before you, but merely an experience consisting of a weaving, a being, and a becoming; you have, so to speak, an expanded self before you, a self that now knows itself to be connected to the entire world from which sounds and colors would otherwise reveal themselves to it. But one weaves and lives within this becoming. One knows only that the way in which one lives within this becoming is reality—spiritual reality, a spiritual reality free from the body.

[ 14 ] One really cannot be too careful when describing such things, for, of course, someone from any camp who believes they can claim to be truly scientific might easily object: “So the spiritual researcher claims that, through the results of this one exercise alone, he immerses himself in the world; so he must actually know everything if he lives within that weaving element. Now, what now acts from within, rather than approaching the human being from the outside, need not therefore reveal all the mysteries it holds within itself. One might say that this can be compared to the fact that a person eats and drinks and yet truly does not know the processes taking place within his body. One comes to know another world in terms of its nature and essence, but of course one does not come to know all the secrets of that world, which in turn must all be explored in detail—an exploration that requires precisely the same care and seriousness as the exploration of the physical-sensory world, indeed even more. But this experiencing of oneself within a weaving world can indeed be compared to a situation in which, for example, as a physical human being, one had acquired the ability within one’s body to grasp all manner of things, yet could grasp nothing when reaching out around oneself. In that case, one would certainly know that one has organs for grasping, for performing grasping movements—yet one grasps nothing. One would be in this situation if one possessed only the results of the exercises just described. One would be weaving and living inwardly within the spiritual element, but one would feel as if one were stretching out one’s spiritual organs in all directions, and while it would be certain that “you have grasped yourself in the spirit”—one would still perceive nothing of a spiritual environment. There would be only a general life, weaving, and becoming of one’s own self within the spirit. An immense loneliness, indeed a sense of foreboding, could seize a person if they were to arrive at these results alone. Therefore, the exercises that the soul performs—when they are drawn from genuine spiritual research—are structured in such a way that not only is the life of thought developed, leading to experiences such as those described, but the life of the will is also developed. And this training of the life of the will is, in turn, something that arises in the most natural way from a person’s ordinary life of the will. You can find further details in the books mentioned. But I would like to characterize, from a certain perspective, the effect and the results of the exercises of the will, which, in proper meditation, are already woven into the meditation itself. The exercises of the will lead a person to the point where they can observe their own volition. Ordinary self-observation—including what is called self-observation in trivial mysticism—does not yet lead one to truly observe the content of one’s own volition in the same way one otherwise observes external natural phenomena. It certainly does not yet lead one to become, so to speak, a spectator of oneself. But the genuine exercises that spiritual research can provide enable a person to view what otherwise unfolds in their life as will—and flows into actions or even exists merely as desires—in the same way that things and events around us are otherwise observed; that a person is truly able to step outside of themselves to the extent that they observe themselves as they will this or that, as they set goals for themselves in life. One attains the ability—and this is merely to be hinted at—especially through this; of course, this cannot fill one’s entire life, but only requires very brief, isolated moments of meditation within life— —, that one directs one’s willing—and every true meditator already directs their willing simply by engaging in proper meditation—in such a way that one does not merely will as one does in ordinary life. In everyday life, a desire arises. It is prompted by some inner physical predisposition, or it is prompted by an external impression, or the will carries out this or that action, and thereby something is brought about in the external world. One can certainly observe this will as it operates, but the observation becomes easier when one tries to will—and as I said, in meditation this is what is willed—that which advances the soul itself; when one makes oneself, so to speak, the object of one’s will; when one wills something in such a way that, through what one accomplishes within the soul, one gradually becomes a different person; that the soul becomes more finely organized, that the soul becomes more receptive, when one carries out acts of will in such a way that one develops, that one consciously advances in life. Anyone who practices meditation knows how, years after having practiced meditation, the whole way they think about the world becomes different from what it used to be. They know how they connect passion differently with desires, and these in turn with thoughts, and so on. They know that a different being—albeit in a more subtle form—has emerged from within them, one that must be perceived. Otherwise, the “I” is always the center of volition. The rays of volition emanate, as it were, from the “I,” pouring out into feelings and actions. In this kind of willing, the human being, so to speak, places himself outside his “I” and, through willing, propels the “I” itself forward. Therefore, true meditation is particularly suited to enabling him to become an observer of his own willing, to know how to place himself, as it were, outside of it, and—just as one learns to observe natural processes—to learn to observe his own willing with serenity. Otherwise, one is caught up in one’s will along with all passions, all desires, and all emotions. One overcomes this for certain moments in life and learns to become an observer of one’s own will.

[ 15 ] Let us just consider this: when one desires something, one is fully engaged in that desire; one is so immersed in it that one instinctively—at least inwardly—defends it as one’s own. In any case, one does not view the act of desiring in the same way that one views, say, the formation of a rainbow. But this is the path to what the soul can attain: to observe the process of willing just as one observes the formation of a rainbow or the rising of the sun; to become so objective toward it, so serene about it. There, one first strives out of oneself in thought—for at first it is a mental striving out of oneself—in order to become an observer.

[ 16 ] But then one makes a discovery that one must certainly take into account if one wishes to become attuned to the reality of these things. One makes the curious discovery that, although one must strive for what one aims for, one actually achieves something entirely different. And with this, I am characterizing an essential aspect of the path of spiritual research. On the path of spiritual research, if I may put it that way, one must set out on the journey. In the first exercises I have described, one sets out on this journey by meditating, by bringing thoughts into the soul. But if one were to believe that holding on to these thoughts, that delving deeply into them, is also the goal, that would be mistaken. For the goal consists precisely in overcoming what one initially set out to do: that thoughts cease to be thoughts in the immediate sense, so that the activity of thinking, free from thought, now grasps us as it unfolds and weaves. This is what is characteristic of the spiritual research path: that one must undertake something, and something else emerges. And it is precisely because something is undertaken that something else emerges.

[ 17 ] And so it is with this second one, which I am to describe. One makes an effort in the manner described—but as I said, you can find the details in the books mentioned— one strives to become one’s own observer—that is, to step outside oneself in one’s imagination and observe one’s own will just as one would otherwise observe external natural phenomena. But the result that arises from these exercises is different from one that would follow a straight line. One might think that one is now becoming as if one were creating a being out of oneself that looks upon the currents of one’s will. That is not the case; rather, the result is that the more one steps outside of oneself in this way, in accordance with one’s imagination, the more that which steps out disappears within oneself. In the development of thinking, one enters more and more deeply into oneself. The self is expanded; the self becomes more intense, more powerful. In what I have just described, one does not enter into oneself, but rather one’s own self is, in a certain sense, set aside; in its place, however, a volition remains within the spiritual field of vision—an act of will. And, as it were, rising from below through the expanse of these acts of will, a true being emerges—a higher human being within the human being. That which one has carried within oneself throughout one’s entire life, but not in consciousness, rises through the will; it breaks through it. Just as the depths of the sea might appear if they were to burst forth above the surface, so now a being appears—a conscious being, a being of higher consciousness—who is an objective observer of all our acts of will, a real being who always lives within us and who in this way breaks through the will. And this being, which one thus discovers in the currents of the will, unites with that which one has made out of thinking. These two beings, which one has found within oneself, unite with one another. And through this, one is now not merely engaged in a process of activity and interweaving, but in a real spiritual world with real spiritual beings and realities. Within this world stands one’s own being, which is also born out of the will—but in the company of other spiritual beings—and which passes through birth and death. The human being who, through birth or conception, has become connected to what is physically derived from father and mother—the human being who endures when one passes through the gate of death—is discovered by bringing to life within oneself, from two sides, that which acts and lives within us.

[ 18 ] The main point of the kind of thinking that one gradually develops is that, in this thinking, we are truly already developing something different from what lives in our ordinary soul—and that is precisely what is difficult. Human beings are so attached to the habits they have acquired in their soul through interaction with the external sensory world. That is why, at first, all these qualities—which one acquires on this spiritual path, as it has been described—actually unsettle him. A sense of anxiety, loneliness, or restlessness may come over him. If everything is carried out correctly, as specified by true spiritual science, this is not the case. I spoke about this a few weeks ago in the lecture I titled “A Healthy Soul Life and Spiritual Research.” But it is widely known that, precisely when one enters this spiritual world in the manner described, a certain restlessness can arise—a certain inner anxiety, and even distinct bouts of fear toward the spiritual world that seems to be closing in on one. And there are already plenty of guidelines in true meditation to help avoid this. But if someone expects that what their soul then does with these newly awakened abilities will be immediately similar to what the soul does in relation to the external physical world—which it must have all around it all day long—then they will be subject to the gravest delusions and disappointments. Then he becomes restless because he tells himself: Here I am immersing myself in something indefinite, in something unfamiliar. I have always thought in a different way. My thinking was so secure in that other way; it clung to a specific existence that was given to me. Now my thinking is supposed to live in a process of becoming and, so to speak, is supposed to lose itself.

[ 19 ] However, this is held back on the true path of spiritual research by the very fact that this true path—when followed correctly—naturally leads to what we might call “interest,” an inner spiritual interest, manifesting itself to the human being in a completely different way than spiritual interest otherwise manifests in the physical world. It is truly the case: One develops a new interest, an entirely new kind of interest, when one leads a meditative life. It must be emphasized again and again: Success is not sought merely for the sake of the inner life alone. — Those spiritual exercises are worthless from the outset and must be decisively rejected; they render a person unfit for outer life. The person who practices true spiritual exercises remains just as firmly rooted in outer life as he or she was before. No, in fact, they will become even more firmly rooted in this outer life. If they have a particular profession to pursue, wherever fate has placed them, they will perform that profession no worse—if they possess true spiritual knowledge—than they did before. And one can be certain—forgive the trivial expression—that anyone who gets all sorts of “cherries” in their head as a result of undergoing spiritual exercises, and who then considers themselves too good for what they used to be, is certainly on the wrong track. But through that which in the soul constitutes the actual work of spiritual research, one gains new interests alongside the old ones—which become even more intense in relation to the outer world—interests that steer the soul in a different direction.

[ 20 ] For example, I want to explain what it’s like for someone who is a philosopher. Perhaps it is particularly useful to explain this precisely because most philosophers believe from the outset—well, that they are much better able to judge everything in the humanities than the humanities scholar himself. But those who are not philosophers themselves tend to feel uneasy about the many different schools of philosophy that exist. Isn’t it true that if one were to simply take a look at all the “-ians”—the Kantians, Hegelians, Schopenhauerian, Hartmannians—if one were to survey them all, every single one, then one would see—even if one were to include others as well—that one should not allow oneself to be thrown into a certain uneasiness: “Well, everyone has thought differently; I want something certain in my thinking!” This attitude will then take on a different expression in the philosopher. The philosopher who wishes to be a “-ian” himself now develops a certain line of thought; he then swears by it, and the others are, of course, all fools whom he can refute, or at least people who are mistaken. But the one who has developed his thinking in the manner described—who has incorporated the act of thinking into his thinking itself—reads Hartmann with the same interest as Schopenhauer, Hegel, Schelling, and Heraclitus. He does not even get around to refuting one and becoming a follower of the other, because he develops a certain interest in the movement of thought, in being immersed in thought itself, because he derives a certain joy, a certain pleasure simply from the act of thinking, and because he knows that this thinking does not, in any case, lead to reality in the way one usually believes —namely, that thoughts may simply be images of reality—but rather that one merely enters into a life and a weaving within the work of thought. Yes, if one can do this, then one can take the following standpoint: Certainly, one philosopher has viewed the world from one perspective, the other from another! — And the philosophical worldview one then arrives at is viewed no differently than one views a tree that has been photographed from various angles, in which case one does not say: I declare one photograph to be wrong; it doesn’t match the other at all—it’s a completely different tree! — For it is only a different tree because it was photographed from a different angle. If one looks at the act of photographing itself, rather than at the abstract image, then one arrives at the truth on one’s own. And so it is with thinking. One develops an interest in the flexibility of thought, and one knows that one lives in spiritual reality when one lives and weaves within thought itself. Through the exercises of the will, one also brings something into one’s development—and this goes even much deeper—which in turn can be very disturbing to some; it would even be very disturbing if one were not sufficiently prepared, as is, however, the case in every true spiritual training. I would like to say again: In ordinary life, people are familiar with the fact that what lies within their will actually appears to them in such a way that, when they have done something they call good, they rub their hands together; then they are very pleased with themselves. When they have done something they call bad in any way, they reproach themselves. But it remains within these inner soul processes. People oscillate back and forth between this rubbing of their hands in satisfaction at what they have done and this self-reproach. But when the will is developed in such a way that the inner observer emerges, the matter becomes imbued with a greater seriousness. Then it is no longer merely self-reproach or inner satisfaction that arises; rather, one comes to know, in that which, as an observer, permeates the will and shoots up through its surface, a very real being. One comes to realize: that which otherwise appears to you as self-reproach and inner satisfaction is a real force. This real force exists in the world; it will continue to have an effect. As one proceeds, one comes to recognize how this force takes shape into a further destiny and, as a fact, influences the next earthly life after one has passed through the life between birth and death. What one experiences there as the will asserting itself would, for one who is not well prepared, follow one like a shadow—like something one always drags along with oneself, like one’s shadow, like a truly real being. Everything depends on learning to see the full significance of these things as well; on learning, for example, to recognize that what follows one like a shadow need not lead one into hypochondria, but must be viewed with equanimity. For it is not at all that which has significance for the present life, but rather what passes through the gate of death with us—that which is among the forces that will help determine the configuration and nature of our next life.

[ 21 ] In short, the interests associated with these developed inner activities of the soul are different from the interests of outer life, but they by no means distract one from those interests of outer life. They merely, so to speak, put everything in its proper place. When someone, as I have described, becomes aware of what passes through births and deaths—what is immortal in the soul—then they do not lose interest in the immediate physical realities surrounding them, but rather come to hold the view that there is a spiritual world. In this spiritual world there are just as concrete spiritual processes and beings—which they can indeed perceive—as there are in the physical-sensory world. But what exists as the physical-sensory world can only be perceived within the physical-sensory world itself. What surrounds us as the physical-sensory world naturally ceases to exist after death. Only because we carry within us an immortal being—which is a reality in itself and belongs to a reality that transcends the physical—do we carry something through the gate of death, enter a spiritual world—a world we experience between death and a new birth—and then enter another earthly life.

[ 22 ] Especially when one now knows—not in an abstract sense, but through a living sense of feeling—and it is only through spiritual research that one truly comes to know this: You can only come to know this sensory world in its entire inner essence through your senses and through the intellect connected to the brain—then, in the course of this vibrant self-development—not through any theory, but through what life takes in, under the influence of the exercises that lead to this—our living interest in everything perceptible is awakened; our interest in the smallest details of the world is heightened. Only one particular interest—and this is something one must already bring with oneself—becomes ever smaller and smaller: the interest in that which, in the sensory world, already appears as the so-called “spiritual” and is meant to reveal the spiritual in the phenomenon itself, out of that very phenomenon. We know that the spiritual can be grasped when first the organs—the eyes and ears of the spirit—are developed, to use Goethe’s expression. It is known that one must rise to the spiritual world, and it is known that in the sensory world, this sensory world must be grasped from within itself, that it stands there as that which must be apprehended through the sensory world. Therefore, one loses interest in all those endeavors that seek the spiritual from within the sensory world itself. And while, particularly in genuine spiritual research, interest grows in everything that takes place in the spiritual world, interest completely fades in the sense that it exists for many who approach the spiritual world merely out of a thirst for sensation and all manner of superstition and belief in miracles. Interest, let us say, in spiritualist séances and mediumistic performances, fades away completely. It does not interest the spiritual researcher because he knows that in these things only something abnormal can come to light—something that is rooted in the sensory world but cannot lead beyond the sensory world into the true spiritual world. Certainly, he may take an interest in them, just as one might take an interest in a theatrical performance or in something that otherwise appears in the world as an experiment. Nor should any objection be raised against such events—provided, of course, that they are not frauds—in that they allow all manner of natural connections, otherwise inexpressible, to play out. But these are simply natural connections, and one knows that in these things one lives in nothing other than what one also lives and experiences with the ordinary senses, however abnormal that may seem. As I said, interest is waning in everything that belongs to this realm I have just touched upon. It is becoming a mere witnessing of—well, all sorts of events. And it is part of being a true researcher of the spiritual realm that superstition does not increase within one, but rather that superstition is rooted out completely.

[ 23 ] One might very easily believe—and because this is possible, it must be specifically addressed—that a person who experiences such things spiritually, as I have indicated—and who, in essence, experiences nothing less than that which, within himself and in connection with the world, he can call his immortal soul—that such a person would, in fact, be anticipating life after death; that he has already experienced what is then experienced after death. In this abstract form, that is not the case, and one must think very carefully about these things if one wishes to form a conception of them. What the soul goes through after death—or, let us say, from death to birth—is experienced roughly as if a plant were consciously experiencing everything contained within its seed, which embodies all the forces for the new plant. One experiences everything that must necessarily be undergone in the spiritual world after a person has passed through death in order to prepare the entire life—with its new physicality and new experiences—as a new destiny in the coming earthly existence. It is the seed-being within us that is capable of experiencing in the spiritual world, between death and new birth, that which then prepares a new earthly life, so that we may then possess the physical form we need to have the predispositions we have previously prepared within ourselves, enabling us to place ourselves in the situation into which we must be placed if our destiny is to be fulfilled in accordance with our previous earthly life. We experience that this predisposition lies within us. Now, in order to have this experience before us—to have the spiritual world before our own soul—it is, of course, necessary to go through the experiences ourselves between death and a new birth, which we can at most look forward to and which we can at most develop in our knowledge—admittedly, in a living knowledge that is inner reality, whereas knowledge of the external world, of the physical external world, consists only of mental images.

[ 24 ] As you can see, I would, of course, need a great deal more time to discuss in greater detail what I have only touched upon here. I will be able to do so in future lectures. But as you can see, there is a specific path that can be described as the path of spiritual research, and it leads to the development of a life of a different inner nature than the life of the soul in the outer, sensory reality. And in this experience, the soul grasps itself in such a way that it lives and weaves within the inner power that passes through the gate of death.

[ 25 ] It is true what Fichte merely intuited when he said: Immortality does not begin only after we have passed through the gate of death, but it is already present while we still live in the body. For the being that passes through death can be reached by human knowledge while still in the body. - How is it attained? In a remarkable way, we must form concepts from within spiritual science itself as to how it is attained.

[ 26 ] You might ask: How can a person achieve all that has just been described as the result of spiritual exercises? How can spiritual exercises lead to such a thing? You see, people very often complain—especially when they have a keen thirst for knowledge—that one cannot truly fathom reality, that there are limits to knowledge. How often have I also drawn attention here in these lectures to Da Bois-Reymond’s famous *Ignorabimus*, which states that a person can indeed observe the processes of the world and their limits, but cannot penetrate into the innermost essence of matter; that, so to speak, they cannot dive with their thinking into the innermost essence of matter. It is said of all knowledge that, in truth, all these faculties of cognition are insufficient to fully penetrate nature.

[ 27 ] When one begins to strengthen the soul inwardly in the way that has been described, one notices something very specific. One realizes how immensely beneficial it is that such limits exist for external cognition. For if the powers one possesses for external perception were to lead one to penetrate the whole of nature through them alone, these very powers would prevent one from attaining spiritual knowledge. It is only because one cannot use everything that is in the soul for external perception that something is set aside for one to develop in the manner I have described. Only because the full, immortal soul does not enter entirely into bodily life, but retains a part of itself—so that not everything is transparent in external bodily life—are inner powers preserved that can then be developed in the manner described. By connecting ourselves through birth—or, let us say, through conception—with the physical material provided by our ancestors, we retain enough of the immortal soul that, on the one hand, we are prevented from fully comprehending nature during our physical life and must form hypotheses and make all sorts of assumptions about what exists in nature. But as a result, we possess forces in the background of our being that we can develop within ourselves and that allow us, in a spiritual way, to enter into a spiritual world. The immortal soul lives within the human being. In order for it to live, certain things must be withdrawn from the human being in a sensory sense. This, in turn, is another important connection that must be considered.

[ 28 ] There is, therefore, a form of spiritual research that directly familiarizes us with the immortal nature of the human being. This spiritual research is of a different nature than external research. In external research, one can remain exactly as one is. That is precisely what appeals to people. They retain the very same abilities they have already acquired when they enter the laboratory, conduct experiments, and learn something about the external world. And then these people also demand that the spirit be investigated in the same way, by retaining those same abilities. One cannot approach the spirit unless one first makes oneself spiritual within, that is, seeks within oneself that which is in every human soul, but which must first be raised to consciousness in the manner described. — But there is much, much that, I would say, still blocks the paths for people today that could lead them to spiritual science. That is why the chapter “The Question of Immortality and Spiritual Research” is still so little recognized today—a topic people are so reluctant to engage with.

[ 29 ] You can already gather from what I have said that it is necessary for a person to learn to weave and live in thought in a particularly subtle, inner way. That is to say, if one becomes a researcher of the spirit, one must not become a lesser thinker than those who believe—let us say, trivially—that they have “eaten thinking with a spoon,” who claim to stand on the firm ground of external natural science, which is not to be challenged in the least—but rather, one must develop a greater subtlety of thought. Such thinking is not valued in the present day. In the present day, people prefer to develop what I might call a “tangible” way of thinking that does not engage at all with the more subtle forces that live and weave throughout the world.

[ 30 ] I don’t like doing this: to bring up anything personal, and those among my esteemed audience who have often attended these lectures will know that I actually avoid addressing all the opposition and various misunderstandings from the outside world regarding what I represent here as spiritual science—that I prefer to gloss over these matters and not speak of them at all. However, when certain things keep coming up again and again—things that do have an effect and are believed—they harm the cause. Personally, I would prefer not to speak about these things at all, but the cause is harmed because printed matter still carries immense authority today, because it still has an immense impact. And so, for the sake of the cause, when a particular topic provides the occasion, one must sometimes address what stands in the way of spiritual science. It is opposed by crude thinking, which—precisely because it cannot engage in the finer weaving of the thought life—can see nothing at all other than fantasy or fanciful speculation in what spiritual science designates as the correct path of spiritual research. Here is an example of that. And, as I said, please forgive me if this is an example tied to something personal, but I mean it only insofar as it stands in opposition to spiritual science, which is expressed through it as a typical manifestation.

[ 31 ] There, in a certain city, I gave a lecture on the relationships that exist within the nature of the individual European peoples—relationships that, as many in the audience know, I had already discussed long before this war provided the occasion to speak about them; insights that were arrived at entirely independently of this war, but which, as they are presented, must actually seem self-evident. For when, in the course of these lectures—which are now often combined with the lectures on the humanities—it is said that the peoples of the West, the peoples of Central Europe, and the peoples of the East differ in this or that respect, one would think that no reasonable person could possibly say anything other than: “Well, yes, he may well be mistaken regarding individual characteristics, but differences do indeed exist. There really are different character traits—some among the Germans, others among the Russians. To deny this can only stem from the crudest kind of thinking. And yet, as I said, I also gave a lecture on this topic in a certain city. In a daily newspaper from that very city, this was discussed in the most disparaging manner, with the claim that these differences had been fabricated, as it were, solely out of the war. But one could overlook that, following the example I recently cited regarding what is being accomplished in this field. But now consider this: that was not enough for one man; instead, the man even turned to a magazine, and the magazine reprinted what had appeared in the daily newspaper at the time, adding the following charming remark: “The accusation made by the reviewer”—that is, the critic of the daily newspaper in the city in question—“that Steiner has reconstructed opposing cultures out of the current constellation of powers is rightly directed at him. With the best will in the world, I am unable, like Steiner, to perceive a fundamental difference between Central European culture and Western and Eastern European culture. In my opinion, European culture is, in its essence, completely uniform.” And so it continues. This appeared in a Central European journal. You can see from this what kind of crude thinking the science of the spirit as such is up against. For what I have read to you here is elaborated upon in a detailed article that spans several issues. The idea—well, I need only hint at it, and you will see how crude the thinking of such a person is: “Intellectual life, too, has developed in this direction and is absorbed in this striving. The wild greed of the cultured European for the possession of earthly goods would degenerate into a predatory struggle of all against all, were individuals not forced into iron-fisted forms of government.” So this crude line of thinking does not even notice how these “iron state structures” are, in the first place, more deeply involved in what is taking place in this war. This is the kind of thinking we are dealing with. Such thinking stands in opposition to what must be demanded—an understanding of such a question, and likewise the question of the immortality of the soul. And such thinking does not appear in a materialist journal, but in a journal—which even bears the heading “42nd Volume”—called *Psychische Studien* (*Psychic Studies*). I can prove to you from the journal itself that I am not speaking out of personal resentment when I say what I have just said. You know—or at least many of you know—that I have addressed the main ideas that this gentleman here is dismissing in such a manner in a short work. This work is titled *Thoughts During the War*. In this work, though perhaps written in a popular style, are precisely the same ideas—or at least written in the same spirit and with the same mindset. In the very same issue containing the essay from which I just read you the key passages, there is a review of this pamphlet, “Thoughts During the Time of War.” In this review, the pamphlet is highly praised, and the review highlights how commendable it is to express such thoughts. Of course, I am just as indifferent to praise as I am to criticism. But I must characterize that which already lives in the spirit of the times, so that whenever defamatory writings appear here and there, people do not simply believe them due to the suggestive power of what has been smeared in printer’s ink onto dirty paper—for this always constitutes a kind of obstacle for those who might otherwise find their way to spiritual research. One must certainly point out the grotesque nature of the experience one can have in this way in our time. And it is for this reason alone that we must, so to speak, keep spiritual science free on the ground where it stands, keep it free in the light in which it must appear as true, genuine, and honest spiritual science. To keep it free in this light, I must also touch upon other matters.

[ 32 ] I have already pointed out in the penultimate lecture—in which I spoke about the misunderstandings directed at spiritual science—as well as in the lecture “A Healthy Soul Life and Spiritual Research,” that spiritual research faces opposition not only from those with more or less materialistic views. It is, of course, extremely difficult to achieve anything on that side for the reason that the arguments put forward by that side are so terribly convincing. When I characterize something, such as this journal, I do so only reluctantly. When I seriously oppose something, I address those whom I actually hold in high esteem, whom I actually hold in high regard. I also hold in high esteem the actual father, I might say, of modern materialism, Lamettrie. He is a shrewd man, and his arguments are convincing. But one can certainly acknowledge the plausibility of these arguments; one can assert them—and yet, when the spiritual-scientific path is also asserted, one must acknowledge the significance and essence of this spiritual-scientific path alongside the validity of what comes from the materialist side. Lamettrie, as I said, is a shrewd man, and in his book *Man as a Machine* he has compiled everything that can demonstrate how human beings are dependent on their physicality. Now it might appear as though spiritual science would have every reason to contradict such things. No, it agrees with all of this—as I even demonstrated in my last lecture—in a more emphatic sense than materialism itself. For it is, after all, readily apparent and irrefutable when Lamettrie points out how a person’s mental state depends on what they are. Of course, it is very easy to prove—because it is so terribly obvious—that a person’s state of mind depends on whether they enjoy a certain food or whether it agrees with them. Think of the mood of the soul that arises from this. Lamettrie describes all of this, and in doing so, he has essentially anticipated everything that can be said on this subject. Isn’t it highly interesting—especially in this day and age, when one can read this aloud—what Lamettrie said in his book *Man a Machine*, because if it were read aloud in another place, it would not make a good impression. But here in Central Europe, this passage may perhaps be read aloud with greater composure than in Western Europe. Lamettrie seeks to demonstrate what a human being actually is—truly to demonstrate how a human being, in terms of the state of their soul, indeed in terms of their character, and in terms of what lives within them spiritually, depends on what they eat, on their food. And there Lamettrie says—though, as mentioned, more than a century has passed since it was said—there Lamettrie says in his book *Man a Machine*: “Raw meat makes animals wild; humans would become so through the same food. ‘How true this is’—says Lamettrie, the Frenchman—‘can be seen from the fact that the English nation, which eats meat less cooked than we do, consuming it quite raw and bloody, displays a savagery that is partly brought about by that diet, and partly, of course, by other causes that only education can suppress. This savagery gives rise in the soul to arrogance, hatred, contempt for other nations, unruliness, and other feelings that corrupt the character, just as coarse food produces a sluggish and clumsy mind, whose main characteristics are laziness and dullness.” It is perhaps particularly interesting in Central Europe to hear a Frenchman’s judgment—even if it is more than a hundred years old—on the English, so that one may see how circumstances change and how perceptions and thoughts have not always been the same, coming from here and there and going here and there, This same Lamettrie also says other things that are quite self-evident; for example, he says—and in doing so, he believes he must reject everything that can be said about the spirit from the perspective of the spirit itself—he says, for instance: “A single thread would have turned Erasmus and Fontenelle into two fools.” One can, of course, concede this and still stand on the ground of spiritual science, as it has been characterized today. For there is much more that one can concede and that will nevertheless not shake the foundations of spiritual science. Let us suppose, for a moment, that if just one tiny fiber in that Erasmus had been different, this would have meant—from the standpoint of pure physicality—that his life, instead of that of a genius, might have become that of a nobody. But now, if it had happened that his mother had been murdered by a bandit before he was born, and Erasmus had been killed even before birth—what would have become of Erasmus’s soul then? The true spiritual researcher is still capable of seeing through such things. For it seems even more compelling that human beings are dependent on matter; after all, it would have been enough for him to have died as a young boy, and then he would not be here.

[ 33 ] Those who, with their dull reasoning, seek to stand in the way of spiritual research should not believe that spiritual research has anything to deny that comes from this direction. But in this area, even today, one still encounters quite a bit that is unclear and imprecise. The crude thinking described above is primarily to blame for this; and there is another factor: spiritual science suffers not only from those who oppose it in this way, but also from those who, coming from various quarters, wish to present themselves as adherents of a certain spiritual scientific movement and who, in turn, are connected to all sorts of peculiar social elements, even in the present day. And as a result, spiritual science is lumped together with all sorts of nonsense by those who cannot distinguish between them—I have already drawn attention to this, but today I must address it again in connection with something else. Spiritual science does not—as you can see from a characteristic of my lectures that is often criticized, namely that they are too difficult— Spiritual science does not rely on the gullible masses; it does not rely on those who, out of laziness of mind, want to acquire some kind of conviction; it does not rely on those people who go through life as if in a dream and believe everything that is conveyed to them solely through their own, admittedly subjective, power of conviction. Spiritual science does not rely on what thrives in the world of superstition, and because certain things are rightly dismissed as nonsense in public discourse on the materialist side, a sharp line must be drawn even within spiritual science itself between honest, true spiritual research, which follows only the truth, and that which so often likes to cling to its coattails—coming from a camp that counts on humanity’s superstition, which is just as present as the insistence on one’s own judgment; where people are led to believe all sorts of things because there are still enough people today who will believe anything, provided it is proclaimed to them from a supposed spiritual world—of unknown origin. What can be confused with spiritual science from this side—as I said, attention must be drawn to this in order to shake it off—has little to do with true science, which is spiritual science.

[ 34 ] I would like to point out just a few things, because these matters are currently being discussed publicly, particularly among materialists, and will certainly be discussed more and more as we are influenced by the grave and serious events of our time. I want to show how wrong those are who equate spiritual science with any form of superstition—whether ordinary or higher—that higher superstition which pursues all manner of goals in the world and, in essence, functions only to place into the world those individuals who are supposed to possess higher aptitudes or clairvoyant gifts. True clairvoyance consists of what has often been described, and is being described again today. But what people today call clairvoyance is actually subsensory—and is often merely a sham. But here we are not dealing with what lies beneath the surface, but with the effect. That is why one must reckon with what this feigned clairvoyance is capable of doing in conjunction with superstition. And it is possible that all sorts of dishonest endeavors and currents will arise, where the aim is something entirely different from what lies, for example, in the realm of truth. What people need to know—what this achieves—is that, first of all—if you’ll pardon the harsh expression—it makes people stupid, it clouds their minds by presenting them with all sorts of occultism that appeals to their superstition, and then, with these people rendered stupid, all sorts of things are carried out that have absolutely no place in the realm of integrity and honesty. Spiritual science has just as much a duty and necessity to point out these excesses of modern life as materialism does. And if it agrees with materialism in its own domain in cases such as the one I have shown with Lamettrie, then it may also agree with materialism when it turns against all the excesses of a so-called spiritual experience that is, in fact, nothing other than a life lived in blind superstition.

[ 35 ] In 1912, an almanac—a yearbook—was published by a figure who is revered in a city in the West as a high-ranking clairvoyant by many who are deluded in precisely the manner just described. This yearbook was published in 1912 for the year 1913—that is, in advance. In this yearbook, published in 1912 for 1913, the following note regarding Austria can be found: “The one who is destined to govern Austria will not govern. A young man who has not yet been designated to govern will take the reins.”

[ 36 ] And the 1914 Almanac, which was published as early as 1913, returns to this matter with even greater clarity. There may be gullible people who believe nothing more and nothing less than that a great prophecy has been fulfilled—people to whom, in their blind faith, it is impossible to make clear that dishonest forces active in the European world have been at work here, forces that have used superstition and all manner of dark occultism to bring something into the world. Anyone who considers that a Parisian newspaper, “Paris at Noon,” long, long before the current turmoil and roughly at the same time as the appearance of the aforementioned note in the aforementioned almanac by a supposed clairvoyant—a Parisian newspaper that by no means claims to be occult in any way, but which can be compared to other newspapers published at noon, —that this very newspaper had, months earlier, expressed its hope that the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand might be assassinated. This inevitably leads one to suspect certain hidden connections. And this same newspaper, in its discussion of the three-year term of service, wrote: “Jaurès will be among the very first to be assassinated if mobilization should occur.”

[ 37 ] The same person who publishes that almanac traveled to Rome in the first days of August 1914 to influence certain people there—people who are susceptible to such influence—in a direction that I do not wish to say is linked to the main causes of Italy’s position, but which has already had an effect in this matter.

[ 38 ] I discuss these matters only because they are being discussed by others from a materialistic perspective. But they must be discussed so that people can see that true spiritual science has nothing to do with such things—with any superstition that preys on the gullibility of the masses, or with whatever is swindled and perpetrated, on a large or small scale, under the guise of superstition. Spiritual science will only begin to appear as a true science, capable of standing alongside other sciences, when it is kept free from everything that today can still so easily be confused with it—things that are not only confused with it under the influence of limited judgment, which simply cannot distinguish between them, but are also confused with it out of malicious intent. And in the literature directed against spiritual science, much effort is expended precisely on fabricating—in order to characterize spiritual science—those very things that must be fabricated, so that spiritual science is thereby placed on the same ground as those very things that, of course, must be fought against by spiritual science just as vigorously as they are fought against by materialistic science.

[ 39 ] It is precisely by recognizing such things, however, that spiritual science will increasingly emerge in its purity as what it can be for the human soul. Does not the book that has now been published as the latest work by Ernst Haeckel—that is, by a serious researcher— *Thoughts on Eternity*, how the mere natural sciences stand at a loss in the face of such great events that have a profound impact on human development, having nothing else to say about Ernst Haeckel’s book other than:

[ 40 ] “Millions of people have already fallen victim to this horrific war... Every day we are forced to read in the newspapers the long list of hopeful young men and devoted family men who, in the prime of their lives, have sacrificed their lives for their country. This raises countless questions about the value and meaning of human life, about the eternity of existence and the immortality of the soul... The current world war, in which mass misery and the suffering of individuals have reached unprecedented proportions, must destroy all faith in a loving providence... The fate of every single human being, just like the fate of every other animal, is subject to blind chance from beginning to end...” — That is all a serious researcher like Haeckel has to say from his scientific standpoint: Hundreds upon hundreds of dead surround us in these weeks; this testifies that human beings cannot have a spiritual destiny, for one can see how they fall prey to a blind fate.

[ 41 ] It is not that such a time provides the grounds for spiritual science, but one must recognize what spiritual science can become for human life in the spiritual realm: that which sustains human beings, which holds them up, because it familiarizes them with what no natural science can reveal to them. Natural science can only acquaint human beings with that through which their body is connected to the sensory universe. Spiritual science, by showing them through research that they have an immortal soul, makes them aware that one can know: This human soul is connected to eternal becoming. Human beings are anchored in eternity through their soul and spirit, just as they are anchored in temporality through the body.

[ 42 ] If one asks whether human beings need such a thing, it must be said that there can be no proof of this, any more than there is proof that they must eat and drink. But just as human beings experience through hunger and thirst that they must eat and drink, so they experience time and again in their souls that they must know. And the more one seeks knowledge—and not merely faith—the more one will recognize that one must know about the immortality of one’s soul. One may deny that human beings seek this knowledge, but such a denial is merely theoretical. The time will come more and more—and we are already at its beginning—when, just as hunger makes itself felt in a healthy human body, the thirst for knowledge of the spiritual world and for knowledge of the immortal nature of the soul itself will make itself felt in the person who lives on into the time that begins with the present. And it will be an unquenched thirst if there is no spiritual science. This will become evident in the consequences. Theoretically, one may be able to deny it—but the consequences will reveal the truth. It will become evident in that people will find their souls desolate, will not know what to make of life, will perform their outward duties but will not know what the meaning of life is, and will wither away from a thirst to unravel the meaning of life. Gradually, this will extend into the intellect; gradually, it will become apparent how people’s thinking is becoming coarser and coarser. We have already found enough coarseness in one example today. In short, human development would undergo a decline if it could not be enriched by spiritual science.

[ 43 ] May the times we are living through today—which call upon people to take matters seriously in so many areas—also serve as a sign that a new era is beginning, one in which people must come to know about immortality, and that spiritual research is the path to that knowledge. The spiritual researcher knows that he is in harmony with all those who, even if they had not yet engaged in spiritual research, were nonetheless weaving and living in the spiritual world through the very nature of their soul’s activity. The spiritual researcher knows he is in harmony with those who simply knew what it means to live in the spiritual world. When Goethe was asked why he wanted to understand the plant through ideas, since ideas are something abstract, he said: “Then the ideas I believe I experience within myself are immediate reality, for I do indeed see my ideas within reality.” - That is why it was also Goethe who, even though he had not yet embraced spiritual science, was able—in those moments when his poetic genius carried him into a state of spiritual and soulful rapture—to speak about the nature of the spiritual world in a poetic yet unerring manner.

[ 44 ] We have had to say today: The one who, through the development of his thinking, lives his way into the spiritual world—he lives and weaves within the soul beings in the making. And even when the human being knows himself to be freed from the body, he is still a spiritual-soul being who lives within what is becoming. That which has become, that which is fixed, exists only in the outer sensory world in which a human being lives as long as they are in the body and when they perceive only through the body. As soon as a human being ascends to the spiritual being, they are seized by what is becoming. Goethe knows this. He also knows that just as a human being lives into his inner well-being through his own feeling, so too can he live into a feeling that may well be called love. This is what is surprising—and always will be—about spiritual beings: that from their life in the spiritual world, they know how to express the truth with the very right words. That is why Goethe also says: one should live within the becoming. And when one develops oneself into this becoming, then the thoughts live within this becoming itself. Not the ordinary thoughts—those must first be overcome; they can only be incorporated into the world of becoming as something lasting and enduring within the state of feeling. Only by grasping within the process of becoming that which can be held fast in thought does the thought itself become established, and can we carry it along with our immortal soul through the gate of death. That is why, at the end of his “Prologue in Heaven”—which he wrote at the height of his life—Goethe utters the beautiful words with which I wish to conclude these reflections today, because in them, at a time that predates the development of spiritual research as we understand it today, a poet, drawing upon his poetic genius, speaks of the spiritual world in the way one must speak of it—out of true knowledge—by first having the Lord point out, or have pointed out, what the human being needs as long as he lives in the physical body. So that he does not degenerate into complacency and comfort, the Lord directs Mephisto’s attention to those who are spiritual beings. And when free from the body, human beings themselves are such spiritual beings. Goethe points out the peculiarity of the spiritual world with words that are surely apt. For you will recognize in these words what I myself had to recognize in them. After I had developed everything I have presented today, I was surprised by the marvelous correspondence of these words of Goethe—which I had not previously recognized—the marvelous correspondence of these few words of Goethe with the fundamental character of the world to which the immortal human soul belongs: “But you, the true sons of the gods”—this refers to spiritual beings, just as the human being is a spiritual being as an immortal soul—

“But you, the true sons of the gods,
Rejoice in the living, rich beauty!
That which is becoming, which eternally acts and lives,
May love’s gentle bounds enfold you,
And whatever hovers in a shifting form,
May it be strengthened by enduring thoughts.”

[ 45 ] Reference is made to that which lives within the pure spiritual being as its very essence, but which is recognized in the human soul as its immortal part. These words, which directly characterize that which can be grasped in the human soul, even while it lives in the body, as the immortal, and of which one can know that it passes through the gate of death when it enters the realm of becoming and carries over into the pure realm of the spirit that which it has experienced here in a fleeting form, in order to transform it into thoughts that can then become lasting and be carried through the gate of death. And what lives in a fleeting form, the soul that passes through the gate of death establishes as an immortal, eternal being in enduring thoughts, which henceforth constitute its life just as, here in the physical world, the body sensually constitutes the life of the soul.