The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Fate and the Soul

[ 1 ] The question of the nature of human destiny—which undoubtedly lies at the center of every person’s life, not only in terms of the spiritual but of life as a whole—is, at the same time, one that the various philosophies, which have nevertheless struggled in the most diverse ways to solve the world’s mysteries, have barely begun to address. One sees how these philosophies seek to explore the mysteries of nature, the mysteries of the human soul, the connection between the material world and the spiritual world, and the nature of the spiritual world itself; yet they usually stop short of addressing precisely this most fundamental question of life: the question of human destiny.

[ 2 ] Schopenhauer is among the few philosophical thinkers who attempted to apply their thinking to the question of fate. Whatever one’s opinion of Schopenhauer may be, and whether one accepts or rejects the conclusions he presented as the results of his worldview, there is one thing that cannot be denied about him: that he attempted to apply his philosophical thinking directly to life, shaping it in such a way that the questions people face in everyday life could truly be resolved. And so it was he who not only attempted to reflect on fate in general but even wrote an interesting treatise on the connection between events that, at first glance, seem to follow one another by chance in the course of human life yet have a decisive impact on that course. Yet it is curious that even Schopenhauer, who was so bold in regard to some of his ideas, says, right at the beginning of his treatise on the connection of fate to human life circumstances, that the opinions he expresses should not be taken too seriously, but rather viewed simply as opinions, because—unlike with his other philosophical positions—he is by no means entirely certain of his own thinking regarding these questions of fate. And one can say that it is precisely in the way such a thinker—who delves deeply into life—approaches questions of fate and attempts to resolve them that it becomes evident that these questions can actually only be approached by a form of inquiry that rises — as I explained here the day before yesterday — from ordinary everyday consciousness and ordinary science to what was then called the contemplative consciousness. I took the liberty of saying that this relates to ordinary consciousness in the same way that ordinary consciousness relates to dream-filled consciousness, and that a person can awaken from ordinary consciousness to intuitive consciousness just as they awaken from dream-filled consciousness to ordinary consciousness, through which they orient themselves to the things of the sensory, material world around them. Anyone who truly attempts to approach the profound questions concerning the essence of human destiny senses that this essence can only be grasped by human cognition if that cognition itself—as was characterized the day before yesterday—is able to rise out of the world of material processes into immediate spiritual experience.

[ 3 ] It is interesting how Schopenhauer, in his own peculiar way, turns to dreams to address the question of fate. He says: In the world of dreams, which appears chaotic, mental images follow one after another, and these may reveal certain contradictions—just as life does—except that life presents them to people more intensely and powerfully. But then, in a sense, the resolution of these dream contradictions becomes apparent in waking consciousness when these contradictions come together. And here Schopenhauer draws particular attention to the very well-known type of dream—the so-called “exam dream”—in which a person experiences in a dream all the terrors that might overwhelm them when they find themselves being questioned in a dream about this or that, and are then unable to pass the test or provide an answer. Another person appears in the dream, who then provides the answer. Schopenhauer draws attention specifically to this dream. He says: Thus—in the dream—the person’s “I” has questioned itself. But it is only natural that the one who appeared to the dreamer as the knower is, in fact, the dreamer himself; he was therefore capable of providing these answers himself. And when the person awakens, Schopenhauer argues, he sees that both the knower and the non-knower are himself; the whole comes together into the unity of the personality. Waking consciousness reveals that what was divided in the dream is a single entity. Yet it is precisely in the way Schopenhauer approaches this example that it becomes quite clear how, as a merely thinking philosopher—not as a perceiving philosopher—he may indeed arrive at certain observations about the life of the soul, but not at bringing these observations to genuine conclusions. Let us take up this example and, later in the lecture, attempt to shed light on this very example from the world of dreams from the perspective of intuitive consciousness.

[ 4 ] The mystery of fate is precisely one of those mysteries of life that do not yield to everyday thinking—which has developed in relation to the external material world—and which such thinking does not know how to handle. Essentially, to this way of thinking, the course of human destiny appears more or less as a sum of coincidences. And even if necessities and inner connections do emerge, it is nevertheless the case that, in ordinary consciousness, a person can never be certain whether what they perceive as a systematic unity in their destiny—the destiny of their entire life—is based on an objective, inner reality, or whether it is merely projected by the imagination into the course of their entire life as the idea of a plan.

[ 5 ] One cannot approach that realm of human life where destiny appears in its true form—so that it can be perceived in its unfolding—without examining more closely the life of the soul as it must develop when it rises from the ordinary, everyday consciousness of wakefulness into the contemplative consciousness. But then it becomes clear that, through this process of the inner life of the human soul, one simultaneously draws near to the profoundly significant question of destiny. I already pointed out the day before yesterday that the starting point of spiritual research must be the inner experience of thinking. But I have expressly emphasized that this thinking must not only be deepened through reflection, but that it must truly be observed by the human being stepping back from his own act of cognition; and then, by being observed, it must be inwardly strengthened and developed. I used the image that thinking, as it is usually experienced in life, must be regarded, so to speak, as the root from which—through spiritual exercises—the trunk and leaves of the entire plant of spiritual knowledge sprout. I have pointed out that these soul exercises—which are purely inner processes of the soul that a person must undertake—are not arbitrary, but rather constitute methodical, systematic inner work of the soul that, in terms of inner systematics, in no way falls short of scientific work relating to the external world. The natural scientist, however, works in the laboratory with external tools. The spiritual researcher works with what his soul experiences, not by leaving it as it is experienced in ordinary life, but by processing it, transforming it, and advancing it to that point which I characterized by saying: If thinking is thus developed, the human being comes to lift his soul life out of the life of materiality, of bodily processes. Through development and the inner processing of their thinking, human beings come to face themselves—insofar as they belong to the world of physical processes—in the same way that one faces sensory objects in ordinary life. So that one becomes an object to oneself as a sensory being, while, in a sense, one draws into the actual spiritual being who is otherwise always present within the human being but who is drawn out of bodily life through such soul exercises. These inner spiritual exercises cannot be described in detail here. They are presented in detail in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? and Esoteric Science, as well as in other books listed there. The important point now, as it pertains to our question today, is this: to penetrate the spiritual world lying beyond the physical-sensory world, that kind of thinking—which is, in a sense, personal—that one has practiced in the outer material world, and which one has learned by comparing the things of the outer material world, by investigating their interrelationships, and so on, is not sufficient. This kind of thinking—as becomes evident to the observing consciousness—is far too directly connected to the psychophysical human being to be able to penetrate the true spiritual world. Human beings themselves, insofar as they are thinkers in ordinary life, apply this kind of thinking exclusively to the sensory world. This kind of thinking, insofar as it is bound to subjectivity and personality for use in the sensory world, does not transcend the sensory world in which human beings exist and cannot penetrate the spiritual world. Many thinking exercises must be undertaken to achieve what is to be discussed, but I would like to single out one characteristic one: it involves, so to speak, detaching thinking from its ordinary nature, from its ordinary conditions. When one forms a thought, it is at first nothing other than what is connected to the physical-sensory world. And no matter how hard one tries: if one remains solely within the realm of thinking that develops in ordinary life, thought is too weak, too feeble, and lacks the energy to enter the spiritual world. One must, so to speak, first detach thought from ordinary life so that one can then slip one’s individuality into this detached thought and thus withdraw from the body.

[ 6 ] How, then, can one go about detaching one’s thinking, so to speak, from its usual nature? This can be achieved by thinking through certain thoughts—it doesn’t matter at all which thoughts these are; ideally, they should be vivid, easily grasped thoughts that one is certain one is actually forming in the very moment one conceives them, so that they cannot be mere reminiscences of past experiences—through vigorous meditation and intense concentration. Such an exercise must, of course, be done frequently. But by repeating these exercises—by returning again and again to the same complex of thoughts—one extracts this complex from the realm of ordinary life; one hands it over to the world; one allows it to live on its own. If today I have a particular thought complex, immerse myself completely in it, then step away from it and go about my ordinary life, it is not, as it were, completely destroyed; rather, it lives on, and after some time it can be retrieved and brought back into my consciousness. The life it continues to live in this way is, so to speak, lived apart from my personality, which is directly bound to material, physical life. Thought is entrusted to the spiritual world. One has allowed the thought to flow into spiritual life, and it is in turn drawn back out of it. If one has the necessary patience and perseverance, one can eventually—after a relatively long time—which may be days, weeks, months, or years—encounter once more a thought that one has thus detached from the realm of subjective life, that one has entrusted to the unknown workings of the world, so that it flows on without us. When one then becomes aware of what has become of it, without our soul—bound to physicality—having intervened, one gradually undergoes, through this encounter with the thought, those significant experiences that lead one to the inner certainty that one lives in the life of thought as in a spiritual realm. That one now surrenders oneself to the life of thought—which has thus first detached itself from us—and, through this detached life of thought, detaches oneself from material-physical processes —an encounter of one thought complex with other thought complexes, which can often occur years later, involving the facts that unfold between the thoughts—these are the inner experiences most important for the next stage of spiritual knowledge.

[ 7 ] This enables us to enter a new realm of life, which seems to us as if—just as in physical life the eyes are imprinted on the body for physical perception—the soul has been imbued with “spiritual eyes” — to use Goethe’s expression — have been imprinted upon the soul, which now beholds a new world around itself. Human beings truly awaken from their ordinary consciousness to a new world. Just as the colorful, resonant, and warming world usually surrounds us, so now an ethereal-spiritual world surrounds us. But by coming to know this spiritual world in its most manifold manifestations, we also come to know something within ourselves that we cannot actually come to know in any other way than through the paths that have been described. We come to know that which I have taken the liberty of calling the human body of formative forces in an essay that recently appeared in the quarterly journal Das Reich. This body of formative forces exists within the human being just as the physical human body does. Just as this physical human body, with its life, is governed by physical and chemical processes, so too does the human being carry within themselves—permeating this physical human body—this body of formative forces throughout the life between birth and death. I call it this because when we observe it—when we truly transcend mere material processes—we realize that just as the physical and chemical forces in the physical body bring about the processes of that body, human beings are driven between birth and death by the forces of this formative body, which must be present so that growth can take place, so that development can proceed, so that human beings are carried forward from day to day, from year to year, as time flows between birth and death.

[ 8 ] However, one must acquire a variety of knowledge if one does not wish to stumble in these areas. For what is said in spiritual research is truly not fantasy; it is reality—just like the most tangible realities of the external physical world, indeed, even more intense realities. But standing in the way from the world of ordinary consciousness is, first of all, the fact that, in the way of perceiving the ordinary world, people are generally not as honest and true to themselves as they must be if they truly wish to make progress in these matters. And the second is that the manner of viewing and perceiving is entirely different when one moves beyond the world of mere sensory perception and thinking solely about the sensory world to this contemplative, thinking experience; for it is no longer mere thinking—it is a thinking experience. One must arrive at a different way of relating to oneself within the soul in order to make progress. One must, so to speak, be able to grasp the moment—that is how I would put it. In ordinary consciousness, we have time to let a thought linger in our consciousness when we wish to grasp this or that. But when we ascend to the experience of thinking, to the experience of intuitive thinking, we must be able to quickly grasp in the moment that which shines forth and reveals itself from the spiritual world—that is, initially from this world of the body of formative forces. I would say that this mode of perception—which we otherwise call the mode of perception of reflex acts—must take hold of our soul life in a spiritualizing way. We do not need to hold a thought in our consciousness for a long time when, for example, a fly is about to fly into our eye; rather, we quickly close our eye. Just as we have the presence of mind to do the right thing in the moment, so must we inwardly, with our soul, grasp in that very moment what flashes forth from the spiritual world—and this can only be brought into our personal thoughts by grasping it strongly, but grasping it in the moment. This practice of presence of mind for grasping is among the most important things a spiritual researcher must master. If he does not master this skill, it may happen that the things he observes—as is the case for many who experiment in this field—will have already vanished by the time he becomes aware of them or perceives them, so that it is as though they had never been there.

[ 9 ] Thus, human beings first come to recognize their body of formative forces, without which the physical body would be a corpse at every moment, just as it becomes a corpse when this body of formative forces leaves it—that is, when a person passes through the gate of death. But in order to penetrate into the true spiritual world—into what I would call an independent spiritual world, for the spiritual world of the form-body is, after all, bound to the physical body and remains with it at all times between birth and death—one must continue to pursue that soul development, that soul self-education, of which I have spoken. And here it is essential to introduce something quite special into the inner weaving of thoughts and ideas—which one has already made to a certain degree independent during the first stage of practice that I have just described.

[ 10 ] If one were to characterize what must now be introduced into intuitive thinking, one could characterize it in the following way: In ordinary thinking—the kind we use in everyday life and in conventional science—we move from one thought to the next, allowing ourselves to be guided by logic and by the connections between thoughts. We essentially try to arrive at correct thinking through inner logic. This is not sufficient for spiritual cognition. The simple, logical linking of one thought to another, and checking whether one thought is in logical contradiction or harmony with another—this is not sufficient for intuitive consciousness. Rather, something must occur that can be compared to the life we otherwise lead in the external world in the most diverse spheres. It can easily be characterized in the moral sphere. How do we conduct ourselves as human beings in the moral sphere? We may be tempted to first imagine this or that action in our minds; but we will not carry out every action we can imagine—one prompted by this or that desire or emotion—rather, when we have formed an intention regarding an action—or, I would say, not yet reached the stage of intention but have merely formed the mental image—we tell ourselves: this action shall be carried out, or it shall not be carried out. The forces of the inner life that tempt us to carry out this action must be resisted. As moral beings, we are engaged in a life of struggle. Our inner and outer lives may give rise to intentions for the most varied actions: we do not carry them all out. We know they are permitted to us, but we must not allow ourselves to act on them. We are not merely in logical harmony or contradiction, but we exist within the context of reality, and we do not permit ourselves one action in preference to another that must be carried out.

[ 11 ] This real connection among actions—which is quite distinct from a merely logical connection—can be compared to what thought must now move toward. The researcher of the spirit must arrive at this by devoting himself to certain thoughts that may be suitable for explaining the world in one way or another, and perhaps by devoting himself to other thoughts that shed light on certain things from one perspective or another. But then, in life, a person must not seek mere logic in their thoughts; rather, the thoughts must come alive in the soul in such a way that one thought not only logically contradicts another but annihilates it. This inner life, which has an outward expression in moral oughts and ought-not-to-be’s, emerges. Certain thoughts are ruled out; they combat one another; a lively interplay of thoughts arises in the life of thought, in which one stands vividly immersed. Above all, the greatest value lies precisely in the fact that, as one progresses in the life of the soul as described, one reaches a stage of contemplative thinking where thoughts transition into inner life and thereby reveal themselves in their diversity—but in such a way that, so to speak, one thought swallows up and consumes the other, and a living life emerges from each individual thought. I will give an example by referring once again to Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer remains a mere thinker; he does not ascend to contemplative consciousness, and as we know, Schopenhauer is an accuser of life. He has, in fact, made the following his life’s motto: “Life is a troublesome thing. I have resolved to make do with it by reflecting on life.” And most of the listeners will surely know how sharply Schopenhauer leveled accusations against life as such. There is, in fact, one particularly telling passage. There he says: Life could not actually be a theoretical question in reality if it were not practically worthless. For if life, as it presents itself to us in practice, were to reveal its value immediately, the intellect would have nothing left to do; it would not occur to it to search for mysteries in any way; it would not marvel at life and would not get around to investigating the mysteries and the deeper reasons for life; nor could it be seized by certain doubts; it could not ask about a purpose, since the purpose would present itself to it directly. — One might say, however, that for someone who contemplates life in all its diversity, this idea advanced by Schopenhauer will appear one-sided. But for Schopenhauer, it is precisely such an idea—one in which he is entirely trapped, within which he lives. Anyone who takes in the diversity of life will say: Well, just as Schopenhauer’s soul is driven by honest, sincere thoughts to view life in such a way that this idea presents itself to his soul, so too could another idea present itself to a human soul—one that, I would say, views life in exactly the opposite way. For example, one might say: If life were such that there were nothing at all to ask, it would offer the intellect no opportunity to develop. Man would be condemned to inactivity within himself, to go through life as if with a paralyzed intellect. For life would present to him on a silver platter exactly what it is. Precisely such a life would indeed be meaningless, because it kills man from within. — So you can clearly see the idea that is contrary to Schopenhauer’s worldview. If it were impossible for anyone to reflect on life, then life would be meaningless; if the purpose of life were immediately apparent, then all striving would have to cease, and human life would be purposeless.

[ 12 ] With the same inner strength, through the same inner devotion of the soul to reality, one may arrive at this idea, which is opposed to Schopenhauer’s. Such thoughts, which shed light on life in a wide variety of ways—and all such thoughts are, in a certain sense, valid, just as the various photographic images of a house or a tree turn out differently, and all are, in essence, valid, yet the house or the tree is only fully captured by synthesizing all the individual images—come at one from all sides, especially for those who engage in spiritual exercises as researchers of the mind. But they enter into the interplay described above; one thought partially or completely annihilates the other. And one is wholly absorbed with one’s soul in this inner life—a life that one cannot otherwise experience in this inner intimacy of the soul unless one has prepared oneself by not contrasting the present thought with past thoughts, as I have described, but rather by contrasting the present thought with the present one, allowing the thoughts to unfold their life in relation to one another, and being wholly absorbed in this unfolding. And by devoting oneself in this way to this struggle of thoughts and the harmony of thoughts—for it is both at the same time—one detaches oneself even more intensely from ordinary life in the physical body.

[ 13 ] And now one enters an independent spiritual world, which—unlike the world in which the body of formative forces exists—is not bound to the human physical body, but is completely independent of it. And only now does one begin to recognize a phenomenon of ordinary life that is significant, but which can actually be truly observed only from the perspective just described, so that the observation leads to conclusions: this is the world of sleep.

[ 14 ] “When a person falls asleep, their ordinary daily life comes to an end; when they wake up, it begins again.” To the observing consciousness, it becomes apparent that, from the moment of falling asleep until waking up, the person exists as an independent spiritual being outside of their physical, material body. However, in ordinary life, a person’s consciousness is so weak that, even when they are thus existing independently outside the physical body, they cannot perceive the being in which they now find themselves, nor the spiritual environment in which that being lives. For ordinary consciousness is trained only to perceive external physical objects through the medium of the physical body; it is not sufficiently strengthened to find within the spirit itself that inner resistance which then reflects these spiritual experiences to him. This strengthening, however, has come about for the soul through the exercises I have described in detail in my books, and thus a person can come to recognize what it actually is in which he finds himself outside his body from the moment he falls asleep until he awakens. For them, this will no longer be the empty world that otherwise passes them by from falling asleep to waking up, but rather a fulfilled world that is truly experienced and lived through the beholding consciousness. A person is now not merely facing their own form-forming body, but is truly in a state where they perceive their soul life—perceiving that which not only permeates them, bringing about their growth, but permeates them in such a way that, as I described the day before yesterday, works on this physical body and also on the body of formative forces to bring about all the soul experiences that are lived through with the help of the physical and the body of formative forces. But the human being now also knows what works in this way within the physical body and the form-forming body as an independent spiritual entity that is rooted in the spiritual world and lives there itself, and which must rhythmically alternate between being immersed in the physical body and living independently in the spiritual world—between falling asleep and waking up. By bringing to the contemplative consciousness—through the stage of knowledge I have described—what can be experienced outside the body, human beings experience the soul-spiritual realm. But they also come to recognize what they unconsciously go through during the time between falling asleep and waking up. Within this unconscious experience are purely spiritual experiences that a person undergoes while the body undergoes its purely organic, physical processes—through which it, so to speak, restores what the soul has expended during the daily life of work and cognition. These are spiritual processes that the soul undergoes, and these spiritual processes come to consciousness only when that consciousness has awakened sufficiently. But it can happen in the dreaming consciousness—and does happen in every dream—that what is experienced in the purely spiritual world between falling asleep and waking up is reflected down into the physical body and the body of formative forces. At the moment of insufficiently deep sleep, of waking, it is reflected into the body, and there it appears before the soul as a reflection through the body of formative forces, just as dream images do. In a sense, it is the purely spiritual life—which otherwise remains unconscious to ordinary consciousness when a person dreams—transformed into the intense fantasy of the dream. What the dream images present is not, as such, a reality, but rather images that transform true spiritual reality; yet they are brought about by the influence of spiritual reality upon the physical body and the body of formative forces. Thus, by developing this contemplative consciousness, a person can also look back with clarity on what otherwise takes place during sleep. And from this perspective, one now arrives at a completely different—and only now truly accurate—explanation of what Schopenhauer can only present as an observation, but without reaching a conclusion.

[ 15 ] Let us again consider, from this perspective, this so-called “exam dream,” in which a person splits into two parts with regard to his or her self, one of which can give an answer and the other cannot. Schopenhauer only arrives at the abstract conclusion: When a person wakes up, they realize that these two dream personalities are one and the same. He arrives at that abstract unity that all lovers of abstraction take such delight in. But the one who penetrates the entire process with a contemplative consciousness learns to recognize that the soul-spiritual being that accompanies a person from birth to death is what is being contemplated there—that it is the independent spiritual life that is being contemplated, which, albeit only subconsciously or unconsciously, underlies both the life of dreams and the life of sleep. And so it becomes apparent that the human being, having before him his own self as the ignorant one who cannot answer the questions, first looks at himself in a lifetime when he was not yet able to give an answer; and then he looks at himself in the other, who can give the answer, at a later moment in life when he is indeed already able to give an answer. He has these two moments in life before him: one in which he could not yet provide an answer, and then one in which he can provide an answer. He thus looks at himself twice.

[ 16 ] You see, we have specifically identified what Schopenhauer—since he was not a contemplative philosopher—could not arrive at. He did not know to what extent the human “I” had split into the younger self, which was not yet able to provide an answer, and the older self, which was already able to provide an answer. And why does this division occur? It occurs because deep within the soul lies what we might describe as follows: human beings are caught up in a constant struggle, a ceaseless wrestling match. It was through this inner struggle that human beings progressed from a state of ignorance—which could offer no answers—to a state of knowledge capable of answering those questions. In outward life, this struggle unfolds in such a way that one does not pay it much attention. One, so to speak, lets it fall out of one’s everyday awareness. But in the depths of the soul, this struggle represents a sum of forces. One has had to work inwardly and subconsciously to move from ignorance to knowledge. This struggle, which otherwise takes place below the threshold of consciousness, lives on in the soul. For there is truly much more in the soul than what the soul is usually aware of. And when the soul turns its attention away from the external world to which it is otherwise bound, this struggle comes to meet it; but ordinary consciousness has no way of grasping it in its truth. For it is not accustomed to perceiving this struggle. As mentioned, it pays no attention to it in ordinary consciousness. Thus, this inner consciousness does indeed arise in the soul during sleep and in dreams, but it manifests itself by presenting two images: the ignorant and the knowing human being, between whom the struggle lies and was active. Thus, if Schopenhauer had advanced to concrete, contemplative consciousness, he would have had to grasp this interesting fact of the exam dream. Then he would also have had to realize that something weaves itself into this world of dreams—something that pulses at the very depths of the soul throughout one’s entire life and is connected to a deeply inner struggle and forces within the soul. This does not manifest itself in the external world. A person would be misled if he constantly had this struggle before his inner eye. He must place himself within the outer world; he must fit himself into the outer world. But much is taking place within his soul as he thus fits himself into the world. As he transforms from one who does not know—who cannot give answers—into one who knows—who can answer the questions—a great deal is indeed taking place within the soul. And this weaves and lives on while the person is turned away from external reality. Thus, in a sense, what the person now experiences externally in real life—what he becomes for the world of work, for the world of other people, for the world in which he is supposed to be useful and valuable—is shaped by the mysterious processes of inner struggle taking place within him.

[ 17 ] Well, as I said the day before yesterday: Relatively speaking—and not in some misleading, ascetic sense—to those who see through life, even what is spread out in the sensory world appears as a collection of images. Just as a dream is a replica of external physical life, so this external physical life is a replica of a spiritual life to which the human being awakens through the contemplative consciousness into which he immerses himself.

[ 18 ] In my various writings, I have called the first stage of spiritual knowledge—through which a person comes to perceive the body of formative forces within the human being—“imaginative knowledge.” Please do not take offense at this term. It is very easy to take offense at it, because one usually associates it with what is commonly understood by the term in everyday life. But there is no need to take offense; it simply refers to what is described. This imaginative cognition presents itself in images, but in images that are not mere figments of the imagination, but rather point to a reality. But the kind of thinking that presents itself to the soul in such a way that it can be compared to the external, ever-changing life in the moral realm—that is what I have called “inspired insight” in my writings, because an independent spiritual reality steps before the soul, within which the soul now lives. The concept of inspiration—from which one must simply keep all superstition at bay—is entirely applicable to that inner perception of a spiritual world that now arises when the soul has elevated itself to such a form of cognition. Through inspired insight, the soul comes to understand not only the significance of dreaming and sleep for ordinary life, but also to truly grasp the independent spiritual life in such a way that it can form concepts of the spiritual life that unfolds beyond the life between birth and death. The soul comes to incorporate the independent spiritual world into its conceptions of that life in which the soul lived before it descended into the physical world through birth or conception. The soul comes to form conceptions of how life unfolds once it has passed through the gate of death. Human beings—as I already alluded to the day before yesterday, and as will be the subject of future lectures—experience repeated earthly lives, and thus they also experience a period that elapses between death and a new birth. During this period, which lasts considerably longer than the life between birth and death, the soul lives in a purely spiritual world; but in this world it possesses the forces with which it permeates itself—forces that surround it just as the forces of the physical world do here. From this world it draws the forces with which it permeates itself, and which it carries into that which is bestowed upon it from the world of physical matter through inheritance from father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and so on. But as the human being looks into this world, he looks upon the fundamental forces—the forces, I might say, that direct the course of his inner destiny. For what we bring to life from within the soul—so that we are in a certain way, and thereby experience this or that—is the work of our inner destiny. But this is not shaped merely by education—which, after all, draws things out of human individuality, though it can only draw out what lies within it—nor is it formed solely by the outer physical life within the human being; rather, the human being carries it in from the time before birth, through conception or birth, from life in the spiritual world, where the beholding consciousness perceives it. And so we look to the foundations of a person’s inner destiny, for which the forces are formed between death and a new birth. There we see all that determines our destiny from within the soul. If we are predisposed to be particularly contemplative, life can be difficult for us in certain situations. This predisposition to deep reflection, however, we bring with us from the life that elapsed between our last earthly life and this birth. By living through this life, we interweave the physical matter given to us through conception or birth with all the forces that, from within, shape our life in accordance with destiny.

[ 19 ] Added to this is what comes from outside and shapes life through fate. For a person’s overall destiny arises from the way we ourselves direct our forces toward the external world: whether we passively direct these forces toward it, experiencing things only through those passive forces, or whether we actively direct our forces toward the external world and thereby shape our lives differently. In a hundred different ways, fate—which takes shape from within—is thus formed; and in what are external blows of fate, consisting of suffering and joy, pleasure and pain, there lies the other part of fate, which weaves itself together with what comes from within to form the entire course of fate. We, too, can only come to understand what weaves into our destiny from the outside if we gain access to the spiritual world through contemplative consciousness,

[ 20 ] A third element must now be added to this. The two types of knowledge are not sufficient to explore this. Intuitive knowledge must be added. However, I am not using this word here in a vague, symbolic sense, but in the sense in which I intend to characterize it. I have described two stages of advancement in spiritual knowledge. One stage was brought about by thinking experiencing itself independently within thoughts, and, in a sense, by experiencing what lies between thoughts when they are left to their own devices. Then the thoughts enter into an inner interplay; the thoughts become one’s inner destiny, and through this we begin to comprehend the destiny that is predetermined in the spiritual world. Now, however, something further can occur if one lives through all the inner trials of the soul—which one undergoes when experiencing what I have described as these two stages of living knowledge—in a way that is inwardly true and inwardly honest. For the temptations that lead people in this realm to be insincere toward themselves—to convince themselves that they are truly experiencing this or that—are indeed very great. Yet it is not through logical proof, nor through any dialectical argument, that one can clarify the path to reality. The sincerity and truthfulness toward oneself that I have just described must be present. Otherwise, one can only say: One simply experiences reality through direct experience; nothing can be proven there. Just as one cannot prove to anyone who denies it that a whale exists—since the whale can only be proven through experience—so too, spiritual experiences can only be proven to exist through contemplative consciousness. Through contemplative consciousness, one can be as certain that one is dealing with a spiritual reality and not a figment of the imagination as one can be certain in the sensory world whether one is looking at a papier-mâché animal or a living animal. Just as one does not need to prove this there, but is convinced through direct experience, so too is one convinced of spiritual reality through inner experience.

[ 21 ] But then, as one goes on and on, as one truly continues the exercises mentioned with inner patience and perseverance, one reaches a point where, from a certain point onward, this experienced knowledge itself becomes destiny, becomes a fateful event. One really must be sincere and realize just how little ordinary, often overly theoretical, purely logical knowledge actually constitutes a fateful experience for most people. How little! One gains insight because one has a longing for it; yet one carries this insight with oneself as something that runs parallel to life. But when a person, as a spiritual researcher, proceeds as I have described, then a moment arrives—it may come sooner or later, it will come—when the act of knowing itself becomes a destiny, when one is so deeply imbued with the spirit that one stands within the spiritual universe through the spirit itself, when this becomes such an inner event that, despite all inner sincerity and truthfulness, it becomes the most important event. One may say: this signifies something that cuts very deeply into one’s life. As human beings, we certainly experience—as you all know—profound fateful events that often set one’s entire existence on a different course, experiences that deeply shake the soul, experiences of the most sublime joy, and experiences of the deepest tragedy. But if true spiritual knowledge is to be attained through inquiry, it must be possible for that knowledge itself to approach the human being in such a way that it becomes a fateful experience: a fateful experience in the face of which all other fateful experiences—no matter how significant they may be—pale somewhat in comparison. The greatest turning point, the greatest impact of life, can and must come to the truly spiritually discerning person in such a way that, from a certain moment onward, they know themselves to be so discerning in spirit that this fateful experience drowns out all other fateful experiences. And the tone that emanates from this fateful experience resounds in the soul in such a way that one now knows where the forces are at work in the spiritual world—forces that, for many, seemingly by chance, arrange and permeate the course of life in such a way that not only what takes shape from within there is a plan and connection, but also in those events that occur in the outer world—which are either interconnected or approach us in such a way that they, in turn, form the basis for connections that will then unfold in the next earthly life. For in spiritual recognition, a great deal depends on one’s ability to truly live through what emerges as an effect. By living through such an experience—as I have now described it as a fate-related experience of cognition, and previously as an experience of the cognizing consciousness—by not merely observing it but by experiencing its effects in the soul, and thereby having the soul transformed—the soul becomes a beholding soul. Now it is able not only to look into the life that flows between death and a new birth, but also to form concepts of forces that come from previous earthly lives. These forces, which continue to influence us from earlier earthly lives, are revived in this earthly life, and they interweave once more with what enters our life as something new; they coalesce into an overall destiny that draws its forces from the outside and which, in turn, forms the foundation for subsequent earthly lives. And so what comes from within appears as the effect of the life that unfolds between death and a new birth. What comes from without, on the other hand, appears as the influence of the foundations laid in previous earthly lives.

[ 22 ] I am well aware of how much today’s consciousness—which has rightly been shaped by the scientific worldview—resists such ideas as those now presented regarding external and internal destiny. It will take a long time before we can—I would say, through constant repetition—make it clear to those who, out of a scientific conviction, feel they must resist this spiritual-scientific view, that this spiritual-scientific conviction is in complete harmony with everything that science has so admirably brought to the surface of human thought today. To those who oppose spiritual science from the standpoint of a firmly established scientific worldview, one can always demonstrate that they do not actually know what they are talking about, because they lack the patience and perseverance to truly engage with spiritual science.

[ 23 ] Let us now, as a conclusion, consider what presents itself to us as the general foundation for the question of the human soul’s destiny, in connection with certain contemporary scientific ideas. Some will come and say: Modern science has finally succeeded, through careful research, in clarifying how forces exist—precisely within the context of physical heredity—that shape us and contribute to our destiny. And natural science has already come a long way in this field. And now a researcher in the spiritual sciences comes along and says, in contrast to what the natural scientist has demonstrated as stemming from physical heredity, that inner destiny is determined by what takes place in the purely spiritual world between death and a new birth. Both concepts, however, are entirely compatible with one another; one must simply be clear that we must develop—alongside mere logical thinking—a way of thinking that corresponds to reality, including spiritual reality. I have specifically pointed this out in my latest book, The Riddle of Man; today I wish only to elaborate on it in relation to this idea. Logical thinking is usually satisfied when thoughts are compatible with one another. But thoughts that are logically compatible may only appear to be so. If one stands outside of reality and looks at mere logic, it may well be that appearances are deceptive, that logic conjures up a harmony while reality contradicts it. Schopenhauer himself once mocked the idea that thoughts can be entirely in agreement with one another, yet be contradicted by reality, by pointing out how Francis I of France claimed to have the same idea as Charles V. He said: “I do indeed have the same idea; I want exactly the same thing as my dear brother Charles V.” Since both wanted the same thing, their thoughts seemed to be the same. But did they actually agree? For they both wanted to conquer Milan! Reality corrects thought. This is very striking, immediately obvious. But in other cases where one clings in a similar way to the appearance of harmony and does not delve deeper into reality—be it physical or mental—one often fails to notice it. And so one fails to notice how the idea I have just developed regarding the forces of inner destiny is very much compatible with the idea of physical heredity. Here we see how, precisely when confronted with the correct facts, worldview thinking actually becomes quite illogical. It is indeed very interesting to trace the scientific clarity with which the concept of heredity has been established—beginning with the plant kingdom, through Mendel’s findings, all the way to genealogical research, where it is shown that certain strengths and abilities are—well, let’s say—inherited within the family. A book on family research and the theory of heredity, such as the one published by Robert Sommer, is indeed extraordinarily interesting; even more interesting is what he followed up with in 1908 regarding Goethe in the light of heredity. For one can, of course, beautifully illustrate how what emerged in Goethe as this or that faculty of his mind was, on the one hand, already predisposed—one in this ancestor, another in a different one, a third in yet another; and thus they all converged in a single descendant and ultimately manifested themselves in a particularly brilliant form. Well, this has led to the theory of heredity developed by Gregor Mendel—which is based on scientifically accurate facts and is extraordinarily profound with regard to heredity in plants and animals—being simply transferred to the spiritual realm, so that one says: Special talents always appear at the end of a lineage; they are thus inherited through the lineage flowing from father to mother and from grandfather to grandmother. I have pointed out here on several occasions that this idea is not very realistic or logical. For if one truly wanted to demonstrate that a person’s characteristics are passed on to their descendants, one would have to show that the ancestor possesses the characteristics in question and that the characteristics already present in the ancestor manifest themselves in the descendant. But this is no more remarkable—the idea is no deeper—than the notion that a person who has fallen into water is wet. It has been passed down through physical heredity via the ancestral lineage; thus, through heredity, the individual brings specific characteristics with them.

[ 24 ] But it cannot be denied that very early in the ancestral line, the predisposition to what ultimately manifests in the descendant becomes apparent. Viewed from an external, physical perspective, this idea is certainly valid; but to the perceiving consciousness, the following becomes evident: Just as the soul permeates this physical human body—just as the soul acts and lives within the physical human body—so, too, is everything that lives in our surroundings permeated and interwoven with the soul-spiritual. Everything that happens in the physical realm is permeated by the soul, just as my finger and my arm are permeated by the soul and are not merely physical. The soul is everywhere. And just as the physical realm is permeated—perhaps flowing down from a person in the 14th century through a descendant in the 15th and 16th centuries all the way into the 20th—so too do the physical processes continue; spiritual processes flow parallel to them. The spiritual world is not isolated from the physical world in some far-off fantasy realm; it permeates the physical world. And where physical processes of inheritance unfold through the centuries, spiritual processes also take place. There the spiritual world is. And the soul of a human being born at a specific point in time has long been connected to the processes unfolding in the line of ancestors. To put it simply: If a person is born in the 20th century to a father and mother who, in turn, are descended from parents born in the 19th century, and so on back through the centuries, the stream of heredity flows down through the centuries to the person we are considering. But the soul has been active for centuries in bringing couples together. What happens between people and then manifests in heredity—this influence, while physical heredity is taking place here, comes from the spiritual world, so that the right father is always led to the right mother. There, the conditions are prepared for what the soul strives toward, so that it may then be born into the offspring.

[ 25 ] There you have expressed the idea in such a way that everything is summarized. Everything takes place through physical heredity, but the soul is always present; the soul joins the stream centuries in advance, flowing from one human couple to their descendants and, again and again, to their descendants. In this way, the soul itself brings about what, in the chain of heredity, prepares what it will eventually become and what finally finds expression today. — For today’s worldview, for today’s theory of heredity, this idea may still seem grotesque. It can only be grasped by forming conceptions of the spiritual world in the manner described today; but it will become established over time.

[ 26 ] And now I would also like—even if, due to time constraints, I can only do so very briefly—to describe, in a certain way, what we might broadly call the mechanism of external fate, having already discussed the mechanism of internal fate in connection with heredity. What takes place among people in everyday life—what one person inflicts upon another, what one person says to another, what one person experiences through another as feelings are aroused within them by the other’s words and deeds, and how they themselves are prompted to engage in these words and deeds—all of this is only one side of what happens between people. And what lives in consciousness in people’s relationship to the rest of their environment is also only one side. In the human soul, there is actually more than what it is conscious of. And so infinitely more takes place between two people who are together in life than what takes place in the consciousness of one or the other. And so it is between all people who encounter one another. A great deal takes place in the deep recesses of consciousness. It remains in these recesses, though it sometimes rises to the surface. There is an alternating process of surfacing and then receding again, but also a complete dwelling in the subconscious. But what takes place in the depths of the soul—what is not experienced in consciousness, but only in the subconscious—is nevertheless present in the soul and exerts an influence there. To simplify the example: We encounter another person; we consciously experience something with them, but precisely through this, we also experience something deeper; something deeper is stirred within the soul. It lives on within us, lives on within them. It continues to have an effect and is carried through the gate of death; within the spiritual world, in the life between death and a new birth, it is further developed in preparation for a new earthly life. Everything that is thus experienced in the depths of the soul is carried through the gateway of death in such a way that I can compare this process, for example, by saying: As you all know, in outer physical existence there is the possibility of making a room airless by pumping the air out of it. If one then opens a vent somewhere, the outside air flows into this vacuum. A space that is empty cannot generate any forces; but the outside world penetrates it—the external world flows into it. If it were full, the outside world could not penetrate it, but the outside world penetrates it precisely because it must flow in through its emptiness. By carrying through the gateway of death that which is imprinted in our soul—that is, in the subconscious—into the broader sphere of conscious soul life, so that it often lives on in our soul as a feeling of happiness, it creates, so to speak, an empty space in the soul—to put it in relatively simple terms, the physical transformed into the spiritual; for this is how it presents itself to the observing consciousness. With this emptiness, the human being lives between death and a new birth and, through birth, enters a new earthly life once again. And so, as a consequence of previous earthly lives, the human being carries into this new earthly life an empty space—to put it simply. Through this spiritual void, they draw the corresponding conditions of the external world toward themselves. Through this, the beings and the blows of external fate approach; through this, they encounter again a human being they came to know in a previous life and are reunited with them. They draw this person toward them because what was once fullness in their soul has become a void that acts as a magnet for certain events. And just as a vacuum attracts air, so does a void brought about by certain events draw certain experiences back to itself. That is, to put it roughly, the mechanism by which one earthly life influences the next.

[ 27 ] Today I have endeavored to present to you a number of observations and findings from spiritual science that are generally connected with human destiny and its mysteries. This general framework can serve as a foundation for making observations about individual questions of destiny as well. In such a fateful time, this, too, must be obvious. Therefore, in the next lecture, I will speak specifically about individual questions of destiny; based on the universal human experience of destiny, I will attempt to illustrate the significance of individual blows of fate—both joyful and painful—for one’s immediate life, one’s happiness, and the entire course of one’s life.

[ 28 ] It is precisely in the question of destiny that something becomes apparent which I would like to mention, because it is very important and is misunderstood even by those who are well-disposed toward spiritual science. It is very easy to think one can raise the objection: “Yes, but what does this spiritual science mean for those who cannot become spiritual researchers themselves?” — The best answer to this is that, for the spiritual researcher himself, spiritual research is a destiny. For him, it is what I have more or less described; but what life demands becomes a spiritual experience only when one brings all that the spiritual researcher discovers into the world of thought—a world that is now being enriched, not by external sensory reality, but by inner spiritual reality. And every human being can then take in this world of thought, provided they surrender to it without prejudice. It is truly not correct to say that the mysteries of the spiritual world are clear only to the spiritual researcher. The fact that they are clear to so few people today stems from the fact that, today, a relatively large number of people are receptive only to thoughts derived from external life. Thus, people believe the chemist even if they are not familiar with the experiments through which he arrives at certain results; likewise, they believe the astronomer even if they are not aware of all the detailed observations he must make. People believe in them because they open themselves without prejudice to the ideas that emerge in the researcher’s study, in the clinic, in the laboratory, and at the observatory, and they apply the findings of research to their lives; life is enriched by them. One can grasp in one’s thoughts what another must investigate.

[ 29 ] The time has not yet come, but it is not too far off, when people will turn their thoughts to what, in a sense, takes place in the spiritual researcher’s “spiritual laboratory” and leads to findings based on observations. This depends only on a certain shift in thinking habits. Just as people had to get used to the Copernican worldview, so too will they get used to the findings of spiritual research. Once one has the kind of thoughts into which the spiritual researcher shapes his findings, those thoughts are sufficient—even though today, to a certain extent, anyone can become a spiritual researcher to the point of convincing themselves of the truth of the spiritual world, including individual facts about it. However, in order to have a fully grounded conviction, one need not be a spiritual researcher oneself, but only approach—with an open mind, without prejudice, and unclouded by the materialistic, scientific concepts of the present—what unfolds as a world of ideas, which is the result of the spiritual researcher’s observations. And once one has truly considered this even just once, one has, in this thinking, precisely what is needed from the spiritual world for life in the first place. What is needed for life in general can be recognized through an intellectual penetration of spiritual science. For spiritual science to progress, certain people must themselves become researchers, engage with the spiritual world, and develop their souls through methods that are as inwardly spiritual as the methods of the chemist, the physiologist, and the biologist are outward. And in the future, people—and this is not difficult for a healthy soul to achieve—will acquire what can be regarded as a certain foundation of spiritual science, leading to the certainty that the results of spiritual research correspond to reality. At the present stage of human development, this can be achieved by taking into account what you find set forth in my books. But it must be emphasized again and again that the objection cannot hold: “I cannot see into the spiritual world, so what the spiritual researcher presents has no value!” — With unbiased thinking, one can discover: If what the spiritual researcher offers is translated into thoughts, a source of life can be gained from these thoughts which, when placed within the soul, truly guides that soul in such a way that even those things gradually become understandable which, as we have seen, otherwise defy even philosophical understanding—such as the enigmatic question of human destiny, which has received so little attention in philosophy.

[ 30 ] It now becomes apparent, at a much higher level of spiritual contemplation, that the comparison I used the day before yesterday can indeed be extended to the realm of fate: We have the dreaming consciousness and can compare it to ordinary consciousness. In a dream, a person experiences something that resembles a destiny, in the kind of dreams I have described in the spirit of Schopenhauer. The person gains clarity about this dream—how it flows together with the life experienced in the outer physical-sensory world—when they awaken from dream consciousness into ordinary consciousness. - But when a person awakens from ordinary physical consciousness into contemplative consciousness, then what flows through our life—whether tragic or joyful, uplifting or depressing, painful or joyful—becomes clear. That which thus flows through our lives becomes clarified; it gains a coherence similar to that which a dream gains when we awaken and reintegrate into physical reality. Just as the apparent coherence of a dream gives way to physical reality upon ordinary awakening, so too does that which, like a dream of destiny—whether joyful or painful, bearing the weight of fate—pervades human life; it becomes clear within a higher reality that reigns in the spiritual realm, where the human being now awakens and lives as a spiritual being; this is clarified in the spiritual world. We experience our destiny because it is the mirror we must experience as we pass through our lives in the spiritual world as spiritual beings, progressing through many stages, and because, through what we experience in our destiny, we hasten from one stage of life to the next. For ultimately, from a deeper perspective, all life—in the body, in the spirit, through many spiritual and physical lives—all life is a process of perfection. It is not only the human being who strives while he lives; every being strives; the whole world strives, the entire universe strives from one stage of perfection to the next. And a deep sense of the goal of life and becoming is revealed to one only when a person awakens from his life in the physical world—the world of material processes—to a life in the spirit, a spiritual life on Earth, where, in contrast to the image of perfection here in the physical realm, the archetype of all perfection in the spiritual realm is revealed.