The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. Mysteries of the Soul and Mysteries of the World: Research and Contemplation in German Spiritual Life

[ 1 ] In my last lecture, I attempted to show how misunderstandings are to blame for the fact that, in today’s intellectual culture, there is so little mutual understanding between those who direct their research and attention toward the soul and its processes, and those who direct their attention to the material processes in the human organism—which occur, well, however one wishes to call them, as accompanying phenomena or, as materialism maintains, as necessary causes of psychological events. And I tried to show what the reasons for such misunderstandings are. Today I would like, above all, to draw attention to the fact that wherever genuine, true knowledge is sought, such misunderstandings—and also misunderstandings in other directions—are bound to arise if one fails to take into account, in the very process of cognition itself, something that, with more intimate and, in particular, prolonged research, imposes itself upon the spiritual researcher more and more as a direct experience, as an inner experience. This is something that at first seems very strange when it is stated: In the realms of worldview—that is, in the realms of knowledge of the spiritual-real or, more generally, of the sources of existence—if one becomes, I might say, too entangled in certain ideas or concepts, a certain perspective on the human soul will inevitably arise that can be absolutely refuted and just as easily proven to be true.

[ 2 ] Therefore, the spiritual researcher will increasingly depart from what is otherwise customary in matters of worldview—namely, presenting this or that to support one view or another, which would be similar to what is called “proof” or “refutation” in everyday life. For in this field, as has been said, everything must be proven with certain reasons, and everything must be refuted with certain reasons. Materialism can certainly be rigorously proven in its entirety, and it can be rigorously proven when it addresses individual questions of life or existence. And one will not be able to simply dismiss what a materialist can cite to support his views if one merely seeks to refute his view from opposing perspectives. The same applies to one who advocates a spiritual existence. Therefore, anyone who truly wishes to conduct research in spiritual realms must, with regard to any such worldview question, not only know what speaks in favor of a position, but must also know everything that speaks against it. For the remarkable result is that the actual truth only emerges when one allows both what speaks in favor of a position and what speaks against it to take effect upon the soul. And anyone who allows their mind—I might say—to fixate so firmly on any conceptual or imaginative framework of a one-sided worldview will always remain oblivious to the fact that the opposite can also assert itself in the soul, and that the opposite must even appear correct to a certain degree. And they will therefore find themselves in a situation similar to that of someone who might claim that human life can be sustained only through inhalation. Inhalation presupposes exhalation; the two belong together. But this is always the relationship between our concepts and our ideas concerning questions of worldview. We can put forward a concept that affirms a thing, and we can put forward a concept that denies it; one demands the other, just as inhalation demands exhalation, and vice versa. And just as real life can only appear, can only reveal itself, through exhalation and inhalation—that is, when both are present—so, too, can that which is spiritual come to life in the soul only when one is able to engage with both the “for” and the “against” of a matter in an equally positive way. The affirmative concept, the affirmative idea, is, within the living whole of the soul, in a sense like an exhalation, while the negative concept is like an inhalation; and it is only through their living interaction that that which relates to spiritual reality is revealed. For this reason, it is not at all the nature of spiritual science to apply the ordinary methods one is so accustomed to seeing in everyday literature, where this or that is proven or refuted. The spiritual scientist recognizes, in fact, that what is presented in a positive manner can always have a certain validity when it relates to questions of worldview, just as the opposite phenomenon can as well. But when one proceeds in questions of worldview to that immediate life that exists in positive and negative concepts—just as physical life exists in exhalation and inhalation—one arrives at concepts that truly take the spirit directly within themselves, at concepts that are equal to reality. One must then, admittedly, often express oneself differently than one does according to the habits of thought in ordinary life. But the way in which one expresses oneself arises from the living, active inner experience of the spirit. And the spirit can only be experienced inwardly; it cannot be perceived externally in the manner of material existence.

[ 3 ] As you know, one of the most fundamental questions of worldview is the one that was also addressed in the first lectures I gave here this winter—the question of substance, of matter. And today, from the perspective I have just outlined, I would like to briefly touch on this question by way of introduction.

[ 4 ] One cannot come to terms with the question of substance or matter by repeatedly trying to form ideas or concepts about what matter actually is; in other words, by trying to understand what matter—or substance—is. Anyone who has truly wrestled inwardly with such enigmatic questions—which many people find remote—knows what these questions are really about. For if one has wrestled with them for a time without succumbing to any preconceptions, one arrives at an entirely different perspective on such a question. They arrive at a perspective that makes them see as more important the very way one behaves within one’s soul when forming a concept such as that of matter. This inner struggle of the soul itself is brought to the surface of consciousness. And then one arrives at a view concerning precisely these enigmatic questions, which I might express something like this:

[ 5 ] Anyone who wants to understand matter—substance—in the way it is usually understood is like a person who says: “I now want to get a sense of darkness, of a dark room.” What does he do? He lights a lamp and considers that the correct method for getting a sense of the dark room. Isn’t that the most absurd thing one could do? Similarly, it is the most absurd thing one could do—though one must realize this through the struggle described above—to succumb to the belief that one will ever come to know matter by setting the spirit in motion to, so to speak, illuminate matter with the spirit. Only and exclusively where the spirit within our body itself can be silent—in sensory perception, where the life of the imagination ceases—does an external process penetrate into our inner being. There, by allowing the spirit to be silent and experiencing this silence of the spirit, we can truly have matter, substance, represented within our soul, as it were.

[ 6 ] One does not arrive at such concepts through ordinary logic; or, if one does arrive at them through ordinary logic, they turn out, I would say, to be far too flimsy to inspire genuine conviction. Only when one wrestles with certain concepts in one’s soul in the manner I have indicated do they lead one to a conclusion such as the one I have suggested.

[ 7 ] Now, the reverse is also true. Let us suppose that someone wants to understand the spirit. If they seek it, for example, in the purely external, material form of the human body, they are like someone who, in order to understand light, extinguishes it. For that is the mystery of the matter: that external, sensory nature itself is the refutation of the spirit, the extinguisher of the spirit. It mimics the spirit, just as illuminated objects reflect light. But nowhere can we ever find the spirit in any material processes unless we grasp it in living activity. For that is precisely the essence of material processes: that the spirit has been transformed into them, that the spirit has been converted into them. And if we then try to recognize the spirit from them, we misunderstand ourselves.

[ 8 ] I wanted to preface this so that there can be ever greater clarity regarding what the spiritual researcher’s attitude toward knowledge actually is, and how the spiritual researcher needs a certain breadth and flexibility in their imaginative life in order to truly penetrate the things into which they must penetrate. With such concepts, it is then possible to shed light on the important questions that I touched upon here last time, and which I will only briefly allude to in order to move on to our reflections today.

[ 9 ] I have said: As things have developed in recent intellectual thought, a one-sided view has increasingly emerged regarding the relationship between the soul-spiritual and the physical-bodily, a view expressed by the fact that today people actually seek the soul-spiritual only within that part of the human body which lies in the nervous system or, more specifically, in the brain. In a sense, the soul-spiritual is attributed solely to the brain and nervous system, and when speaking of the soul-spiritual, the rest of the organism is regarded, more or less, merely as a kind of appendix to the brain and nervous system. Now I have attempted to clarify the findings of spiritual research in this area by pointing out that a true understanding of the relationship between the human soul and the human body can only be attained by placing the entire human soul in relation to the entirety of physicality. But then it becomes apparent that there is indeed a deeper reason for dividing the totality of the human soul into the actual life of imagination, the life of feeling, and the life of will. For only the actual life of imagination in the soul is connected to the nervous system in the way that modern physiological psychology assumes. In contrast, the life of feeling—mind you: not insofar as it is represented, but insofar as it arises—is related to the human respiratory system, to all that constitutes respiration and is connected with it, in the same way that the life of imagination is related to the nervous system. Thus we must assign the life of feeling to the respiratory system. Furthermore: what we call the life of the will stands in the same relationship to what we must physically call metabolism in the body—naturally down to its finest ramifications. And since the individual systems in the organism are interlinked—metabolism naturally also takes place in the nervous system—things, I might say, interpenetrate one another at these outermost ends. However, a true understanding remains possible only if one views things in this way, if one knows that the impulses of the will are to be attributed to metabolic processes just as much as the experiences of imagination are to the processes in the human nervous system or, respectively, in the brain.

[ 10 ] Of course, such things can initially only be hinted at. And precisely because they can only be hinted at, there is room for objection upon objection. But I know this for certain: If one approaches what has just been discussed not by considering mere fragments of facts from contemporary scientific research, but by taking into account the full scope of anatomical and physiological research—that is, if one considers everything that constitutes anatomical and physiological research—then a complete harmony will emerge between the claims I have made in the humanities and the claims of the natural sciences. Viewed superficially—let me raise this objection merely as a particularly characteristic example—one can, of course, raise objection after objection against such a comprehensive truth. Someone might say: Well, let us first agree that certain feelings are connected to the respiratory system; for no one can really doubt that this can be demonstrated very convincingly for certain feelings. But someone might say: Yes, but how do you account for the fact that we perceive melodies, for example, that melodies arise in our consciousness; the feeling of aesthetic pleasure is associated with melodies. Can one speak here of any relationship between the respiratory system and what quite obviously arises in the head—something that, according to physiological findings, is so clearly connected to the nervous system?—As soon as one considers the matter correctly, the truth of my assertion immediately becomes completely clear. Namely, one must then take into account that with every exhalation an important process occurs in the brain in parallel: that during exhalation, if the brain were not held down by the skull, it would rise—breathing extends into the brain—and conversely, during inhalation, the brain sinks. And since it cannot rise and sink because of the skull, what occurs is well known to physiology: a change in blood flow takes place; what physiology refers to as “brain respiration” occurs—that is, certain processes that take place in the nervous system in parallel with the respiratory process. And in this encounter between the respiratory process and what lives within us as sounds through our ears, what unfolds is precisely what indicates that feeling, in this realm as well, is connected to the respiratory organism just as the mere life of the imagination is connected to the nervous organism.

[ 11 ] I want to point this out because it is something particularly far-fetched and therefore lends itself to an obvious objection. If one could reach an understanding with someone regarding all the details of the physiological findings, none of those details would contradict what was presented here last time and has been presented again today.

[ 12 ] Now it is my task to further expand our discussion, again in a manner similar to that of the last lecture. And in doing so, I must go into a little more detail regarding the way in which human beings develop their life of sensory perception, in order to show what the actual relationship is between the faculty of sensory perception—which leads to mental images—and the life of feeling and will, indeed the whole life of the human being as soul, body, and spirit.

[ 13 ] Through our sensory life, we interact with our sensory environment. Within this sensory environment, natural science distinguishes certain substances—or, better said, forms of matter—for it is these that matter now; if I were to speak with a physicist, I would have to say “states of matter”: solid, liquid, and gaseous. But now, as you all well know, physical and natural scientific research goes so far as to assume something else in addition to these forms of matter. When natural science seeks to explain light, it does not content itself with merely accepting the forms of matter I have just mentioned, but rather turns to what initially appears to it to be finer than these types of matter; it turns to what is commonly called ether. The concept of ether is, after all, an extraordinarily difficult one, and one can say: The various ideas that have been formed about what should be said regarding ether are incredibly diverse and varied. Naturally, it is not possible to go into all these details. It should merely be pointed out that natural science feels compelled to introduce the concept of ether—that is, to conceive of the world as filled not only with the denser substances directly perceptible to the senses, but also with ether. What is characteristic is that natural science, with its methods, does not arrive at what ether actually is. For scientific research always requires material foundations for its actual work. The ether itself, however, always eludes these material foundations, so to speak. It appears in connection with material processes; it brings about material processes; but it cannot, so to speak, be grasped by the means that are bound to the material foundations. Consequently, a peculiar concept of the ether has emerged, particularly in recent times, one that is, in essence, extraordinarily interesting. The concept of the ether that can already be found among physicists today amounts to saying: The ether must be that—whatever else it may be—which, in any case, lacks the properties possessed by ordinary matter. In this way, natural science points beyond its own material foundations by saying that the ether possesses what it cannot find with its own methods. Natural science goes as far as assuming the existence of an ether, but it does not go so far as to fill this concept of the ether with any substance using its own methods.

[ 14 ] Well, spiritual research yields the following. Natural science proceeds from a material foundation, while spiritual research proceeds from a spiritual-psychic foundation. The spiritual researcher, if he does not arbitrarily stop at a certain boundary, is driven just as much toward the concept of the ether as the natural scientist is—only from the other side. The spiritual researcher attempts to incorporate into his understanding that which is active and effective within the soul. If he were to stop at what he can experience inwardly in ordinary soul life, then in this area he would not even go as far as the natural scientist who accepts the concept of ether. For the natural scientist at least posits the concept of ether; he accepts it as valid. The researcher of the soul, if he does not arrive at a concept of the ether on his own, resembles a natural scientist who said: “Why should I care about what still lives there! I accept the three basic forms: solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies; whatever is supposed to be even more subtle, I do not concern myself with.” — This is, in fact, how the doctrine of the soul usually proceeds. |

[ 15 ] However, not everyone who has been active in the field of soul research proceeds in this way; and one finds, in particular, within that extraordinarily significant scientific development that is based on German idealism—which gained prominence in the first third of the nineteenth century—not in this idealism itself, but in what subsequently emerged from it— one finds approaches in which concepts of the ether are introduced from the other side—the spiritual-psychic side—just as natural science ascends to the ether from the material side. And if one truly wishes to grasp the concept of the ether, one must approach it from both sides. Otherwise, one will not be able to make sense of this concept. Now, what is interesting is that the great German philosophical idealists—Fichte, Schelling, Hegel—despite their vivid imagination and thinking, which I have often characterized here, still left the concept of the ether untouched. They were, so to speak, unable to strengthen their inner soul life or muster the necessary strength to the extent that the concept of the ether would have revealed itself to them. In contrast, among those who allowed themselves to be inspired by this idealism—who, so to speak, allowed the ideas generated at that time to continue working within their souls—even though they were not as great geniuses as their idealist predecessors, this concept of ether sprang forth from this exploration of the soul. We find this concept of the ether first in Immanuel Hermann Fichte, the son of the great Johann Gottlieb Fichte and at the same time a student of his father, in that he allowed within himself to continue working what Johann Gottlieb Fichte and his successors, Schelling and Hegel, had, so to speak, created in their souls. But by condensing it, as it were, into greater inner effectiveness, he came to say to himself: When one considers the soul-spiritual life, when one, I might say, surveys it from every angle, one comes to say to oneself: Downward, this soul-spiritual life must flow into the ether, just as solids, liquids, and gaseous substances flow upward into the ether. In a sense, the lowest aspect of the soul must flow into the ether just as the highest aspect of the material world flows upward into the ether. And characteristic of this are certain ideas that Immanuel Hermann Fichte formed on this subject, through which he truly reached the boundary of the ether, starting from the spiritual-soul realm. We read in his Anthropology (1860)—you will find the passage cited in my latest book, The Riddle of Man—:

[ 16 ] “In the material elements... the truly enduring, that unifying principle of form in the body, which proves effective throughout our entire lives, cannot be found.” “Thus we are directed to a second, fundamentally different cause within the body.” “Inasmuch as” this “contains that which is truly persistent in metabolism, it is the true, inner, invisible body, yet present in all visible materiality. The other—its outer appearance, formed by ceaseless metabolism—may henceforth be called the “body”—which is truly neither persistent nor one, but merely the effect or afterimage of that inner corporeality which casts it into the changing material world, just as, for example, the magnetic force forms an apparently dense body from the particles of iron filings, which, however, disperses in all directions when the binding force is withdrawn from it.”

[ 17 ] Now, according to I. H. Fichte, an invisible body lived within the ordinary body, which consists of external matter, and we might also call this invisible body the etheric body—an etheric body that brings the individual particles of matter in this visible body into their forms, shapes them, and develops them. And I. H. Fichte is so clear that this etheric body, to which he descends from the spiritual realm, is not subject to the processes of the physical body—so much so that for him, the insight into the existence of such an etheric body is sufficient to transcend the mystery of death. For I. H. Fichte says in his Anthropology:

[ 18 ] “For there is hardly any need to ask how a person relates to himself in this process of death. Even after the final act of the life process visible to us, he remains, in his very essence, entirely the same in spirit and organizational power as he was before. His integrity is preserved; for he has lost absolutely nothing of what was his and belonged to his substance during his visible life. In death, he merely returns to the invisible world—or rather, since he had never left it, since it is the very essence that persists in all that is visible—he has merely shed a particular form of visibility. “Being dead” simply means no longer being perceptible to ordinary sensory perception, in exactly the same way that what is truly real—the ultimate causes of physical phenomena—is imperceptible to the senses.”

[ 19 ] I have shown, with regard to I. H. Fichte, how he arrives at such an invisible body from the realm of the soul. It is interesting that the same idea has emerged in many places during the late flowering of German idealist intellectual life. Some time ago, I also drew attention here to a solitary thinker—a school principal in Bromberg—who grappled with the question of immortality: Johann Heinrich Deinhardt, who died in the 1860s. He initially approached the question of immortality like the others, by attempting to get to the heart of this question through ideas and concepts. But he discovered more than those who live merely in concepts. And so the editor of that treatise on immortality written by J. H. Deinhardt was able to quote, from a letter the author had written to him, a passage in which J. H. Deinhardt that, although he had not yet gotten around to setting the matter down in a book, his inner research had clearly shown him that during his life—between birth and death—a person works on the formation of an invisible body, which _ upon death is released into the spiritual world.

[ 20 ] And so many other manifestations of German intellectual life could be cited in support of such a direction of research and perspective. All of them would prove that this line of research was driven by the urge not to remain content with what mere philosophical speculation—what a life lived solely in concepts—can yield, but rather to strengthen the inner life of the soul so that it reaches the density that touches the ether.

[ 21 ] However, the true mystery of the ether cannot yet be solved from within by following the paths these researchers have taken; but one might say, in a sense, that these researchers are on the path to spiritual science. For this mystery of the ether is solved when the human soul undergoes those inner processes, achieved through practice, which I have often described here and which are described in more detail in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?. When a person undergoes these inner soul processes—albeit gradually—they come to truly reach the ether from within. Then the ether will be immediately present to them. Only then, however, will they be able to comprehend what a sensory perception actually is, and what actually lies at the heart of sensory perception.

[ 22 ] To illustrate this today, I must, so to speak, approach this question from a different angle. Let us examine what actually takes place in the metabolic processes of the human body. Broadly speaking, we can conceive of the metabolic processes in the human organism as essentially involving the liquid element. This is easy to understand if one familiarizes oneself even a little with the most widely accepted scientific concepts in this field. Metabolic processes, so to speak, take place within the liquid element. What constitutes respiration takes place in the airy element; in respiration, we have an interaction between internal and external air processes, just as in metabolism we have an interaction between material processes that have taken place outside our body and those that take place within our body. What, then, happens when we perceive with our senses and link this to our imagination? What actually corresponds to this? Just as the fluid processes correspond to metabolism and the air-like processes to breathing—what corresponds to perception? Perception corresponds to etheric processes. Just as we, so to speak, live within the fluid realm through metabolism, we live within the air through breathing, and we live within the ether through perception. And inner etheric processes—inner etheric activities that take place in the invisible body just mentioned—interact with outer etheric processes in sensory perception. If it is objected: “Yes, but certain sensory perceptions are clearly metabolic processes!”—this is particularly evident in those sensory perceptions that correspond to the so-called lower senses, smell, taste—a closer examination would show that what is material in these cases belongs to metabolism itself, and that in every such process—including tasting, for example—an etheric process takes place through which we enter into a relationship with the outer ether, just as we enter into a relationship with the air through our physical body when we breathe. Without an understanding of the etheric world, an understanding of sensory perceptions is not possible. |

[ 23 ] And what actually happens? Well, what happens there can really only be understood once one has brought the inner soul process to the point where the inner etheric-physical realm has become a reality for one. This happens when one has achieved what I recently referred to in my lectures here as “imaginative visualization.” When, through the exercises you can find in the book I mentioned, these ideas have become so powerful that they are no longer the abstract ideas we usually have, but rather living ideas, then they can be called “imaginations.” When these ideas have become so full of life that they are imaginations, they live directly in the etheric realm, whereas, when they are abstract ideas, they live only in the soul. They extend into the etheric realm. And then, when one has, so to speak, progressed so far in inner experimentation that one experiences the ether as a living reality within oneself, one can experience what happens in sensory perception. Sensory perception consists—and I can only present this today as a conclusion—in the fact that, as the external environment sends the ethereal from the material realm into our sense organs, it creates those waves I spoke of the day before yesterday, so that what is outside also becomes internal within our sphere of perception; for example, we have a sound, so to speak, situated between sensory life and the external world. Then, as the external ether penetrates our sense organs, this external ether is deactivated. And as the deactivated external ether enters our sense organs, it is reanimated by the inner ether of the etheric body counteracting it. In this we have the essence of sensory perception. Just as death and revival occur in the process of breathing—when we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide—so there is an interaction between, so to speak, “dead” ether and “revived” ether in sensory perception.

[ 24 ] This is an extraordinarily important fact that emerges from spiritual science. For that which philosophical speculation cannot discover—and on which the philosophical speculation of the past centuries has failed so countless times—can only be discovered through spiritual science. Sensory perception can thus be understood as a subtle interaction between the outer and inner ether; as the revitalization of the ether, which has been “killed” in the sense organ, by the inner etheric body. Thus, what the senses “kill” for us from the environment is internally revitalized by the etheric body, and through this we arrive at what is precisely the perception of the external world.

[ 25 ] This is extraordinarily important, for it shows how human beings, even when they surrender to sensory perception, live not only in the physical organism but also in the ethereal, supersensible realm—just as the entire sensory life is a living and weaving within the ethereal, invisible realm. This is precisely what the deeper researchers have always sensed during the period just described, but which will be raised to the level of certainty through spiritual science. Among those who recognized this significant truth, I would also like to mention the almost completely forgotten J.P.V. Troxler. I have already mentioned him here in earlier lectures, in years past. In his Lectures on Philosophy, he said:

[ 26 ] “Even in the past, philosophers distinguished a subtle, noble spiritual body from the coarser physical body... a soul that possessed an image of the body within itself, which they called a ‘schema,’ and which represented to them the inner, higher human being... Even in recent times, Kant, in the dreams of a clairvoyant, seriously yet playfully envisions an entire inner, spiritual human being who bears all the limbs of the outer human being on his spiritual body; Lavater writes and thinks likewise... .”

[ 27 ] These researchers were also well aware, however, that the moment one rises from ordinary material observation to the observation of this supersensible organism within us, one must transition from ordinary anthropology to a kind of knowledge that arrives at its conclusions through an inner spiritualization. It is therefore interesting to note, for example, that both I. H. Fichte and Troxler recognize that anthropology must rise to a different level if it is to encompass the whole human being. I. H. Fichte states in his Anthropology:

[ 28 ] “Sensory consciousness... along with the entire sensory life, including that of human beings, has no other significance than to be the place in which that supersensory life of the spirit unfolds, as it introduces the otherworldly spiritual content of ideas into the sensory world through its own freely conscious act... This thorough understanding of the human being now elevates “anthropology,” in its final form, to “anthroposophy.”

[ 29 ] From this current in German intellectual life—which, I would say, drives idealism from its abstractness toward reality—we can glimpse the beginnings of anthroposophy. And Troxler says that one must assume a super-spiritual meaning in conjunction with a supersensible spirit, and that through this one can grasp the human being in such a way that one is no longer dealing with ordinary anthropology, but with something higher:

[ 30 ] “While it is indeed most gratifying that the latest philosophy—which... must reveal itself in every form of anthroposophy...—is gaining momentum, it cannot be overlooked that this idea cannot be the fruit of speculation, and that the true... individuality of the human being must not be confused either with what it posits as subjective spirit or finite “I,” nor with what it sets against this as absolute spirit or absolute personality.”

[ 31 ] Anthroposophy does not present something that arises, as it were, out of sheer caprice, but rather something to which that spiritual life necessarily leads—a spiritual life that once begins to experience concepts and ideas not merely as concepts and ideas, but to deepen them to such an extent — and I would like to use the expression once more — to the point where they lead into reality, where they become saturated with reality.

[ 32 ] However, and this is the shortcoming of this research, if one merely ascends from the physical to the etheric body, one does not arrive at a proper understanding; rather, one reaches only a certain boundary, which must be crossed; for beyond the etheric lies the soul-spiritual realm. And the essential point is that this very soul-spiritual realm can enter into a relationship with the physical realm only through the mediation of the ethereal. Thus, we must seek the true soul of the human being in that which now works and exerts its power entirely supra-ethereally within the ethereal, so that the ethereal, in turn, shapes the physical just as it itself is shaped, permeated, and lived through by the soul.

[ 33 ] Let us now try to grasp the human being from the other perspective, that of the will: We have indeed said that the life of the will is connected to metabolism. As the impulse of the will plays itself out in metabolism, it does not merely exist in the outer physical metabolism; rather, since the whole human being is present everywhere within the limits of his being, the etheric aspect also lives within what manifests as metabolism when an impulse of the will occurs. Now, spiritual science shows that in the impulse of the will, the exact opposite of sensory perception occurs. Whereas in sensory perception the outer ether is, so to speak, enlivened by the inner ether, that is, the inner ether pours into the dead ether, the situation with the impulse of will is such that, when it springs from the soul-spiritual realm, the etheric body is always, through metabolism and all that is connected with it, drawn out and driven out of the physical body into those regions where metabolism takes place. So here we have the opposite: the etheric body, so to speak, withdraws from the physical processes. And therein lies the essence of acts of will—that in them the etheric body withdraws from the physical body.

[ 34 ] Now, those esteemed listeners who have heard the earlier lectures will recall that, in addition to imaginative knowledge, I have distinguished between inspired knowledge and then intuitive knowledge proper. And just as imaginative knowledge is a strengthening of soul life that enables one to reach the etheric life in the manner indicated earlier, so intuitive knowledge is achieved by learning, as it were, to participate in soul life through powerful impulses of will—and indeed to bring about what might be called the withdrawal of the etheric body from physical processes. Thus, in this realm, the soul-spiritual penetrates into the physical-bodily. When a will impulse originally emanates from the soul-spiritual, it encounters the etheric, and the result is that this etheric is withdrawn from some metabolic process of the physical-bodily. And from this interaction of the spiritual-soul through the etheric with the physical arises what can be called the transition of a volitional impulse into some physical movement, into a physical action. But only then, when one views the whole human being in this way, does one arrive at its true immortal part. For as soon as one learns to recognize how the spiritual-soul aspect weaves within the ether, it also becomes clear that this weaving of the spiritual-soul aspect in the ether is independent even of those processes of the physical body that are involved in birth, conception, and death. And in this way, it is possible to truly rise to the immortal aspect within the human being—to that which connects with the body received through the currents of heredity and which endures when the human being once again passes through the gate of death. For the eternal-spiritual is connected, via the etheric, to that which is born and dies here.

[ 35 ] It has become apparent so far that the concepts arrived at by spiritual science run very much counter to today’s habits of thought, and that people find it difficult to come to terms with these concepts. One could say that one obstacle to this process of familiarization—among other things—is that people make so little effort to seek the true connection between the spiritual-soul aspects and the physical in the way suggested today. For most people yearn for something quite different from what spiritual research can actually provide. What is it, in fact, that takes place within a person when they imagine? An etheric process that interacts only with an external etheric process. However, for a person to be oriented in this direction—so to speak—in a healthy soul and physical life, it is necessary that the person become aware of where the boundary lies at which the inner and outer ether meet. This usually happens unconsciously. It becomes conscious when a person rises to imaginative insight, when they inwardly experience the flow and movement of the ether, and its convergence with the outer ether, which dies out in the sense organ. In this interaction between the inner and outer ether, we have, so to speak, the outermost boundary of the ether’s influence on the human organism. For what is in our etheric body acts upon the organism, for example, primarily during growth. There it is still active within the organism, shaping it from within. It gradually organizes our organism so that it adapts to the external world in the way we see when a child grows up. But this inner, formative influence of the ether on the physical body must reach a certain limit. If it goes beyond this limit through any pathological processes, then what happens is that what lives and weaves within the ether—but is meant to remain within the etheric realm—spills over into the physical organism, so that the latter, as it were, becomes interwoven with that which is meant to remain as etheric movement. What happens then? That which is actually meant to be experienced only inwardly as an idea manifests as a process in the physical body. This is what is called a hallucination. When the etheric process crosses its boundary into the physical realm—because the body, due to its diseased state, fails to offer the proper resistance—then what is called a hallucination arises. Now, in fact, a great many people who wish to penetrate the spiritual world desire, above all else, hallucinations. The spiritual researcher cannot, of course, offer them this; for a hallucination is nothing other than the reproduction of a purely material process—a process that takes place in relation to the soul beyond the body’s boundaries, that is, within the body. In contrast, the path that leads into the spiritual world consists of turning back from this boundary toward the soul and, instead of hallucinations, arriving at imagination—and imagination is a purely soul-based experience. And because it is a purely soul-based experience, the soul lives in the spiritual world through imagination. Through this, however, the soul also lives in a fully conscious immersion in imagination. And it is important to realize that imagination—that is, the legitimate path to spiritual knowledge—and hallucination are opposites and also mutually exclusive. Anyone who experiences hallucinations due to a pathological condition strays from the path to true imagination; and anyone who attains true imagination is most surely protected against all forms of hallucination. Hallucination and imagination are mutually exclusive; they destroy one another.

[ 36 ] But this is also true at the other end of the human spectrum. Just as the etheric body can spill over into the physical body, can infuse its formative power into the physical body, and thereby cause hallucinations, that is, purely physical processes—so, on the other hand, through certain pathological formations in the organism, or through induced fatigue or other states of the organism, the emergence of the etheric—as characterized in the act of will—can occur in an irregular manner. Then it can happen that, instead of the etheric being truly withdrawn from the physical metabolic sphere in a proper act of will, it remains within it, and the physical metabolic realm, in its purely physical activity, encroaches upon the etheric, so that the etheric becomes dependent on the physical, whereas in the normal unfolding of the will, the physical is dependent on the etheric, which in turn is determined by the soul-spiritual. When this occurs through processes such as those I have indicated, then—I would say—the pathological counterpart to hallucination arises in the form of compulsive behavior, which consists in the physical body, with its metabolic processes, forcing its way into the etheric, pushing its way into the etheric body, so to speak. And if the compulsive act is brought about as a pathological phenomenon, then one can say in turn: it excludes what is called “intuition” in spiritual scientific knowledge. Intuition and compulsive action are mutually exclusive, just as hallucination and imagination are mutually exclusive. That is why there is nothing more soulless than, on the one hand, those who hallucinate—for hallucinations are precisely indications of physical states that ought not to be—and, on the other hand, for example, the dancing dervishes. The dervish’s dance arises when the physical-bodily penetrates the etheric, so that it is not the etheric—arising from the spiritual-soul—that becomes the active force, but rather, in essence, only regular compulsive actions occur. And anyone who believes they are receiving revelations of the soul from the dancing dervish should precisely engage with spiritual science in order to realize that the dancing dervish is proof that the spirit—the spiritual-soul aspect—has left his body; that is why he dances in this way.

[ 37 ] And, I would say, what is not dancing—but rather, for example, automatic writing or mediumistic writing—is only slightly more complex. This consists of nothing other than first driving the spiritual-soul aspect entirely out of the human being and allowing the physical body—which has been pushed into the etheric body—to unfold as it does when, having become, as it were, empty of inner ether, it now comes under the influence of the surrounding outer ether. All these areas lead away from spiritual science, not toward it, although from those points of view there is certainly no reason to object to these things, against which so many objections are usually raised. It is precisely by observing the dancing dervish that one can study what artistic dance—a truly artistic dance—should be. Artistic dance should consist precisely in the fact that every single movement corresponds to an impulse of the will—one that may even come to the dancer’s consciousness—so that one is never dealing with a mere intrusion of physical processes into the etheric processes. Only dance imbued with spiritual ideas is artistic dance. The dervish’s dancing is merely a denial of spirituality. Some will object: But it does reveal the spirit! — It does, but how? Well, you can study a mussel by picking up and observing the living mussel; but you can also study it when the living mussel is removed, by observing the shell: the mussel’s shell reproduces the form of the mussel—the form born of life. In much the same way, however, one also has a replica of the spiritual—a lifeless replica of the spiritual—when dealing with automatic writing or the dancing dervish. That is why it resembles the spiritual just as much as the shell resembles the mussel, and can so easily be confused with it. But only when one truly penetrates inwardly into what is genuinely spiritual can one have the correct understanding of these things. |

[ 38 ] If we start from the physical realm, ascend through sensory perception to the level of imagination, which then transcends into the soul-spiritual realm, we arrive through this path at the spiritual-scientific insight that what is stirred by sensory perceptions is, as it were, set aside at a certain point and becomes memory. Memory arises because the sensory impression continues within the body, so that the etheric can act not only from within the sensory impressions themselves, but also within what the sensory impression has left behind in the body. Then what has entered into memory is brought back up from memory.

[ 39 ] Of course, it is not possible to go into these matters in greater detail in the short time allotted for a one-hour lecture. But one will never arrive at a true understanding of what perception and memory are, and how they relate to the spiritual-soul aspect, unless one advances—in the spiritual-scientific sense—along the path that has been outlined.

[ 40 ] At the other pole lies the entire current that flows down from the spiritual-soul aspect of the impulses of the will into the physical-bodily realm, through which actions are brought about. In ordinary human life, the situation is such that the sensory life extends as far as memory and, in a sense, comes to a halt there. Memory, as it were, stands in front of the spiritual-soul realm, so that the latter is not aware of how it creates and works through its sensory perceptions. Only a hint—a vague hint—that the soul weaves and lives in the etheric arises when this soul, living and weaving in the etheric, has not yet gained enough strength in this etheric weaving for all etheric activity to break at the boundary of the physical body. When the soul-spirit weaves through the etheric body in such a way that what is expressed in the etheric body does not immediately break off at the physical body, but is sustained in the etheric realm so that it reaches, as it were, the boundaries of the physical body yet is still perceptible in the etheric, then the dream arises. And the life of dreams, when truly studied, will become proof of the lowest form of the human being’s supersensible experience. For in a dream, the human being experiences that, because their soul-spiritual nature acts too feebly, they cannot unfold it in impulses of will within what is present in the dream images. And because these impulses of the will are absent—because the spirit and the soul intervene so little in the etheric realm during the dream that the soul itself becomes aware of these impulses of the will—the chaotic fabric that the dream represents comes into being.

[ 41 ] What dreams are on the one hand, are, on the other hand, those phenomena in which the will—arising from the spiritual-soul aspect—intervenes in the outer world through the etheric-physical, but just as little is aware of what is actually happening there as it is in a dream—where, due to the weak activity of the spiritual-soul aspect, one cannot perceive that the human being is weaving and living in the spiritual realm. Just as the dream represents, so to speak, a weakened form of sensory perception, so does something else represent the intensified effect of the spiritual-soul aspect, the intensified effect of the impulses of the will; and that is what we call fate.

[ 42 ] We do not see the connections in fate, just as we do not see in a dream what is actually weaving and living there as reality. Just as material processes always underlie a dream, flowing into the ether, so does the spiritual-soul element, anchored in the will, surge toward the outer world. But the spiritual-soul element is not organized in ordinary life in such a way that the spirit itself can be perceived in its activity within what unfolds for us as the succession of so-called experiences of fate. The moment we grasp this sequence, we learn to recognize the fabric of destiny; we learn to recognize that just as, in ordinary life, the soul veils the spiritual from itself through its concepts, so too, in destiny, it veils the spiritual from itself through emotion—through sympathy and antipathy—with which it receives the events that come to it as life events. The moment one sees through sympathy and antipathy from a spiritual scientific perspective, the moment one truly grasps the course of life’s events objectively and with equanimity, one realizes how everything that occurs in our lives between birth and death as a matter of destiny is either the aftereffect of previous earthly lives or the preparation for future earthly lives. Just as, on the one hand, external natural science does not penetrate to the spiritual-soul realm—not even to the etheric—when it seeks the relationships between the material world and the imagination, so, at the other extreme, natural science today is unable to cope with its endeavors. Just as, on the one hand, it remains stuck in the realm of imagination at the material processes in the nervous system, so, at the other extreme, it remains stuck in an obscurity that, I might say, hovers nebulously between the physical and the soulful.

[ 43 ] These are precisely the areas where one must truly come to realize how worldview concepts can be both proven and refuted. And for those who insist on proof, the positive has much to recommend it; but just as exhalation follows inhalation, one must also be able to experience the negative inwardly through insight. Now, in recent times, what is called analytical psychology has come to the fore. This analytical psychology is, I would say, inspired by sound intuitions. For what does it seek? This analytical psychology—or, as it is commonly called today, psychoanalysis—seeks to descend from ordinary mental life to that which is no longer contained within ordinary present-day mental life, but is a remnant of earlier psychological experience. The psychoanalyst assumes that psychological life is not exhausted in present-day psychological experience—in conscious psychological experience—but that consciousness delves down into the unconscious. And in much of what appears in psychological life as a disturbance, as confusion, or as this or that deficiency, the psychoanalyst sees an effect of what is surging deep in the unconscious. But what is interesting is what the psychoanalyst now sees in this unconscious. When one hears what he lists as being in this unconscious, it is, first and foremost, a dashed hope for life. The psychoanalyst encounters a person suffering from this or that form of depression. This depression need not have its origin in the present conscious psychological life, but rather in the past. At some point in this life, something occurred in the person’s psychological experience. The person has overcome it, but not completely; a remnant remains in the unconscious. For example, they have experienced disappointments. Through upbringing and other processes, they have moved past these disappointments in their conscious mental life, but in the subconscious, they still linger. There, this disappointment surges, so to speak, right up to the threshold of consciousness. There it then gives rise to a vague psychological depression. The psychoanalyst therefore searches within all manner of disappointments—within dashed hopes for life that have been drawn down into the subconscious—for that which determines conscious life in a hidden way. He also seeks this in what colors the inner life as temperament. In what colors the life of the soul based on certain rational impulses, the psychoanalyst seeks a subconscious that, so to speak, merely brushes against consciousness. But then he arrives at a vast realm—I am merely summarizing here—which the psychoanalyst grasps by saying: Here, the animalistic primal sludge of the soul surges up into conscious life. Now, it is by no means to be denied that this primal sludge exists. I myself have already pointed out in these lectures here how certain mystics have experiences in which something—be it, for example, eroticism—is refined and surfaces into consciousness, so that one believes one is experiencing particularly sublime processes, whereas it is only eroticism, “the animalistic sludge at the bottom of the soul,” surfaces and is sometimes interpreted in a deeply mystical sense. Even in the case of a mystic as poetically refined as Mechthild of Magdeburg, one can demonstrate how erotic feeling permeates even the minutest details of her imagery. One must grasp these things clearly precisely so as not to commit errors in the field of spiritual science. For anyone who wishes to penetrate the spirit is particularly dependent on knowing all the paths to error—not to follow them, but to avoid them. But the one who speaks of this animalistic sludge at the bottom of the soul, who speaks only of disappointed hopes for life and the like, does not delve deeply enough into the life of the soul: such a person is like someone walking across a field where nothing is yet visible, and who believes that it contains only topsoil or even manure, whereas this field already contains all the fruits that will soon emerge as grain or other crops. When one speaks of the primal sludge of the soul, one should also speak of what is embedded within it. Certainly, this deep sludge contains disappointed hopes; but at the same time, what is embedded within it harbors a germinative power that represents what—once a person has passed through the gate of death into the life that lies between death and a new birth, and then enters a new earthly life—will transform these dashed hopes into something entirely different from depression, turning them into what will then lead, in a future life, to disillusionment and spiritual growth. In what the psychoanalyst seeks in the disappointed hopes of life in the depths of the soul lies—if he delves deeply enough into it—that which is being prepared in a present life to intervene, as a matter of destiny, in a future life.

[ 44 ] Thus, wherever one digs through and explores the animalistic primal sludge—without getting one’s hands dirty, as unfortunately so often happens with psychoanalysts—one finds the spiritual-psychic weaving of fate, which transcends birth and death and extends beyond the spiritual-psychic life of the soul. Analytical psychology, in particular, offers a field where one can truly learn how everything is both right and wrong when it comes to questions of worldview—namely, from one side or the other. Yet an immense amount can be said in favor of the one-sided assertions of psychoanalysts; therefore, a refutation will not make much of an impression on those who are firmly committed to these concepts. But if one learns, with the attitude of inquiry characterized at the beginning of this lecture, to recognize the arguments for and against, then it is precisely through weighing the pros and cons within the soul that one will experience what truly has an effect. For, I would say, between what one can merely observe in the soul—as psychologists do, focusing solely on consciousness—and what the psychoanalyst finds deep down in the animalistic sludge at the bottom of the soul, there lies the realm that belongs to the spiritual-soul-eternal, which passes through births and deaths.

[ 45 ] Exploring the entirety of the human inner world also leads to a proper relationship with the outer world. Modern science has not only spoken of the ether in vague terms, but has also spoken of it in such a way that the greatest mysteries of the universe are attributed directly to it: It is said that what later took on solid forms—becoming planets, suns, and moons, and so on—originated from etheric states. In this view, what takes place as the soul-spiritual life within the human being is, in a sense, regarded merely as an episode. The dead ether lies both before and behind. If one comes to know the ether only from one side, then one can arrive at such a conception of the becoming of the world, about which the subtle-minded Herman Grimm—I have quoted his statement many times before, but it is so significant that it can always be brought to mind again—says the following words. Having familiarized himself with the idea that what is now the realm of life and spirit developed out of the dead cosmic etheric nebula—and having measured this against Goethe’s worldview—he arrives at the following statement:

[ 46 ] “Long ago, even in his (Goethe’s) youth, the grand Laplace-Kantian vision of the origin and eventual demise of the Earth had already taken hold. From the self-rotating cosmic nebula—the children already learn about this in school—the central gas droplet forms, from which the Earth subsequently emerges, and, as a solidifying sphere, undergoes all phases over inconceivable periods of time—including the episode of human habitation—only to finally plunge back into the sun as burnt-out slag: a long process, yet one entirely comprehensible to today’s audience, the completion of which now required no further external intervention other than the effort of some external force to maintain the Sun at a constant temperature. — No more fruitless prospect for the future can be imagined than the one that is being imposed on us today as scientifically necessary in this expectation. A scrap of bone that a hungry dog went out of its way to find would be a refreshing, appetizing morsel compared to this final excrement of creation, as which our Earth would ultimately fall back into the Sun’s grasp, and the thirst for knowledge with which our generation accepts such ideas and pretends to believe them is a sign of a sick imagination—one that scholars of future eras will one day devote much ingenuity to explaining as a historical phenomenon of our time.”

[ 47 ] What appears here, once again, within German spiritual life as a feeling born of a healthy inner life is precisely what spiritual science reveals in its true light. For when one learns to recognize how the dead ether is enlivened by the soul—by the living ether—one then, through inner experience, comes to reject the possibility that our world structure could ever have arisen from a dead etheric substance. And this mystery of the world takes on an entirely different form as one becomes acquainted with the corresponding mystery of the soul. One now recognizes the ether itself in its living form and sees how the dead ether must first arise from the living ether. Thus, in going back to the beginning of the world, one must return to the soul and see in the spiritual-soul realm the origin of what is developing today. But as long as this spiritual-soul realm remains a mere hypothesis, a mere figment of the imagination, in relation to the external mysteries of the universe, as long as one does not, through spiritual science, come to know the entire life and weaving of the etheric realm through the encounter of the living ether from within with the dead ether from without, it is precisely through spiritual science that the cosmic nebula itself becomes a living entity, a spiritual-soul entity.

[ 48 ] You see, even for the mysteries of the world, a significant perspective emerges precisely from the mysteries of the soul. I must pause here today to reflect on this perspective. You see that a genuine contemplation of outer and inner life from the standpoint of spiritual science leads across the ether into the spiritual-soul realm, both within the soul itself and in the outer world.

[ 49 ] This, however, stands in contrast to a mindset toward knowledge such as I described in the case of a man whom I mentioned last time. We can at least surmise today that a conception of the physical body such as that held by spiritual science leads directly to the spiritual-psychic realm, in which ethics, morality, and virtue—which originate in the spirit—are rooted—just as the sensory realm leads into the spiritual realm in general. But in its preoccupation with what is purely outwardly material, science has arrived at a mindset that denies any anchoring of ethics in the spiritual at all. People are still reluctant today to deny ethics itself, but they now say the following about ethics, which appears at the end of the lecture by Jacques Loeb that I cited last time in reference to the beginning. There, he—who, through scientific research, arrives at a brutal denial of ethics—says:

[ 50 ] “If our existence depends on the interplay of blind forces and is merely a product of chance, if we ourselves are nothing more than chemical mechanisms—how can there be an ethics for us? The answer is that our instincts form the root of our ethics, and that these instincts are just as hereditary as the physical components of our bodies. We eat, drink, and reproduce not because metaphysicians have come to the conclusion that this is desirable, but because we are mechanically driven to do so. We act because we are mechanically compelled to do so by the processes in our nervous system, and, unless people are economic slaves, the instinct for “successful reproduction or productive work” determines the direction of their activity. A mother loves and cares for her children, not because metaphysicians conceived the idea that this is beautiful, but because the instinct for brood care—presumably determined by the two sex chromosomes—is just as firmly established as the morphological characteristics of the female body. We enjoy the company of other people because we are compelled to do so by hereditary conditions. We fight for justice and truth, and are willing to make sacrifices for them, because we instinctively wish to see our fellow human beings happy. We owe the fact that we possess a moral code solely to our instincts, which are chemically and hereditarily fixed within us in the same way as the shape of our bodies.”

[ 51 ] Moral action can be traced back to instincts! Instincts can be traced back to physical-chemical processes! The logic, however, is very flimsy. For of course one can say that when it comes to ethical conduct, one should not wait for the metaphysicians to come up with some metaphysical principles, but that is the same as if someone were to say: should one wait with digestion until the metaphysicians or physiologists have discovered the laws of digestion? I would like to suggest to Professor Loeb that he refrain from investigating the physiological laws of digestion just as he so brutally attacks the metaphysical laws of ethical life. But one can certainly say this: One can be a prominent natural scientist today—yet one’s habits of thought tend to cut one off, as it were, from all spiritual life, so that one no longer retains any perspective on this spiritual life. This is always accompanied by the fact that one can, as it were, demonstrate a defect in thinking, such that one never fully grasps everything that belongs to a thought.

[ 52 ] One can indeed have some peculiar experiences in this regard. I mentioned such an experience here some time ago; but I would like to bring it up again, because it ties in with the remarks of a very significant contemporary natural scientist, who is also among those I criticize—precisely because I hold him in such high regard in a particular field. This natural scientist has made great contributions in the field of astrophysics and also in certain other areas of natural science. However, when he wrote a comprehensive book on the contemporary worldview and the origins of that worldview, he made a curious statement in the preface. He is, in a sense, delighted at how wonderfully far we have come by being able to interpret everything scientifically, and—with a certain arrogance, as is customary in such circles—he points to earlier times when people could not do this, citing Goethe in the process by saying: Whether one can truly say that we live in the best of times is impossible to determine; but that, with regard to scientific knowledge, we live in the best of times compared to earlier eras—in this respect, we can cite Goethe, who says:

It is a great delight,
To put oneself in the spirit of the times,
To see how a wise man thought before us,
And how we have ultimately come so far.

[ 53 ] Thus concludes a great contemporary naturalist—with a profession of faith he takes from Goethe. He has simply forgotten that it is Wagner who makes this profession of faith, and that Faust responds to it once Wagner has departed:

How is it that all hope does not fade from the mind,
Which clings ceaselessly to worthless evidence,
Digging for treasures with a greedy hand
And is happy when it finds earthworms!

[ 54 ] This great scholar forgot to reflect on what Goethe actually says the very moment he invoked Wagner to express how wonderfully far we have come. There, I would say, one can pick up where thought leaves off in its pursuit of reality.

[ 55 ] And we could cite many such examples if we were to delve just a little into contemporary scientific literature. Since, as I have said, I hold the aforementioned naturalist in high regard, I am sure no one will take offense if, in the face of such natural science that presumes to speak even about the spirit, I wish to assert the true Goethean spirit. For while we may forgive some monists if, due to the feebleness of their thinking, they are simply unable to reach the spirit, it is dangerous when the mindset evident in Jacques Loeb and in the natural scientist described—who characterizes himself as Wagner but believes he is characterizing himself as Goethe—spreads ever more widely through a belief in authority. And that is precisely what is happening. Whoever delves into that which, through spiritual science, can provide a mindset may perhaps—even if this might not seem sufficiently reverent to some—in response to a statement such as that made by the natural scientist, in connection with Goethe, arrive at the genuine Goethean mindset, if they take up the words with which I would like to conclude this lecture:

It is a great horror,
To put oneself in the place of such souls,
How greedily they grope at the material
And rush past the spirit!