The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Humanities and the Natural Sciences in Their Relationship to the Mysteries of Life

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Anyone who speaks of spiritual science in our time in the sense intended here cannot simply expect general approval, not even from broader circles. And this should not come as any particular surprise, especially to those who are deeply immersed in this spiritual science. On the contrary, it would be surprising if this spiritual science were to find general recognition and sympathy even in our own time, when it is, so to speak, barely beginning to blossom. For all the habits of thought of our time, all the modes of conception of our time, have, after all, grown out of a different soil than that of spiritual science.

[ 2 ] Since the dawn of modern natural science—that is, for the past three or four centuries, ever since this science has raced from triumph to triumph and permeated our entire external life with its tremendous achievements—the essential progress of the human mind has been based on the observation of the external world and on the application of reason to that external world. Spiritual science can by no means harbor any hostility toward natural science and its findings. On the contrary, it must fully acknowledge precisely this natural science and its achievements. But today we once again find ourselves in an age in which the human spirit and the human soul long more and more for answers to those questions that go beyond sensory perception and rise to the foundations of existence, to the creative powers of existence, and seek these in the spiritual realm.

[ 3 ] The humanities are, in fact, based not only on entirely different premises but also on a completely different approach to research and inquiry than the natural sciences—and thus on everything that defines the greatness of our time. However, this does not mean that one need hold the view that the humanities are in any sense at odds with the natural sciences. On the contrary. Even though the humanities proceed from entirely different premises, entirely different research methods, and an entirely different approach to inquiry, they arrive at results which, when properly understood, can be found to be in complete harmony with the scientific findings of our time.

[ 4 ] Natural science is based on external observation. It has achieved great things—and ever greater ones—including in the development of those instruments that enable humans to peer into the physically smallest realms. But precisely when natural science seeks to fulfill its task, it must limit itself to what presents itself to human beings externally—that which can be perceived by the senses and grasped by the intellect.

[ 5 ] Spiritual knowledge can be built only upon an inner deepening of the human soul—a deepening through which the soul discovers within itself capacities and powers of cognition that are present neither in ordinary daily life nor in external science, and which, it must be said, are used neither in ordinary life nor by ordinary science. Indeed, if this ordinary science were to be misapplied by incorporating methods from spiritual science, it would inevitably arrive at entirely unfounded conclusions. Nevertheless, upon delving deeper into the matter, one will find that the same kind of thinking, the same logic upon which our natural science is based, is also applied in spiritual science. We must simply realize that the only instrument for penetrating the supersensible world can be none other than the human soul itself—the human soul that does not remain confined to what everyday life offers, but rather presupposes that, starting from this standpoint of everyday life, it can rise to a deeper understanding of things. For this to happen—for a person to become a spiritual researcher—it is necessary for this human soul to conduct itself differently in its entire inner life than it was accustomed to before entering the realm of spiritual research.

[ 6 ] Our inner life unfolds in such a way that we think certain things, feel certain things—in other words, we harbor mental images in our soul. What purpose and meaning do we associate with this inner life? For the most part, we associate it with the purpose of getting to know the external world and finding our way in this sensory world. For the researcher of the spirit, however, the matter is different. He must select certain individual elements from the diversity of mental images, sensations, ideas, and impressions that may be useful to him for his purposes. Let me begin with a comparison. Let us suppose we compare the entire inner life of a human being—which, after all, unfolds in a multitude of mental images that change from moment to moment—let us suppose we compare these many mental images that occur throughout the day to the many grains of grain found in the stalks of a field. From these many grains of grain, the owner of the field selects a few. And while he allows the others to fulfill their purpose—to serve as food—he selects individual grains that will serve him for new sowing and that are intended to produce new fruit of their own accord.

[ 7 ] The spiritual researcher must approach his inner life in a very similar way. Whereas thoughts usually flow by without one being aware of them, he must now act in such a way that he selects individual thoughts and uses them for something other than the external perception of the world. And what the spiritual researcher does with these individual images is called concentration, meditation, and contemplation. What meaning is associated with these words? Let us use the process that the spiritual researcher carries out as a guide to understanding this.

[ 8 ] The spiritual researcher must strive to bring about certain periods in his life during which he completely turns his attention away from the external world, and during which he also suppresses all of life’s worries, all impulses, emotions, and desires; he must, therefore, evoke a state in the soul that we can describe as empty—a kind of empty consciousness. From the entire scope of his inner life or from the ideas of spiritual research, he selects only individual images—the content of which is irrelevant—and immerses himself in these images—not in their content, for that is not what matters. Rather, the spiritual researcher proceeds in such a way that he arbitrarily brings a concept—one that can deeply fill him, one that can assert itself strongly and powerfully in his soul—into the center of his consciousness, and—whereas in everyday life the soul’s activity is otherwise distributed among many ideas—he then mobilizes all his soul’s powers and holds this one idea, which he has thus placed within his soul’s life, clearly fixed in his consciousness, and does so over a prolonged period and with all his inner effort. The only thing that matters is that the soul makes an effort, that everything is concentrated on a single point. If one has any work to do in which, for example, one must constantly exert one’s arm, and if this work has a goal, then one must simply keep exerting oneself in order to fulfill the purpose of this work. But if one wants to strengthen one’s muscles, then what may matter is not achieving this or that specific goal, but rather freely summoning the forces that cause the muscles to exert themselves so that they can develop. The same is true for meditation and concentration with the soul’s powers—specifically, with soul powers other than those one uses in ordinary daily life. We, so to speak, never exert our souls in relation to the powers under consideration here when we go about our daily lives. In order to concentrate on an idea, we must summon deeper soul forces from the depths of consciousness—soul forces that otherwise remain completely unused. And what matters is that we engage the soul in such a way that we also have the inner will to do so.

[ 9 ] When we form an idea by allowing ourselves to be stimulated from the outside, that idea arises in our soul without any effort on our part. It is simply there—we did not summon it. The ideas that stem from worries, instincts, and desires arise without any effort on our part. These ideas are of no use to us if we wish to make our soul an instrument of the higher world. What matters is not that we have an idea, but the effort we make to bring that idea into the center [of our consciousness]. Then, when a person mobilizes the deepest powers of their soul in this way—with patience and perseverance—something entirely new enters the soul. You can find more details on this in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. This is something that very many people today refuse to believe: that something entirely new can enter the soul. We can compare this new reality to a moment that occurs in human soul life [at a specific point in time]. Until the age of two or three, a small child spends its life in a state of consciousness, but not in self-consciousness. In a certain sense, one can say that the child’s consciousness is dormant until the moment arrives when the child knows: “I am an ‘I.’” This is a kind of awakening. And it is also a kind of awakening when, in the manner described, the human soul is raised to another level of existence, when it is made into an instrument for looking into the spiritual world.

[ 10 ] What one experiences when performing such exercises within one’s soul can be compared to something that is, on the one hand, similar to it, yet, on the other hand, radically different from it: the transition of the human being into the ordinary state of sleep. How does this ordinary state of sleep come about in the human being? We will not go into the scientific hypotheses about sleep here. Without getting too scientific, we will simply discuss what a person experiences in everyday life when they transition from the waking state to the sleeping state.

[ 11 ] We know that at the moment we fall asleep, the senses begin to fail; they no longer convey impressions to us. The mind begins to grow dim. The human being thus enters a state in which the body is inactive. First of all, spiritual science must state—as logic already confirms—that the sleeping person we see lying visibly before us in bed does not contain the entire human being; rather, what constitutes the actual human being steps out of the body during sleep and becomes body-free, disembodied—that is, the person is outside of their body. Now, this is initially a hypothesis, but it is precisely spiritual science that elevates this hypothesis to a well-founded truth. Fundamental science is, in essence, increasingly aligning with what spiritual science has to say on this point. Du Bois-Reymond states that fundamental science can understand only the sleeping human being, never the consciously awake one.

[ 12 ] If one does not wish to be so illogical as to claim that every evening everything that lives within us—our drives, passions, and so on—disappears, only to arise again from nothing in the morning, then one must assume that it is still there. But it is not present within the physical body. This means that the human being, with his inner essence, exists outside his body. However, this inner essence is of a supersensible nature, and therefore cannot be seen.

[ 13 ] There may be people who say: Yes, certain things simply take place within a person, and other processes cause the life of the soul to unfold. — Anyone who speaks this way is in the same position as someone who would believe that one can understand the nature of air from the lungs and their activity. One can understand air by examining it outside the body. Then it enters the human body; the lungs are there to utilize the air. This is precisely what natural science will discover more and more: that during sleep, the inner activities of the human body are comparable to the inner workings of the lungs and heart. It is an internal bodily process. But just as the lungs do not produce the air, so too what increasingly permeates the organism as soul life upon waking is not a product of the body; rather, it enters the body, and from the moment of falling asleep until waking, it exists outside this body.

[ 14 ] Many objections can still be raised against this. A true understanding of these matters can only be achieved if one can prove, through the facts, that what is presumed to leave the human body during sleep does indeed manifest itself as an essential entity independent of the body.

[ 15 ] And this is precisely what happens to the spiritual researcher when he performs soul exercises in that direction, as I discussed earlier. In this way, he brings about the bodiless state of his soul, as it were, artificially, through his own volition. By setting aside what his body conveys to him, the spiritual researcher ensures that, while fully awake, he leaves the body unused. During psychic activity, the body must be inactive, as it is during sleep. The senses must be silent; worries and passions stirred by external life must be silent, just as they are otherwise silent only during sleep. The spiritual researcher brings about a completely empty consciousness. But then he places at the center of his soul life, as it were a memory, a single idea. And for this he needs powers that otherwise slumber in the depths of the soul and which he now, through exercises, develops internally to such strength that they become perceptible.

[ 16 ] What the spiritual researcher then experiences must indeed be experienced if its reality is to be acknowledged. Under the circumstances described, it resembles sleep: it is not connected to the body’s movements, nor to the external senses, nor to the intellect. But while such a state is otherwise brought about only in sleep, the spiritual researcher, through his exercises—by which he has, as it were, voluntarily induced a sleep-like state—comes to know his soul from a new perspective with inner vitality. He knows that there is an inner life of the soul, even when the soul renounces everything that comes from the body. No matter how much one may prove through external arguments that the human soul cannot live free from the body—the realization that it can, after all, arises only when the fact of the body-free state has been brought about. Then one knows that one is leading a soul life that is in no way similar to the previous soul life, which was brought about through the body. One might say that this is a fundamental experience to which the soul of the spiritual researcher comes when he has practiced such exercises long enough for his individuality, when he has already conjured up powerful forces from within his soul. You can read more about this in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. I would like to describe the typical nature of this experience here.

[ 17 ] If one has performed the exercises described for long enough, a very specific inner experience occurs. Either one awakens from a deep sleep, or one feels compelled to pause in the midst of daily life. What then occurs is a kind of vivid, visual experience. It consists of the feeling that something is happening within you, as if lightning had struck you. What is happening?

[ 18 ] This is roughly how a person thinks: You now feel what you have always felt to be your body, as if it were permeated by natural elements and taken from you. — And indeed: You now feel how great a strength is required to maintain your composure in the face of such an experience. One feels what one has always called “approaching the gate of death.” One becomes vividly acquainted with what occurs in a person at the moment of death, during the dying process, with the fading away of physicality. Certainly, altered feelings and perceptions now arise in the soul. One now knows what it means to no longer stand in relation to oneself as one did before. One now feels the soul transformed; one feels it in such a way that one knows it is not dark and silent, but inwardly active, when one renounces all reliance on the physical body.

[ 19 ] This is a very significant experience. It is a dramatic experience for the soul. It is something about which the soul says: Whatever I may have gone through in life so far, whatever I may have faced—nothing can compare in significance to this experience, which sometimes pierces the soul as if with a single blow. Much of what one has hitherto perceived only as slumbering in the background of existence—things one believed one could only intuit—now comes into such clear view that one knows: Yes, in the innermost core of one’s being, the human being is connected to that world which lies beyond the sensory world and which is, in fact, merely veiled by it.

[ 20 ] But there is something else we know as well. We know that it was necessary to engage in such exercises in order to bring about such an inner strengthening of the soul. We know this because we see that experiencing what has been described requires a certain strength of judgment, and that a certain inner moral courage is also necessary to sustain oneself. And the powers of the soul—which, by strengthening one’s soul, have been drawn forth from its depths—are what give one this courage and this power of judgment. You will find a more detailed description of this path in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*

[ 21 ] For when one has reached this point, one simply knows: Had one not prepared oneself, had one not strengthened the powers of the soul, one would approach this event with two human traits that are highly problematic when they come into contact with these experiences—two traits of the human soul that one only truly learns to recognize at this stage of soul development: self-love, self-will—or rather, self-centeredness—and a certain inner fear and insecurity toward those realms that lie beyond the sensory world. Self-centeredness and self-love certainly play a major role in ordinary life, but in ordinary life they are of such a nature that the soul can always master them. We know that if we make a spiritual effort, we can master them. Vices and weaknesses arise in our soul, and we can change them. And even if we do not wish to change them, we can at least sense that we could change them. Faced with a force of nature—such as lightning or thunder—we do not have the feeling that we can change it. If we were to enter the state just described—where, as it were, the body vanishes from view—without preparation, we would see that, while we have indeed strengthened our soul forces and brought dormant powers to the fore, we have also brought something else to the fore: namely, an intensified sense of self-love. And only when the other soul force has also been strengthened is one able to temper this sense of self that has now arisen. Just as one is unable to resist lightning and thunder, so too is one unable to resist what arises in the sense of self like a force of nature, or to wrest it away from the life of the soul.

[ 22 ] But if one has truly made the soul an instrument for the spiritual world in the right way, then surveying the image enables one to recognize this sense of self in its true form. For this image reveals something else as well—something that cannot be described in just a few words. It shows us everything we have hitherto called our “I,” our soul, as if set apart from ourselves. It shows us what we have hitherto desired, what causes us to suffer, and what brings us joy. One now knows: You must peel all of this away from yourself if you wish to develop that which can lead from within you into the supersensible world. – It is only at this point in life that one learns to recognize oneself as a soul. Only now does one know what it means to face oneself in true self-knowledge; one knows that nothing of what one has hitherto called one’s self can be preserved for higher knowledge—one must peel it away and regard it as something entirely external. Facing oneself objectively, peeling oneself away from oneself, viewing oneself as one would another person or an object—this is a preparation for entering the spiritual world. But this presupposes that one has also developed the strong powers necessary to overcome the intensified sense of self. Anyone who has not done this would experience infinite pain upon realizing: To look up into the spiritual world, you must peel away everything you have suffered and renounce it. —Nothing that serves one in this world seems suitable for leading one into a higher world.

[ 23 ] Thus, it is necessary to overcome self-centeredness. And something else happens as well. When a person has this experience, he realizes that his entire sense of security in life was contained in what he must now set aside—something to which he can no longer cling. Fear then seizes them, for they must leave behind, for a time, that which had hitherto given them security. It is as if one were losing the ground beneath one’s feet. Only when one has cultivated other powers does one possess not fear but courage to venture into the unknown realm of the spirit. What lives in the soul as fear confronts one in an entirely different way. The life of the soul is a very complex thing. Only a part of it is conscious; another part always lies deep in the depths of the soul, from which the spiritual researcher then draws it forth with his power. A person is aware of only a part of his or her soul life; other parts work their way up from the depths into ordinary soul life. But the person knows nothing of this. Indeed, what a person experiences in their ordinary inner life is often there to conceal and obscure what lies in the depths of the soul. It rests there in hidden depths, which the person overcomes by indulging in delusions. For those who know the soul, there is a phenomenon that is very interesting—one that will seem paradoxical to people today, yet is nonetheless true.

[ 24 ] Today we see people—materialists, or, to put it more elegantly, monists—a group of individuals who do not wish to seek the spirit in its true form through the path of spiritual life. Why does one become a materialistic monist? Once one understands why this is so, one becomes, on the one hand, tolerant toward the materialist, because one realizes that under certain conditions the soul cannot be otherwise if it does not receive the impetus to emerge from materialism. For anyone who examines the materialist’s soul and engages with it will notice that, in its deepest recesses, nothing else reigns but fear—the fear of the spiritual world.

[ 25 ] That is indeed the case. And even if the materialistic monists take great offense at this, it is true. Without realizing it, they are afraid in the depths of their inner lives; they fear the spiritual world because, deep down in their souls, they have a dark sense that the moment they leave the secure ground of reason, they will lose their footing. This is what the souls in the depths fear, and that is why they mask this fear with materialistic theories, just as one numbs oneself against anxiety and fear. Materialistic monism is nothing other than the numbing of the fear that dwells in the depths of the soul. A true psychologist will always be able to recognize this. Materialistic-monistic theories contain not merely what the materialists say; rather, one can state that, for those familiar with the situation, fear is always visible between the lines. This fear must be overcome through strengthened spiritual power; only then will a person dare to cross the abyss and enter the spiritual realm.

[ 26 ] Then the human being will become aware that, in fact, his or her soul life splits in a certain way in order to experience the spiritual world. What does this division mean? It must be explicitly emphasized that the true spiritual researcher is not to be a dreamer or a fantasist who now wishes to abandon the sensory world entirely and live in the spiritual world. He must come to the point where he can once again draw toward himself that which he knows he must set aside for the spiritual world. The spiritual researcher must achieve this free, balanced movement back and forth between perceiving the spiritual world and living fully in the physical world; otherwise, he is not a spiritual researcher but, to the outer world, a fantasist. He achieves this when he proceeds from a truly healthy soul life.

[ 27 ] Therefore, you will be able to see for yourself that true spiritual researchers always maintain a sober perspective in ordinary, everyday life, because they are aware—and they see this objectively, not just subjectively—that this requires people to view all things with a sober eye and not to be dreamers. They engage in ordinary life as true practitioners of life. They know how to maintain a balance between the practicalities of everyday life and their connection to the spiritual world. It is very important to place particular emphasis on this point, because the life of the soul must be divided, just as a large portion of the harvest is set aside from the few that are not consumed but are instead returned to the earth so that new fruits may spring from them.

[ 28 ] Thus, a person does not see his or her soul life as entirely separate from himself or herself. He or she sees, as it were, a part of this ordinary soul life set aside next to him or her; he or she feels it as something that cannot place him or her into the spiritual world: the fruit that serves as nourishment. The other part, however, bridges the chasm. This is the part that develops out of concentration; it is the part that is used as seed for the life of the soul that enters the spiritual world. However, for it to develop healthily, it is necessary that the spiritual researcher be able, at this point, to behave differently from the person who has arrived at this particular point—which one learns to perceive as very painful—through a diseased soul life.

[ 29 ] What becomes apparent to the spiritual researcher, once all the prerequisites have been met, is that from a certain point onward, he no longer needs to concentrate on specific ideas; instead, images emerge of their own accord from his empty consciousness, representing a new world. His consciousness fills with a new world. To an outside observer, this world will appear very similar to unhealthy hallucinations. But they are similar only on the surface. What leads to hallucinations is an unhealthy inner life. What leads the spiritual researcher to this world of images or imaginings must, on the contrary, be the healthiest inner life of all! We see that a person who, through an unhealthy inner life, conjures up a world of images believes in its reality with an inner force—that is, believes that his delusions are true. And many of us will know that while one can often dissuade a person who is ill in this way from what he sees with his eyes, one cannot dissuade him of the “reality” of his hallucinations. Why is that the case? Because in such an unhealthy inner life, as the powerful force that arises grows, so does the sense of self. The person is one with his ideas; he brings them forth from his soul; they are the shadows of his inner life, the condensed fantasies. Because he himself is all of this, he believes in it so firmly. For a person must absolutely believe in himself if he wants to stand firm in the world—and so he believes in his visionary ideas as if they were an objective world.

[ 30 ] This is what the spiritual researcher must achieve by overcoming his sense of self: that he now learns, of his own free will, to dispel the world of images that can have such a blissful effect on him. If someone performs the exercises I have spoken of in the correct manner, they will acquire the ability to extinguish this world of images—which truly appears just like a spiritual world, just as the sun appears on the horizon in the morning—once again. The exercise must consist of a special training of the will, so that one not only comes to evoke this world of images but is also able to extinguish it again—all knowledge of the higher world is based on this. This is the difference from the images of a pathological mental life. For when the exercises are performed, a person acquires the unique power to gradually and consciously strengthen their will and then allow it to subside again. One does not possess this ability in ordinary life. One can make efforts or refrain from them. One must first learn through training to make the will as strong as I have described. Once the entire world of images has been summoned, one must consciously allow the will—which initially conjured up this world—to grow ever weaker, and thus be able to let this entire world subside. However, this is possible only after overcoming the ego.

[ 31 ] Just consider what is actually being demanded of our soul here. We are required first to make every effort to bring about such a world; but then we must erase what we have striven so hard to create. We cannot find joy in this. We must watch as the entire world—which we have only just developed through external efforts—sinks into the depths of consciousness like ideas we have forgotten. Only when we have achieved this do we enter a world that is the true spiritual world—the world of spiritual beings and spiritual realities. And the spiritual researcher knows, through the preceding exercises, that he now lives in the spiritual world. If he had not acquired this ability to make all of that disappear again, he would not be able to be a free observer of the spiritual world. It can be compared to looking at an object and being unable to look away. What corresponds to turning one’s attention toward or away from something corresponds, in the realm of spiritual observation, to bringing impressions to the surface and allowing them to fade away again. This must be learned in the development of the soul life. When a person has reached this point, not only does the division already described occur, but the moment arrives when they find themselves facing something like two separate realms. Regarding one of these realms, they experience the need to peel it away from themselves; they feel that it is what they have hitherto cherished as their sole possession, and they also recognize that they will lay it aside at death. It takes a certain courage to grasp this with true insight. For a person realizes that they must learn to voluntarily do without something to which they are attached—and which would otherwise only be torn from them at death.

[ 32 ] Then he learns to recognize how, just as the fruit that is chosen for further sowing, the core of the human soul is not absorbed into physicality but merely underlies it, the core of the being that does not originate from father and mother, but descends from the spiritual world, and which utilizes what the parents give it in the outer, physical human existence. One learns to recognize this spiritual core of the being. What spiritual science has to show here is entirely in keeping with our present age; it corresponds entirely to an achievement of the natural sciences.

[ 33 ] Spiritual science points out that while the characteristics of parents and grandparents certainly live on in a person, it is an inaccurate view to say that a person is composed solely of what he or she has inherited from his or her parents. Physically, a person bears the traits of their physical inheritance, but the spiritual-soul aspect can only originate from the spiritual-soul realm. That which lives within us as the spiritual-soul aspect—as the spiritual-soul core of our being, which we can learn to recognize in the manner described—comes from the spiritual-soul realm. And because the human being is an inwardly self-contained individuality, we are not dealing with a species germ, but with an individual. This means that what appears within us as a spiritual-soul germ can be traced back to the individuality of the human being. With this, however, the teaching of repeated earthly lives presents itself to our soul.

[ 34 ] This spiritual-soul aspect that we carry within us and that passes through the gate of death—this spiritual-soul aspect that builds its own body—leads back to an earlier and even earlier earthly life, until one reaches the time when it lived for the first time. And that which rests in this part of our being passes through the gate of death and then lives on in a supersensible existence. From there, by entering the stream of heredity that flows toward him from the physical world, the human being steps into a new earthly life.

[ 35 ] As you can see, the logic is exactly the same as in the natural sciences. Anyone who wants to oppose it simply doesn’t yet know what they’re actually talking about. For if someone standing on the ground of natural science were to say, “Yes, but it can be proven that these characteristics are inherited from one’s parents”—one must reply: Insofar as it can be proven by natural science, one can only say: It is true! – But if the materialist monist wants to infer from this: “Since these characteristics are inherited from parents and ancestors, they cannot stem from what a person shaped as forces in a previous life, which are revived in his present life”—then one must reply: One might just as well say that a person is wet because he fell into water. – One thing is true because the other is true. It is true that a person has inherited certain characteristics from their ancestors—but it is also true that they were drawn specifically to these parents because they need to acquire the forces that can be obtained precisely from these parents. Only the spiritual gives rise to the spiritual.

[ 36 ] Anyone who wishes to examine this matter closely will recognize that today spiritual science must proceed as Francesco Redi did, who had to establish the following as a scientific truth: “Life can only come from life.” — The same will be true for it with regard to the acceptance of truth. Do not believe that the statement “Life can only come from life” was received with favor. Francesco Redi narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. Today people no longer speak of heresy; instead, they call those who have something new to proclaim dreamers and fantasists, and they have found milder methods than burning at the stake to counter what must find its way into contemporary culture. But it will turn out as it always has in such cases. What was first called fantasy, even folly, will later become a matter of course. And the time will come when the statement “The spiritual-psychic can only come from the spiritual-psychic” will be regarded as self-evident. By then, however, many will have delved so deeply into the very nature of this statement and allowed it to take such a hold on them that certain objections still raised today will fall away.

[ 37 ] As I have already said: One need not be surprised by the opposition to this teaching about the spiritual. The fact is that not only those who have little interest in such matters, but also those who, with good will, wish to enter the spiritual world, are not yet able to grasp what is at stake here: the doctrine of repeated earthly lives.

[ 38 ] The doctrine of reincarnation allows us to approach the question of immortality in a completely different way than if we were to consider it in terms of infinite time. We then view immortality as something that builds itself up step by step. We speak of the soul’s continued existence because we see that a single earthly life contains the seed that will bring forth the next earthly life with the same certainty as a plant contains the seed that will bring forth the next plant. And just as one surveys the entire life of a plant by looking at it from the root to the seed, and then later in spring seeing the seed sprout again, so too does one survey a continuous chain of the soul’s development. It then becomes clear that one can also arrive at a satisfactory solution to the riddle of fate.

[ 39 ] We see one person growing up from early childhood in a loving and nurturing environment, and we see another person growing up in an environment that can only have a negative effect on him. Why is this so? We must view both of these lives as resulting from a previous earthly life. While it may sound disheartening that every misfortune is in this way self-inflicted, it must nevertheless be said that happiness and misfortune take on a different meaning when viewed from the correct—the only legitimate—perspective. I would like to illustrate what I mean with an example. An eighteen-year-old young man, whose father was very wealthy, lived in a way that brought little joy to those around him. He wanted to learn nothing, only to enjoy life, and was on his way to becoming a real good-for-nothing. Then his father died, and at the same time the fortune was lost. As a result, the young man was forced to learn something, to work, and he became a capable person. Then he had to tell himself: What seemed to be a misfortune was actually a blessing for me.

[ 40 ] Thus, in the face of misfortune, we must tell ourselves: We ourselves have brought this misfortune upon ourselves from a previous life; we ourselves have led ourselves to this fate. Therefore, it is unjustified to judge a misfortune while we are in the midst of it. One must view it as the consequence of a previous imperfection. We must be able to tell ourselves: The soul as a whole would not be able to develop if it did not experience this misfortune. Misfortune can serve as a school of perfection.

[ 41 ] If someone here has already arrived at an insight that they have fought for and earned in life, and we ask them: “You have experienced suffering and pain, joy and bliss—which of these experiences would you rather give up?” – If that person were to reflect on the true state of affairs, they would answer: “I gratefully accept joy and bliss; but if I had to choose between suffering and joy, I would rather give up the joys, for it is precisely through suffering that I have gained my insights: I would never have become who I am if I had not gone through the school of suffering.” – There is another way of assessing suffering than from the standpoint of ordinary feelings. Thus, the doctrine of repeated earthly lives should not be called disheartening. What does this doctrine give us? The questions of immortality and destiny are resolved! The question of immortality is resolved by the fact that we know this life carries within it the seed of a subsequent life. In this way, our entire life comes together as an immortal whole in a thoroughly scientific manner. And the question of fate is resolved by the fact that fate is necessary for development. Seeking to understand death and pain is, in essence, developing an interest in the great mysteries of life.

[ 42 ] A great scholar, Charles Eliot, gave a lecture in 1909 on the future of religion. In it, he acknowledged that human beings must arrive at the concept of a spirit and a soul through natural processes themselves. But he also argued that the worldview of the future need not be based on death and suffering. He said that the worldviews of the past spoke of pain and suffering. Suffering is alleviated for human beings through joy. A worldview should speak only of joys and of pain that has been overcome. — One would like to agree with him, for it would indeed be desirable if human beings could speak—even in material terms—only of a life full of joy. But if a person wishes to turn a blind eye to death and pain and says, “I do not want to build a worldview on suffering and pain; I want to acknowledge only a life of joy”—then one must reply: Even if you choose to regard life as nothing but joy, death and suffering will come of their own accord; they will approach you; they will enter your life. Only such a worldview can truly come to terms with the enigmatic questions that, like spiritual science, arise from the interplay of suffering and joy, because both are a school of perfection. And a worldview can only come to terms with death if it understands that the spiritual-soul core—this shell that surrounds it—must shed itself just as the plant seed, which seeks to sprout into a plant the following year, must shed its withering leaves and blossoms. In order to enter a new life, we must develop the spiritual-soul core, which, however, must just as certainly shed the body, must pass through death, in order to enter the next life.

[ 43 ] That is how one comes to terms with death, for there one recognizes in it what must necessarily come to pass: that through it one can attain a new life. One recognizes in death the root of immortal life. One does not come to terms with the world’s mysteries of suffering and death by closing one’s eyes to them, as Charles Eliot suggests, but rather by recognizing them as necessary—as just as legitimate as happiness and life.

[ 44 ] I just said that at present there are not yet many prerequisites, even among the best of those who strive for a worldview, to delve into these matters. I would like to cite an example that is particularly telling because it comes from a man who sought to immerse himself deeply in spiritual problems, a man who produced many wonderful things—though often, admittedly, things that were mystically vague: Maurice Maeterlinck. In recent years, he also addressed the question of immortality. There he encountered this teaching about repeated earthly lives and how destiny is woven. And it can be read verbatim in the translation of Maeterlinck’s latest work regarding what he considers a “belief” and refers to as such. He therefore regards what has been characterized as spiritual science—and which presents itself as a science—as a belief. He says: “... For there has never been a belief more beautiful, more just, purer, more moral, more fruitful, more comforting, and, in a certain sense, more probable than theirs.” – He is referring to the “faith” of Theosophy. “It alone, with its doctrine of gradual atonement and purification, gives meaning to all physical and mental inequalities, all social injustice, and all the outrageous injustices of fate. But the goodness of a faith is no proof of its truth, even though six hundred million people adhere to this religion. Although it is closest to the origins shrouded in darkness, although it is the only one that is not hateful and the least insipid of them all, it should have done what the others did not: provide us with irrefutable evidence. For what it has given us so far is only the first shadow of the beginning of proof.”

[ 45 ] Here you see a person who has come to know spiritual science but who is entangled in the patterns of thought of the present day; he calls the concept of repeated earthly lives a “belief” that is more beautiful, more just, purer, more moral, and so on than others. That is how far he goes. But he finds no way to obtain proof—what he calls proof.

[ 46 ] In response to this, one must first say: If someone sees no proof for a view, that does not necessarily mean that this view cannot be proven; rather, it may stem from the fact that this view has simply not taken hold of him. And it is characteristic of the present age that people find it so difficult to come to terms with something that will one day be self-evident.

[ 47 ] Second, it must be said: When one comes across a statement such as this one by the brilliant Maeterlinck and examines it more deeply, the thought inevitably arises: Is this view of repeated earthly lives supposed to be proven? Well, as it has been discussed here today—albeit only in outline form—what might be called its justification has been provided. But it could be that someone is demanding something from proof that cannot be demanded of proof at all.

[ 48 ] I would like to recall something else, something that seems quite distant. There have always been people who have grappled with the problem of squaring the circle—that is, calculating how to transform a circle into a square with the same area. And indeed, the people who kept coming up with proofs became, little by little, a veritable scourge to the mathematical societies. For every year, a number of such proofs would come in, but they were all nonsense. Yet people always imagined that the proof would one day be found. The Paris Academy, overwhelmed by the sheer number of submissions, eventually didn’t know what to do and threw them all in the trash. But it could not have truly believed that the proof could not be found. So they came up with this excuse: out of a hundred submissions, ninety-nine are sure to be worthless. So one must take the risk of throwing ninety-nine manuscripts into the wastebasket along with the one valid one. In the past, one could ponder the squaring of the circle; now one can no longer do so, for it has since been proven that such a proof does not exist at all. It is therefore impossible to find this squaring of the circle, just as one had once imagined it would be possible to prove. But there is a very simple way to turn the circle into a square after all. You take a piece of paper and make a circle out of it; then you cut the circle apart and arrange it into a square. Then you’ve done it not through calculation, but through action. You can’t calculate it, but you can proceed this way. That’s why the matter is still true and good and well-founded, but the proofs were sought in the wrong way. This is how Maeterlinck does it. He demands something that presupposes a flawed way of thinking.

[ 49 ] From this we can see the difficulties that still exist today regarding the recognition of the science of the spirit. It is precisely in this latest work by Maeterlinck, which deals extensively with spiritual science, that we see how even a man of his stature struggles [with these ideas]; we see from this that spiritual science can only be introduced to humanity with great difficulty today.

[ 50 ] One cannot say: “Well, if things are as you have told us, then only spiritual researchers can enter the spiritual world.” That is not the case. Being a spiritual researcher is necessary only in order to seek out things in the spiritual world. But once they have been found, they must be rendered into a mental image, as I attempted to do in my book *An Outline of Esoteric Science*. Once this mental image has been sketched out, if it is correctly conceived, it must be understandable to sound common sense—then it need not be proven in the way Maeterlinck intends. Anyone can understand and grasp spiritual science if they accept without prejudice what the spiritual researcher has expressed in mental images. Just as one need not be a painter to understand a painting, so one need not be a spiritual researcher oneself to understand the spiritual facts that the spiritual researcher has brought forth from the spiritual world. Common sense can do this, provided it is not bound by prejudices. From what the spiritual researcher has rendered as a mental image, there emerges what the soul needs for inner security and strength. And the spiritual researcher has gained nothing from the spiritual world merely by wandering through it; he has gained something only when he transforms what he perceives into mental images and ideas.

[ 51 ] Although in this day and age, through the development that the human soul can attain—as I have described in my book *How Does One Gain Insight into the Higher Worlds?* —everyone can, to a certain degree, become a researcher of the spiritual realm, enabling them to verify for themselves what has been said today; yet not everyone needs to be one. It is like a riddle that has been posed to you: the solution need not be proven to you if you figure it out for yourself. If one approaches spiritual science in the right way, one connects with it through understanding, just as one can find the solution to a riddle.

[ 52 ] Anyone who immerses themselves in spiritual science lives within it. And because the soul is destined for truth and not for error, we know—once we have entered the spiritual world through the communications of the spiritual researcher—that we have understood it; we have grasped it. – When the solution to a riddle is revealed to us, we do not merely believe that it is so, but we know it. So it is with our understanding of spiritual science. It cannot be accepted merely on authority, but as soon as it has been communicated to us, our soul attunes itself so that we also understand it. And the spiritual researcher has a deeper understanding only when he has transformed the spiritual facts and truths into mental images. And the same is true for every person who approaches spiritual science; they develop a new relationship to life’s mysteries and to the question of death—an understanding that is not merely theory, but can flow through life as a living practice, as an elixir of life. If a person is raised in such a way that the concepts of spiritual science live within them, then as they approach old age they will feel in such a way that they can truly understand Goethe’s words: “In old age, one becomes a mystic.” They will then say to themselves: When my limbs begin to grow weak, when my body withers, then I am like the plant seedling whose leaves are withering. Within me, the spiritual-soul core arises. And one will not only know of this core of being; one will feel it as a force that passes through the gate of death and through a spiritual world, only to then fashion a new life. This will be a solution to the question of immortality that is practical for life. One will experience the immortal within oneself.

[ 53 ] In this way, spiritual science will become an elixir of life; it will be able to give people strength and security. We know that life today is more complicated than ever as a result of the triumphs of natural science. We also see that the soul sometimes needs a foothold that it cannot find in what comes to it spiritually from the past. Natural science will continue to lead humanity from triumph to triumph. But in the process, human beings will become increasingly torn apart. Strong inner impulses and forces will be necessary. Only spiritual science will be able to make people strong enough not to let the influences of modern life make them nervous. For the outer life that lies ahead of us, a strengthening of the inner life is absolutely essential. But if someone truly delves into spiritual science, they will rise more and more to those perspectives to which the true spiritual researcher already rises today.