The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Findings from Spiritual Research on Questions of Life and the Mystery of Death

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! For a number of years now, I have had the privilege of speaking here to this audience on topics in spiritual science, and many of you who have frequently participated in these reflections will find in today’s concluding remarks various insights that are not new to you. Yet what I have been able to say this year about spiritual science provides ample reason to examine the topics discussed here from a wide variety of perspectives. For it is fair to say: Spiritual Science, as it is understood here—which, with some justification, is often lumped together in wider circles with everything that is more or less precisely called “Theosophy”—is by no means as widely known today, and certainly not universally recognized.

[ 2 ] So-called chance does, after all, play a role in this regard in more ways than one. When I passed through a certain city quite recently on one of my lecture tours, I found two small booklets on a table in a bookstore—where I was actually looking for something entirely different. One of them contained a popular exposition of the philosophical worldviews and outlooks on life of the 19th century. If one takes a closer look at this work, one gets the impression that it was written with a certain seriousness; the individual chapters reflect a well-founded knowledge of the subjects discussed—with the sole exception of theosophy, or, as it is meant here in the narrower sense, spiritual science.

[ 3 ] I will attempt to reconcile this “science of the spirit” with what is said in this particular chapter, and it must be said: Just as the other chapters are well-written—indeed, to a certain degree, meticulous—the chapter on the “science of the spirit” is equally grotesquely superficial. It is not my place here to go into this chapter in greater detail; I would merely like to point out that, in addition to various inaccuracies, there are instances where spiritual science allows itself to be led astray into the wildest flights of fancy regarding this or that fact of the world. – Now I thought that this might perhaps be an allusion to my *Secret Science*, and that someone—which would be understandable these days without any knowledge of the matter—might deny what is well documented there. But I immediately read on, and there I came across the statement that, among those who profess this spiritual research, prophecies about wars and earthquake disasters play a major role everywhere. – Well, now that you’ve heard this, I’d like to ask you to consider whether such prophecies play or have played a major role in what I have said.

[ 4 ] One might think that such writings aren’t read very much. But I happened to pick up a little booklet titled: “Seven Sects of Ruin. A Warning for Evangelical Christians.” I will not read it to you. If one looks at this little booklet based on its title, one finds the following listed as the seven sects of perdition:

[ 5 ] First: Adventists or Sabbatarians—four pages on that. Second: the Daybreak people—also four pages. Third: the New Apostolic Church—three pages. Fourth: the Mormons—again, four pages. Fifth: the Scientologists—three pages. Sixth: the Spiritualists—well, the author knew a little less about them, a little over two pages. Seventh: Theosophy—he knows only half a page about it. But I won’t read all of that to you either, just half of it. “In particular, it [Theosophy] teaches self-redemption instead of redemption through Christ, and is therefore to be regarded as equivalent to paganism,” and reference is made to church history. It may also be interesting to note that this little booklet, published in Elberfeld by the Evangelical Community’s bookstore, includes the remark that it is available at all prices and in all sizes, including as individual sheets. So for a few pfennigs, one can form an opinion about the topic under discussion today, and then, to keep it always in view, pin the relevant page to the wall.

[ 6 ] This explains the origin of the judgments leveled against us by certain quarters when they seek to condemn our cause outright. It is also telling that the author of this treatise devotes only half a page to the “seventh sect.” Well, this external example shows, esteemed audience, how in our time there is indeed prejudice upon prejudice against what is meant here by spiritual science, and how little willingness there is to truly get to the heart of this spiritual science. For one would think that anyone who wishes to pass judgment on a matter must first truly know it. When it comes to spiritual science, this is evidently not the case in the broadest circles. We need not expect those who wish to know nothing about it to engage with it, but we certainly should expect this of those who pass public judgment. For some people today who feel called upon to pass judgment on spiritual science, it would likely be somewhat disconcerting to have to spend even a short time engaging with the very things about which they wish to judge “conscientiously.”

[ 7 ] We must ask ourselves again and again: How does the humanities intend to position itself within the immediate reality of the present? How, and by what right, does it address—in its own way—the great questions of life and what there is to say about death?

[ 8 ] It is becoming increasingly clear how, from the unconscious depths of the soul’s life, these fundamental questions are becoming yearnings in the souls of people today. The field of spiritual science, however, is as vast as the world itself, and it would take a great deal to even begin to describe all that spiritual science encompasses. But even though spiritual science must extend its research into infinite expanses, its investigations nevertheless culminate in the two mysteries of life encapsulated in the words “fate” and “death.” And the realization must penetrate ever deeper that, when it comes to the great question of fate in life and the so-called question of immortality, external science is powerless—if it is aware of its own limitations. Yet in our time, this external science attempts to produce the most diverse worldviews under the most diverse labels—precisely those worldviews that believe they stand on the ground of natural science and feel compelled to claim that their findings are in direct contradiction to what spiritual science has to say.

[ 9 ] Now, it would be a completely futile endeavor to suggest that the foundations of the humanities are in any real contradiction with the natural sciences. Over the past three or four centuries, the natural sciences have produced many things that have transformed our entire lives, even into its most remote branches. And if what Goethe says is true—that a school of thought proves itself through its fruitfulness—then natural science has indeed proven its fruitfulness—albeit only in solving the material mysteries of life. But there is something else to consider. Natural science has also educated humanity in a very specific way. It has been a wonderful educational tool for the human soul, so that people now pose the questions of life and also of death in a different way than they were posed before modern science taught people to ask questions in a certain way. Today, souls inquire about the mysteries of life differently than they did centuries ago. And it is also fitting, dear friends, that spiritual science, in its method and in its entire worldview, essentially follows the model of natural science in its work. But while the questions have become more profound, souls have also been led to accept only what can be presented to them through physical observation.

[ 10 ] Spiritual science cannot deal with physical things. It cannot enter a laboratory and generate insights into the spirit there. Even the spirit that lives within us between birth and death exists only for a certain time and can be fathomed by our consciousness only through inner soul processes. Everyone knows that spiritual life has been within them since birth; everyone should know that what they experienced, for example, twenty years ago can now be accessed only through memory, and that this process of remembrance cannot be artificially induced using external experimental apparatus. And so one should also recognize that spiritual science must seek its sources in the intensification of such inner experiences as memory. Here, however, it will still be a long time before humanity realizes that, although the method of spiritual science is a deeply inner one, it is nevertheless animated by the same spirit as external natural science. This becomes immediately apparent when one considers what those critics of spiritual science say who deny that it is possible to reach what lies beyond sensory perceptions. Even when they admit that there is something supersensory, they still claim that human cognition is incapable of penetrating it.

[ 11 ] Such ideas give a sense of the difficulties spiritual science has to contend with. For a soul that examines matters properly, such an objection has no more merit than if someone were to say, for example: “What on earth are today’s botanists thinking?” They say—and this is supposed to be a fundamental achievement of the 19th century—that plants consist of individual cells, and that animals are also said to consist of such cells. Let us suppose that someone else now demonstrates just how much a human being can see with his or her eyes. He or she certainly cannot see the cells, so this goes beyond the limits of physical perception. – Those who speak this way are thus demonstrating that the eye cannot see into what naturalists have, in fact, seen. Yes, you see, distinguished audience, such proof can be absolutely correct; one would then prove that it is impossible to perceive the cellular composition of plant and animal organisms with the human eye and to penetrate these most subtle processes. Anyone who sought to prove that such evidence is incorrect would be a fool. – Along exactly the same lines, there is today a great deal of evidence based on the assumption that human cognitive faculties, as they are in their immediate form, cannot know anything about the supersensible. Such evidence may well be correct, and anyone who sought to refute it would be a fool.

[ 12 ] But quite apart from the limitations of the physical eye, [it must be taken into account] that we have equipped the eye with instruments of knowledge such as the microscope, the telescope, and the spectroscope, and have thereby gained the ability to see processes and substances [that were previously invisible], for example through spectral analysis. That this has been done is certainly true, and it is just as true as when old worldviews spoke of the limits of human knowledge. Just as natural science has sharpened and strengthened the eye, so too does spiritual science sharpen and strengthen that of which one can rightly say, in its natural state, that it has its limits. From this, however, we see that the argument regarding the limits of knowledge is just as unfounded as the argument regarding the limits of the eye. Just as the eye is equipped with the microscope, telescope, and spectroscope, so too is the human spirit strengthened through inner, intimate means described by the terms: meditation, concentration, and contemplation. This, too, has already been mentioned and will be only briefly touched upon here. However, you can learn more precisely from my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* what is meant by the terms meditation, concentration, and contemplation.

[ 13 ] The activity of the soul, as it is in normal human life, as it is exercised within the physical-sensory world—this activity is, admittedly, entirely dependent on the physical body; certain activities depend on the nerves or the brain. Spiritual science, however, does not object to this. But spiritual science employs methods through which the power of thought is transformed, just as the power of sight has been transformed through the use of the microscope and the telescope.

[ 14 ] Let us first speak of the power of thought. In everyday life, it deals with the world of things. How does this power of thought work? Well, we are standing here at one of the points where it may become apparent in the near future how natural science, when properly understood, is in complete harmony with what spiritual science has to offer. Natural science is already touching upon this. When we develop a thought that, in everyday life, is directed toward the realm of our sensory existence, the power of thought intervenes in our brain. This is precisely one such common finding of spiritual science and natural science, except that spiritual science knows it, while natural science presents it as a hypothesis. But ordinary life already teaches us how thinking intervenes in the brain, and we know that the power of thought works in such a way that it causes destructive processes in the brain—destructive processes affecting the smallest, finest structures of the brain. The power of thought is active, and what it does is continuously destroy the brain. Our power of thought could be spared from causing this destruction if it were used in a different way.

[ 15 ] Just as a person behaves when looking at themselves in a mirror, so do the thought processes that take place in the brain: they reflect the work of thinking into our soul in such a way that we become aware of this thought process. This is how ordinary thinking works. And ordinary life provides proof of this, in that this thinking causes fatigue, which is then counterbalanced by sleep. This is the normal course of events: the counterbalancing of these destructive processes through sleep. Natural science already has terms for this, such as assimilation and dissimilation, and for those who know how to observe these things, it is clear that what natural science will come to understand about this will also align with what spiritual science teaches.

[ 16 ] Now, this process of thinking is just as natural as the act of seeing with the eye. And just as one can strengthen the eye through instruments, so too can one strengthen the power of thought—not through external means, but through the inner means of concentration, meditation, and contemplation. What do these consist of? They consist in the fact that a person—if they wish to become a spiritual researcher—comes to give themselves, out of inner volition, a subject of thought that is not linked to external stimuli. Ordinary thinking proceeds in such a way that we move from external impressions to internal experiences. Spiritual thinking proceeds in such a way that this inner work diverges from the ordinary mode [of thinking]. Thoughts must focus for an extended period on an inner soul experience that the soul has created for itself and that is characterized by not being triggered by external stimuli. For example, the soul devotes itself to the words:

Flowing wisdom lives in the radiant light.

[ 17 ] Of course, to ordinary thinking, this is folly. But the point is that [in meditation] we do not have images of the external world. Rather, these mental images serve the purpose of deepening the soul’s inner powers. And this happens when the soul seeks to summon its inner faculties—its inner abilities—from the depths of the soul in order to do something that one does not do at all in ordinary life: to concentrate on such a mental image. Such work can be compared to how we strengthen our muscles through physical exercise. The powers of the soul that come into play during meditation are actually unused in ordinary daily life; at most, they are only faintly hinted at. In this meditation, however, they are brought to the surface in a completely different way. Powers are drawn forth in a manner distinct from those derived from the outside. Dormant powers of thought emerge from the depths of the soul, and it then becomes apparent that these powers of thought are independent of that upon which ordinary thinking depends. While ordinary thinking is dependent on the physical brain and creates processes of destruction, this kind of thinking creates an inner power that gives the soul the experience: “I am independent of my physicality.”

[ 18 ] Now let us characterize this process of independent thought in somewhat greater detail. We are entering a realm to which even the natural sciences can readily attest. One aspect of this has already been touched upon. Du Bois-Reymond drew attention [in his lecture] at the Leipzig scientific conference to the limits of cognition and regarded only the sleeping human being as explainable, because he is free from emotions, desires, and ideas. What is at stake here? There is something at stake here that precisely those scientific thinkers who take facts as they are will increasingly come to recognize. Let’s suppose someone says: Air surrounds us; a person breathes it in, so there is a certain amount of air inside them; now I want to examine the air. I examine the lungs—how they are nourished, how they carry out their organic processes, and so on. – That would be the worst possible method for studying the air. One would learn something about the lungs. But the best way to study the air is in the atmosphere, because although the air is taken in by the lungs, its true existence is in the atmosphere. If someone wanted to understand the air by studying the lungs, one would call them foolish.

[ 19 ] One is still far from understanding the emotions and passions of the inner life by examining the body. And one cannot come to know thinking by examining the brain. That would be just as foolish as examining the air in the lungs. Just as the lungs draw in the air—which envelops the Earth as the atmosphere—during the process of breathing, so the body breathes in the life of the soul with every awakening. And just as the inhaled air relates to the lungs, so does the life of the soul relate to the brain. And when we fall asleep, the body exhales the life of the soul once more. While we are awake, we have the life of the soul within us, which belongs just as truly to the spiritual-soul life in which we live as we physically live in the atmosphere.

[ 20 ] Here we have an area where it becomes clear how the natural sciences and the humanities are interwoven—a fact that Du Bois-Reymond was already beginning to recognize. Spiritual life belongs to the entire spiritual world, just as air belongs to the physical atmosphere. We can therefore say: When a person sleeps, he has exhaled his spiritual-soul aspect. His spiritual-soul aspect is then within the spiritual-soul aspect of the entire world; he simply cannot perceive it there because he has fallen into unconsciousness.

[ 21 ] Whoever has developed their power of thought in this way through meditation detaches their power of thought from the physical forces of the body; they become conscious of themselves, as it were, outside the body—that is, they develop thought processes that do not arise through application to the things of the material world, but rather they journey with their thinking out into the spiritual world. Through direct experience, they know that they are developing the thought process outside of physicality and are encountering beings that appear to them in a purely spiritual form. This is based on the independence of thought from physicality and is what must be regarded as the primary source of spiritual research. Inwardly, too, one can experience that the kind of thinking acquired in this way is entirely different; it does not lead to fatigue. For it is a significant phenomenon that when we free our thinking through meditation, concentration, and contemplation, we experience processes that do not cause us to grow weary. Some meditators, however, initially believe they notice that they fall asleep as soon as they begin meditating. This stems from the fact that the process has not yet progressed far enough, because it is difficult to detach the thought process from the purely external. It takes years and years.

[ 22 ] But what does one experience then? One experiences something that cannot be characterized in abstract terms; one experiences deeply moving inner experiences. When one has, so to speak, torn one’s thinking away from one’s physicality, one experiences that what one has hitherto regarded as one’s self is now as if outside of oneself, and that one surveys from the outside what one has experienced within oneself.

[ 23 ] What one experiences in everyday consciousness as being enclosed within one’s own skin is now experienced as an external object. One is not indifferent to this external reality; one is drawn to it as if by hundreds and hundreds of magnetic forces; one does not want to be torn away from this external reality. One feels, so to speak, that one belongs together with it. These, however, are forces of feeling and sensation that—precisely for that reason—belong to the reality of higher experience, and one learns to recognize these forces that draw one toward the outer physicality. One now comes to understand the reason why one wakes up in the morning; one learns to recognize how the body says to us: “You belong to me, you must unite with me just as that which is exhaled from the outer physical body [during sleep] unites with me, when it is restored in relation to what has been destroyed by external life. One learns to recognize why the soul being descends into this outer physical body.

[ 24 ] There is something else one then comes to recognize: the forces that existed before our birth, before our conception, before the first material substance came into being. We come to know the soul as it is today, but we also come to realize that these are the same soul forces that existed before birth—the forces that drew us to the parents who were able to provide the physical body. One comes to know the forces that led to the present earthly life, as well as the forces that led to our destiny. And when people develop the ability to think without being bound to the body—when the soul, through concentration, meditation, and contemplation, learns to think without being bound to the body—then it comes to recognize, through symbols, the forces that guide its destiny. Even materialistic dream research has already come to conclude that images and reminiscences are experienced in dreams. It is not easy to imagine that, in ordinary everyday life, a misfortune the soul experienced twenty years ago is not something for which it yearns in its deepest being. When we have withdrawn from the physical realm through thought, we find that we are now drawn to what was once repulsive to us. Why? Because the soul recognizes that it has imperfections; these are so deeply rooted that they cannot be grasped by ordinary waking consciousness. This inner feeling of being drawn toward something in order to compensate for these imperfections works in the depths of the soul, even if the conscious mind is unaware of it. The soul feels drawn to something that brings it unhappiness in this life; only when it has been tested by this unhappiness can the soul’s former imperfection be transformed into perfection.

[ 25 ] Life with this liberated power of thought is such that the forces to which we are drawn reveal themselves to us within the soul itself. The question of fate becomes a question of imagination. We begin to understand misfortune because we know that the soul must seek it out in order to compensate for certain imperfections. And it must know that before our birth we were endowed with forces that drew us to the corresponding seed within the physical body, just as a plant seed is drawn to the soil that corresponds to it. Spiritual science is also in harmony with natural science in this regard, for natural science cannot deny that, for example, an Alpine plant grows in an environment whose conditions correspond to its growth. In the same way, the soul is guided toward a destiny in which it can transform imperfection into perfection. We pass through the gate of death. If a soul has caused suffering to another and now passes through the gate of death independently of the body, it feels: I can only feel complete in the future when I seek to make amends for the wrongs I have committed. The crime committed transforms into a feeling: “My soul is powerless in the face of what has happened, but I can learn to develop powers that lie dormant within me as seeds and that will bring about a destiny in which I can transform myself.”

[ 26 ] In a similar way, a person transcends their previous spiritual life when they acquire a different spiritual power. Just as we can liberate the power of thought so that it flows inwardly within the soul, so too can we liberate another power that finds a different use in ordinary life: the power of speech—the power connected to the word. What happens to this power of speech? In speech, we develop a spiritual-soul aspect, but even in ordinary life, it does not remain purely spiritual-soul. It intervenes in the processes of the brain, extending even to the larynx—the power of speech intervenes in the material-physical realm. Just as we can halt the power of thought before it intervenes in the brain, so too can we halt the power of speech before it intervenes in the brain and the larynx.

[ 27 ] Natural science locates the speech organs in the third cerebral convolution, in Broca’s area; this is not found in apes. Anyone who approaches the facts solely from the perspective of natural science would say: Speech arises through Broca’s area. – However, this is contradicted by the fact that someone who grows up alone on a deserted island does not acquire language, despite having Broca’s area. Rather, the matter is this: the power of language structures the brain, so that Broca’s area is [structured], and from there the volitional activities develop in such a way that language arises. Thus, in the power of language, we have something spiritual that intervenes in the organic. Now, however, we can transform the power of language—which takes hold in the larynx and Broca’s area—by not allowing it to descend to the physical level. We achieve this by practicing our meditation, concentration, and contemplation somewhat differently. To liberate the power of speech, it is not enough to merely indulge in mental images; rather, it is essential that we permeate the object of our mental imagery with sensation and feeling. Meditating on a saying such as

In the radiant light, wisdom flows

[ 28 ] We can do this in our thoughts. But we can infuse our thoughts with feelings; we can feel our inner life in the light, which becomes a symbol of flowing wisdom for us. Then we feel that we are holding back the forces that we would otherwise pour out into words. This leads to inspiration, just as the power of thought, when held back, leads to imagination. And when a person liberates the power of speech in such a way that they apply those same forces inwardly but retain them within the soul—when they cultivate silence—then their perception of the spiritual world expands further, and we come to be able to absorb further insights from spiritual science within ourselves. For then, in fact, the inner life of the soul expands not only to the state of being outside the body, but we also learn to look back into past earthly lives. Speaking to oneself—holding back the power of speech—enables us to experience past earthly lives; it allows us to experience how the memory of our past lives enters our present life. Silence has always been described as something special. Therefore, there is no need to restrict outward speech; one need only apply the inner forces.

[ 29 ] I do not wish merely to present the findings of spiritual science, but also to show the methods that lead to them. One might wonder: How long, in fact, is the interval between two earthly lives? For the spiritual researcher, it becomes clear that our previous earthly life dates back to a time when individual language did not yet exist. Individual language has taken as long to develop as the time that has elapsed since our last earthly life. — This serves as an example of the fact that one can indeed only investigate facts of the spiritual world if the described powers of the soul are developed. However, to understand what the spiritual researcher says without prejudice, one need only think logically. Just as a painter’s picture can be understood even by someone who does not understand the technique of painting, so too can what the spiritual researcher says be understood by every human being. One must be a spiritual researcher to penetrate the spiritual world, but when the findings are put into words, if one finds them incomprehensible, it is merely because one is unwilling to apply common sense. Anyone can grasp it, provided they do not throw a wrench into the works of their own life.

[ 30 ] Science, by its very nature, cannot provide answers to questions about the spiritual world. But common sense knows what is right. Numerous philosophers say that human beings raise questions that go beyond ordinary sensory perception—for example, the question of human destiny. External life does not answer them. The kind of thinking discussed here today answers them by transforming the question from one of sympathy or antipathy into a question of conception. The great questions answer themselves in such a way that life everywhere confirms spiritual science.

[ 31 ] In addition to the power of thought and the power of speech, a third power can also be developed. Human beings know that they already use this power in everyday life in such a way that it affects their blood circulation. Shame makes us blush; fear makes us turn pale. Our soul life extends even into the activity of the heart. This power, too, can be held back in the soul if a person practices concentration, meditation, and contemplation in the appropriate way, so that what manifests itself in the blood circulation remains within the spiritual-soul realm. When a person connects his or her impulses of will with those powers—for example, by meditating on the sentence:

In the radiant light, wisdom flows

[ 32 ] and feels this way: “I want to move through time in such a way that I participate in the flowing process of light”—then he detaches a portion of that force which, in daily material life, finds expression in the movement of the blood, in the movement of the hand, in gestures, and in the act of walking, and directs it toward the spiritual realm. Externally, meditation must take place with such stillness of the limbs as is otherwise found only in sleep. When one detaches these forces, one becomes capable of grasping what acts outside the Earth as spiritual-soul life. One comes to know the Earth as the reincarnation of a spiritual being, just as one has come to recognize the human soul as reincarnated from previous lives.

[ 33 ] In this way, human beings rise into the cosmos; in this way, they experience their connection to a spiritual-soul realm that surrounds us just as the air physically surrounds us. In this way, we grow into the spiritual world, not merely solving life’s questions theoretically, but experiencing the solution. – Then what spiritual science offers is not theory; it becomes the elixir of life, flowing into our soul life like steam power into a machine. Just as natural science intervenes in external life and celebrates triumph after triumph, so spiritual science will intervene in regard to inner human life; it will give us strength and a sense of security in life. This will not remain theory, but will bring us closer to the solution of life’s questions at every turn, as the human being becomes aware of what he has within himself, just as he is aware of the air in his lungs. Then he knows that he has a soul within himself, something that passes from life to life. One learns about immortality not only in theory, but by experiencing it within oneself, just as one can experience the future plant in the seed that first brings it into being. Yes, spiritual science reveals the living spiritual core to us even now; we learn to experience it, and it is this core that shapes the next life. Immortality is understood by experiencing it in such a way that there is a guarantee of continued existence. We will come to realize that there is something after this life and something that existed before this life. We learn to recognize an original spiritual state from which we sprang. We are learning to recognize that, as long as we possess this present degree of imperfection within us, we must continue to develop, and that we will pass over with the Earth into a spiritual-soul state into which it will pass at the end of our earthly lives. We will know that we must experience our guilt in this life and in future lives as imperfections until we come to realize that our lives are linked together, just as individual links in a chain are linked one to the next to form the chain. We learn to recognize immortality within our own souls. And in this way, spiritual science instills within us what human beings need in the present to solve the questions of life and the mystery of death.

[ 34 ] When one takes a look at the present time, it becomes quite clear that, on the one hand, there is a need for everything that spiritual science can offer—yet on the other hand, precisely when [individual] questions arise about what spiritual science must be, it is met with the harshest prejudices.

[ 35 ] Let’s take just one example. Today, judgments are usually based on external criteria. There is a very famous professor of philosophy. When he speaks about the soul, one finds the following words in his writings, and countless students carry these words out into the world as the highest wisdom. Given this fact, it is no wonder that there are prejudices against spiritual science. It is said that the sum of our experiences, our imagination, feeling, and will—as they coalesce in consciousness into a unity—is the soul, which, at a certain level of perfection, rises to a moral will. — Of course, anyone who offers such definitions of the soul can come to no other conclusion than that the soul dissolves at death. Even a child must learn in school that you cannot add apples, pears, and plums together; and: “If the first and second did not exist, the third and fourth would never exist.” – But what does the philosopher think? He speaks of a sum of perception, feeling, and volition—and, strangely enough!—this sum can become what is called moral feeling and volition. – Such a miracle is presented without a second thought: the individual experiences come together to form a sum, a unity, and once they have formed this sum, [they give rise to moral feeling and volition]. Even a child learns in school that a sum cannot be formed from different units.

[ 36 ] This is the very source of the objections raised against spiritual science. But when it is measured against life itself, solutions are found in life itself that can be understood, and whose comprehensibility can heal the soul. Spiritual science can be measured by the extent to which it has grown in harmony with life itself. Life answers questions in the same way that questions in the natural sciences are ultimately answered. A scientific discovery remains a figment of the imagination until life proves it to be true. It proves itself by saying: Yes, if the facts prove to be true in life, then I can reveal myself to you. And this also applies to spiritual science.

[ 37 ] When a person passes through the gate of death, he or she will strive in a purely spiritual world to attain what he or she has already prepared here: the seed of a new life. Then, in the life between death and rebirth, the life between birth and death proves to be a form of transformation into a new soul life.

[ 38 ] Let us turn to a profoundly modern psychologist to read about death—that death which, for spiritual science, is merely another state of consciousness. Let us listen to Bartholomäus von Carneri speak of death; in seeking to characterize it, he says: Life was a struggle; humanity has grown weary of this struggle; and death is most beneficial when, after the hard work of life, it proves to be a sleep undisturbed by any god. – Yes, one can, so to speak, catch it in a snare here in this characterization, which has unconsciously become entangled in impossible notions. Someone who seeks to prove precisely the cessation of human spiritual life speaks of it being most beneficial when one has a sleep that no god can disturb. I would like to know which mechanic, when his machine is worn out, says: “I’ll put it to sleep.” Here one sees how those who are not yet willing to engage in spiritual research become ensnared.

[ 39 ] Others acknowledge [the existence of a soul], as that American—who was actually a chemist—said in a speech he gave in 1909: Every human being must feel himself to be an independent soul. – Yes, this is how far natural scientists have come—those who do not throw a spanner in the works, who surround themselves with unbiased judgment: Behind the physical lies the spiritual. Today, it is already acceptable to speak in general terms of a soul and a spirit that lie beyond the sensory world. But one is labeled a fantasist, a dreamer—or worse—if one does not merely say: “Spirit, spirit, spirit is what this is.” In fact, if one says that just as one finds beings in the animal and plant worlds, so there are spiritual hierarchies that stand above human beings—then this is dismissed as fantasy. This is roughly like being allowed to say, in the realm of natural science, only: “You stand facing roses in the garden and lilies in the field, and that is all nature, nature, nature”—and it would not be permitted to know the individual plants. In the same way, spiritual science is only allowed to speak of “spirit”; but one must not speak of individual beings. One is always supposed to say only: “Spirit, spirit, spirit.”

[ 40 ] But when humanity gradually comes to understand and realize how spiritual research truly fits into contemporary spiritual life, then it will know: This is just as it was with natural science when Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler appeared on the scene. At that time, people said: Human observation has certainly shown that the Earth stands still and the Sun revolves around it, and against all evidence they claim that the Earth moves around the Sun—nonsense. —But although Copernicus was attacked by his opponents and called a charlatan, his teaching was later accepted.

[ 41 ] Today, the world has not changed much in terms of the arguments raised against spiritual science, which replaces scientific materialism with spiritual reality. Today, spiritual research demonstrates what its findings can offer. It resolves questions of life and also the question of death. Yet it is met with the same objections that were read aloud at the beginning of this lecture [from the two writings]. Those who today oppose spiritual science in the same way that, in the past, those who denounced the teachings of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler as heresy did, will continue for a long time to “prove” that our understanding of human life can extend only from birth to death. The course of time, however, is different, and the course of spirituality as it strides through the world will be such that humanity will have to recognize that it will experience the same thing it experienced with Giordano Bruno regarding the outer limits of space. People regarded the [visible firmament] as the boundary of space that encloses the world.

[ 42 ] Giordano Bruno proved that this limitation existed only because of the [limited] capacity for human knowledge at that time. Spiritual science shows today that the temporal firmament—[the limitation of human life to time] between birth and death—must be swept away. And just as Giordano Bruno pushed back the boundaries of the firmament, so spiritual science will reveal the infinite temporality [of human life], the infinite potential for transformation in life, [so that people] through self-knowledge will truly recognize the workings of eternity.

[ 43 ] So while popular writings may speak of fables and prophecies, those who recognize this development will say: Let people say what they will; let them denounce spiritual research and spiritual science as much as they like. The passage of time will show that spiritual research has just as little to do with a sect as natural science does. And regarding those who refuse to engage in any way with the advances in the realm of truth, one may say: The genius of humanity will pass them by, and it will become clear that spiritual science is not a sect, but that it speaks of the true mysteries of life from a place of deep insight, and that its insights—like those of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler—must be handed down to humanity for the sake of human development.