The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. The Supernatural Worlds and the Nature of the Human Soul

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Anyone who speaks of the supersensible worlds in our time cannot by any means expect that what they have to say will meet with general—or even any—wider approval, for the exploration of the supersensible world is, so to speak, not part of the habits of thought and the way of conceiving things in our age; and the opposition, the hostile attitude toward the insights derived from the supersensible worlds, is understood by no one better than by those who themselves wish to stand on the ground of this supersensible research. The great achievements, the great triumphs of the human spirit—in past centuries and right up to the present day—have indeed been in a different realm than that of supersensible research. Ever since we as humanity have experienced the dawn of the new natural science, it has raced from triumph to triumph, and it can be said that it has not only achieved great things in terms of understanding the external, sensory world and its interrelationships, but has also made the most significant contributions to human progress in the realm of material culture. Indeed, we need only take a look at life today to realize how everything in our surroundings—and everything on which our lives depend—is now intertwined with the great advances in the field of natural science.

[ 2 ] The humanities, which seek to explore the supersensible world, must never—if they are to reach the hearts of people at all—enter into a genuine conflict with the natural sciences, which have rightfully come to dominate the modern era. But anyone who allows the entire spirit of scientific research to take hold of them, anyone who delves deeply into what natural science can achieve, will have to admit: The further natural science advances, the more it remains true to its own foundations, the more it must lead us away from the exploration of the supersensible realms of existence.

[ 3 ] Nevertheless, the human soul can never do without these supersensory realms of existence. Even if it has not yet explored them, it still has a vague sense that the knowledge of its own essence is of the utmost importance, and that this knowledge of its own essence is connected to the knowledge of the higher world. That is why many people today—including those with a scientific mindset—are lifting their gaze beyond narrow boundaries and striving to find answers to the great questions of existence. One can observe, my esteemed audience, how a longing is stirring more and more deeply within the human soul to know something of the supersensible world; for one senses, after all, that this knowledge is connected not only to a vast and ramified field of human understanding, but also to the two most important questions of the soul, the soul’s mysteries—mysteries that we encounter not only in the realm of science, but in life again and again, daily and hourly; one might say, at every moment. Yes, the field of supersensible research is vast and ramified, but it comes together, so to speak, when it touches upon the interests of the human soul in two questions: One question concerns human destiny; the other is the question associated with the word “immortality” or the “mystery of death.”

[ 4 ] Here we see a person born into an existence predestined from the outset to misery—a person of limited abilities, born into an environment from which he can derive no good. We see another person entering life, cared for and nurtured, gifted with brilliant abilities, predestined for a useful and happy life. Considering everything in between, the question of fate becomes a burning one. One can theoretically deny the urgency of this question, but even if the soul attempts, in its thinking and conscious feeling, to set aside the question—perhaps out of prejudice—the hidden depths of the human soul still cling to an answer to these enigmatic questions. One may encounter people in life of whom one can say that they do not concern themselves with these questions in their thinking. But these people approach us in a disheartened state, uncertain in life, with a soul that is more or less unhealthy. It is often the soul’s mood that reveals to us the dissatisfaction lying within that soul, because it is unable to provide itself with answers to these questions. Consequently, however, this question [about destiny] becomes a question of life, because it affects the soul’s mood and state. These are profound questions of life that are closely connected to the soul, even if the soul is not aware of it.

[ 5 ] The same is true of the question of immortality. Certainly, most people today do not yet pose this question in a scientific manner. Fear of death, the hope and the desire—the longing—to continue life beyond the gates of death, is not only the impetus for the question; it is the impetus for answering the question one way or another. In this realm, the desire is usually the father of the answer that the soul gives itself to this question. And the way this question has taken shape under the influence of scientific thinking from the nineteenth century to the present day best illustrates how this question can be posed—whether scientifically or unscientifically. It is truly not the base souls who have believed that life must end with physical death, and who have believed that all longing for the soul’s immortality springs from selfishness. And one can sense how it is nobler to walk with these souls than with those who, out of fear, cobble together an answer to the question of immortality. When such souls say: “Yes, what we have achieved is intended for all of humanity, and when a person passes through the gate of death, he is called upon to hand over his creation to human society; we gladly sacrifice all of this on the altar of humanity!”—[then] one senses a selfless spirit in these souls.

[ 6 ] But there is another way to ask this question, and it is as follows. Precisely when we delve into the life of the soul, we can ask ourselves: What characterizes it? It is characterized by the fact that it has individually experienced and created within itself the most valuable thing it can attain. It is not what we may have in common with others that is most valuable in a human being, but rather what each person develops entirely within themselves. It is so closely connected to the soul that it cannot even be put into words. It cannot be handed over to another. If it were to be extinguished at death, then it would be extinguished forever. If, therefore, the human soul were to be extinguished in its consciousness at death, then that individual good would also be extinguished. But that would contradict one of the laws of nature that we can observe everywhere: the law of universal economy. Wherever we see forces transition into a [completely different] state, we see only that they change, but never that they are destroyed. We would, so to speak, have to arrive at the absurdity that everywhere else in nature, forces are gathered and stored for future use, yet only in humans would they be gathered only to be extinguished. Here, quite apart from the fear of death and the like, the question begins to take on a scientific character.

[ 7 ] If, imbued with a sense of the importance of this question, one now takes a look at the patterns of thought that have developed today from the rightly celebrated natural sciences, one will be able to say: Precisely when these sciences have fully developed their essence, they will still be unable to answer the two questions mentioned. Why can it not answer these questions? Natural science cannot say anything about cause and effect as they manifest in human destiny, for that would be foreign territory for it. And with regard to the question of immortality, one must say: Natural science is great precisely because it employs a method that appeals to the intellect—which is bound to the brain—and to the senses. But these are aspects of the human being that perish with death. How could one possibly use these tools—the senses and the intellect, which perish with death—to discern anything about the world that lies beyond the gate of death? With what perishes at death, one cannot answer the question of what happens after death.

[ 8 ] When one considers the relationship between the human soul and its physicality, one must say: The entire life of the soul, as it unfolds in everyday life, is bound up with the physicality of the human being. In what, then, do human souls actually live? Well, they live in everything they derive from the impressions of the sensory world, and in everything they make of those impressions. Everything that flows into the soul during the day depends on the senses, the physical sense organs. In ordinary life, we are never alone with our soul. We are always together with what the soul acquires for us through the senses. — But not entirely. There is a possibility for a person to be alone with their soul. This possibility, however, is of a peculiar nature. When does this possibility arise? When the intellect, which is bound to the brain, falls silent, when the senses fall silent, when a person sinks into sleep. Essentially, this statement says nothing that scientific researchers do not also acknowledge—[reference to Du Bois-Reymond].

[ 9 ] Anyone who has a proper understanding of scientific research will fully agree when one says: The further science advances, the more it becomes aware of its own distinct nature, and the more it will have to limit itself to observing human beings insofar as they are permeated by the soul—yet it will not be able to explain this soul.

[ 10 ] But it would be absurd to believe that everything a person experiences from morning to night disappears when they fall asleep and is recreated anew when they wake up. But if one cannot find this in the sleeping person, then it would be only natural not to attribute it to him, to find acceptable what spiritual research has to say—namely, that what is in the body during the day is found outside the body during sleep. Since it cannot be explained in terms of the human body, it must be explained in some other way. But if the soul has now been drawn out of the body of the sleeping person, then the person is in a state where they are alone with themselves; unfortunately, however, the strange thing occurs that the person is not conscious of themselves and cannot explore themselves. From this, however, it becomes immediately clear what would have to happen for the soul to become aware of its own being. What would have to happen is that a state similar to sleep would arise, but at the same time the soul would have to be able to explore itself. It would have to be inwardly alive within the being that is motionless in sleep. And indeed, all soul research depends on the ability of certain people to make active and alive what is otherwise unconscious to the human being. In this state, the soul must become independent of sensory impressions. But, unlike sleep, the state must be such that the soul can perceive itself inwardly.

[ 11 ] In everyday life, the human soul is truly such that its nature can be compared to the reflection a person sees when looking into a mirror. Imagine three mirrors set up in a row. A person walks past these three mirrors; in front of each mirror, he will perceive his image, but not between the mirrors. So it is with the human soul. When it enters the physical body upon awakening, the physical body acts as a mirror. The soul does not become aware of itself within itself, but through its reflection, the physical body. And just as a reflection depends on the shape of the mirror, so too does what the soul knows about itself depend on its body. A person can only know something about themselves not merely by looking at their reflection, but also by perceiving something of themselves outside the moments when they are looking in the mirror. The soul must know itself; it must perceive itself.

[ 12 ] This, however, is what the soul of the spiritual researcher must become if it is to set out on the path into the supersensible world. He must not merely focus on the life of the soul as it is experienced as a reflection of physical existence; rather, he must learn to truly perceive the soul—which is both perceptible and imperceptible during sleep. And how can this be achieved? It can only be achieved through concentration, contemplation, and meditation. What are these?

[ 13 ] Ladies and gentlemen, we must continually draw attention to these methods of spiritual science, because they are the only way to awaken the soul so that the state described may come about. Isn’t it true that in ordinary life we form ideas and concepts, but we find these ideas and concepts valuable only if they represent something to us? However, ideas that are merely [formed] and evaluated in this way are not what matters in the training of the spiritual researcher; rather, what matters in the spiritual researcher’s inner experience is that the concepts and ideas he brings into his consciousness awaken inner forces.

[ 14 ] Concentration, contemplation, meditation—they all rest on the principle of bringing ideas—specifically, ideas that are as limited and as manageable as possible—into the center of our consciousness, and then allowing our entire consciousness to focus on that single idea. It does not matter at all, at first, that different forms of meditation are necessary for each person. We must first direct all our spiritual energy toward [a] single idea over a prolonged period of time. One must not focus on what the idea means, but rather on drawing all one’s spiritual energy toward the single point of such an idea. One can then concentrate one’s entire inner life on a single such image for longer and longer periods. If one does this for some time, one will notice that one is in fact training oneself to attain a very special state of mind—a state that is still little known today. One’s inner life is transformed; it is born a second time. In fact, one then increasingly develops the ability to bring the body into a state similar to that which it experiences during sleep. Through sheer willpower, one can exclude all sensory impressions, as well as all memories, all worries, and everything the intellect thinks. One lives in that which is independent of the physical, in that which is spiritual.

[ 15 ] The spiritual researcher is well aware of all the objections that can be raised [against this] by people who hold a materialistic—or, as it is more elegantly put today, a monistic—view. It would take us too far afield to refute all these objections, but one thing can be said: If one examines these objections closely, one will find that they are raised by people who have not yet experienced [this state], who have not yet gone through this state. People who have experienced it once no longer raise these objections. What it means to be inwardly active, independent of the physical body, must be experienced and learned. No matter how many theories one puts forward—for the one who experiences the matter for themselves, these objections are worthless.

[ 16 ] How often has it happened that important facts were discovered that were declared impossible because they did not fit into the existing system? The same is true of the results of spiritual research. However, one does not become a spiritual researcher through external tools, but only by transforming one’s own soul.

[ 17 ] When the spiritual researcher applies the methods mentioned, he enters a state in which it is no longer necessary for him to summon certain images into his consciousness, such as those just described; rather, such images and visions then arise of their own accord within his soul. This is a crucial moment in the spiritual researcher’s personal experience. It must be said that an inner life of the soul has then become active. It is as if the sleeping soul, outside the body, were to see the soul and yet, within itself, have a purely spiritual world around it. At first, the spiritual researcher has such a world around them. Now comes the most crucial moment of all, when one becomes aware of how, in the soul’s development into a spiritual researcher, self-education is the most important thing—the education toward a resolution, toward a state of mind.

[ 18 ] Those who think materialistically might say: When such ideas arise, they are pathological visions or hallucinations. However, only a thoroughly healthy spiritual life can serve as the starting point for spiritual research. — Outwardly, though, the materialist cannot discern any difference between pathological mental states—visions or hallucinations—and the state of the spiritual researcher as described. Here, the following must be considered. One cannot talk pathological minds out of their hallucinations. Why is that so? Attention must be drawn to something that can only be seen through true spiritual research; what comes into play here is what one might call self-love or self-absorption. The hallucinator believes so strongly in his visions because he loses himself in them, because he loves these images that have become one with him. Anyone who wishes to become a spiritual researcher must develop great soul strength, and it is this soul strength that matters. He must be able to discern with discernment that what often rises within him in wondrous beauty is nothing but a reflection of his own soul life, projections of his own ego. Those who suffer from delusions believe their visions to be objective phenomena. The spiritual researcher, however, knows that what he himself has created—even though it appears as a world—is nothing but his own reflection. One must be able to overcome the great self-love that now enters the soul like a force of nature. At the very moment the spiritual researcher is preparing to develop such images in his soul, he must also come to realize that these images are merely reflections of his own soul. He must have the strong will to remove from his inner life what he himself has conjured up and to clear the entire horizon of consciousness once more. But this requires a strong will, for nothing is as blissful as when a person has arrived in a new world. The spiritual researcher must be able to set aside this new world. What does this “setting aside” mean? Indeed, in our ordinary, everyday view of the world, we would become ill if we could see only one thing at a time. We must look at this and that in turn; otherwise, we gain no knowledge of the external world. In the realm of supersensible knowledge, this act of looking away is precisely comparable to the erasure of that which one has attained with so much effort. There, one cannot simply turn one’s soul away; one must erase the images. One must be able to reach the selfless decision to erase what one has attained.

[ 19 ] Once one has reached this point, a spiritual experience usually occurs, one that can be described because it is typical—[reference to the book *A Path to Self-Knowledge*]. It does not necessarily have to be as described there, but this is how it usually occurs. When one describes such an experience, people are quick to ask: How can one see anything objective in such an experience?—In doing so, people completely forget about mathematics, geometry, and so on. [Gap in the transcript]

[ 20 ] When a person trains themselves in this way, they arrive at something like the following. One day they ask themselves: What is happening to you right now? You feel like a being, yet completely dissolved. – This feels like a force of nature, much like a bolt of lightning striking. The person says to themselves: It feels as if your physicality were being torn away from you.

[ 21 ] Ladies and gentlemen, this is very easy to describe, but it is a profound experience. It is an experience of which one can say it is the moment when death touches you. It is like existing outside of all physicality. At first, it is merely a visual experience, but one experiences it with one’s will in such a way that one gains knowledge of it. And when facts, events, and beings subsequently appear before the soul, they are spiritual realities. Then the person knows that they are no longer faced with mirror images of their own being; rather, they now know what the spiritual world looks like, and they can describe it. He now knows the nature of the supersensible world, and he knows it because he has seen the instrument through which he otherwise approached the world standing beside him. He has emerged from what he otherwise called his own being, and he has viewed himself as one being among other beings.

[ 22 ] Here, too, objections can be raised to the objections. For example, someone might say: “Yes, but how did the spiritual researcher reach this state? Couldn’t it be imagination or fantasy? After all, there are people who can conjure up very vivid fantasies.”

[ 23 ] Life itself allows us to distinguish between imagination and reality. [Examples given: real lemonade and imagined lemonade, a hot piece of iron.] A hundred possible talers and a hundred real talers do not differ in concept, but one cannot pay debts with a possible taler. Schopenhauer: The world is my idea. One must let life take its course everywhere; then life itself is the best critic of idea and reality. This applies in the sensory world, but it also applies in the supersensory world. The spiritual researcher knows exactly what approaches him in the spiritual world.

[ 24 ] Today, great scholars are already taking the position of pointing to the spiritual and soul aspects. But how far do people get who admit today: There is spirit, there is soul? They merely refer to the spirit and the soul in general terms. That is just like saying: Go out into the meadow, there you will find trees, flowers, all kinds of plants—everything is nature. And in the chemistry lab, in everything you can see, you see nature, nature, nature. – People would say: “Yes, but we’re not satisfied with that—that you always just talk about nature, nature.” When it comes to nature, of course, one always demands the concrete, the specific details. In my book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, one finds the concrete and the specific in the spiritual realm, but there, one is not forgiven.

[ 25 ] This is what characterizes the present age: the soul actually demands what it is not yet willing to acknowledge in its depths. And our time will increasingly come to recognize that the supersensible world can be grasped in detail, [just] as the sensible world can be grasped in detail.

[ 26 ] One important thing that a person can now experience in the supersensible world is this: he learns to recognize his own soul as the agent working through his physical body. They learn to view their lives through entirely different eyes. They now know that the physical body is not the creator of what lives in the soul, but that the soul works creatively upon the body. They now know, when they look at a child entering life at birth, that something from the supersensible world connects with what has been inherited. He knows that his existence is not limited to the visible; he knows that the soul is most active in shaping the physical body during the very first years of life. And when we see how the child’s undeveloped features and predispositions become more and more pronounced, how the inner takes control of the outer, then we feel that the soul can only be conceived as creative—creating within the body. The soul is the sculptor of the body.

[ 27 ] When one considers all of this, one reaches a point where one can grasp how spiritual research in today’s world has a similar role to play for the supersensible world as natural science did for the sensible world not so long ago. Until the seventeenth century, people still believed that living beings could form from river mud; that living animals could arise from it. It was Francesco Redi who first declared: “Life can only come from life.” He demonstrated that the river mud contained [germs] from living animals of the past, from which new animals developed. Everyone turned against Francesco Redi; he narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno and other scholars who dared to bring something new to humanity. Today, people are somewhat more lenient in their judgment and condemnation of such individuals. Today, they are not burned at the stake; they are merely labeled as dreamers, and sometimes even as fools.

[ 28 ] Even today, people still believe that what a human being brings with them at birth comes solely from physical heredity. Spiritual science, however, must show that the belief that the physical aspects coalesce [in heredity] stems merely from inaccurate observation. In truth, the spiritual can come only from the spiritual, and what causes the concentration of inherited traits is the soul, which descends from the supersensible world into physical existence. When it comes to the spiritual-soul aspect, we must trace it back to the same individuality. And this logically leads us to the concept of repeated earthly lives. What makes us the spiritual-soul beings we are today is merely the result of a previous earthly life. What we create for ourselves in one earthly life passes through the gate of death into a purely spiritual world. Then it turns again toward the [next] earthly life and merges with the forces we acquire in a new earthly life. And in the next life, we reenter earthly existence as the sculptor who shapes the body. Thus we pass from life to life.

[ 29 ] Today, this truth may still be regarded as folly by many. The spiritual researcher fully understands that it is the fate of spiritual research to still be viewed as folly today. As I have already said, in the past people who had something new to offer the world were burned at the stake. Today, people are somewhat more lenient. Today, people who speak of spiritual research are simply called fools. But the spiritual researcher pays no heed to this. He understands quite well the people who are bound to be his opponents. Schopenhauer once said: “It has always been the fate of truth that, when it entered an age, it was not understood.” — And in his treatise on the foundations of morality, Schopenhauer says:

Throughout the centuries, poor Truth has had to blush at the fact that she was paradoxical—and yet it is not her fault. It cannot take on the form of the enthroned universal error. So it looks up with a sigh to its patron god, Time, who beckons with victory and glory, but whose wingbeats are so vast and slow that the individual dies before they arrive.

[ 30 ] But the truth will prevail, even if individualities should pass away and even if the pain of error were to be experienced to the utmost. – The spiritual researcher thus sees, as if it were a necessity, the opposition that must exist today, because people’s habits of thought cannot immediately adapt to such ideas. [Gap in the transcript]

[ 31 ] But once we have explained human life, we will have understood the nature of the soul and its connection to the supersensible worlds in a way that is fully consistent with natural science. We see the fate of the human being, but we [also] see that this fate is the effect of what the person has planted within themselves as a cause in a previous life. When we see the soul in misfortune, we know: We have brought this misfortune upon ourselves. People may say: Yes, the spiritual researcher is telling us something beautiful. – But this perspective can become a source of solace. Let me give you an example: A young man loses his father at the age of eighteen, and at the same time the entire fortune is lost; the father was a very wealthy man. Had the fortune been preserved, the young man would never have learned anything, never have had to work. Now he had to face life differently; he had to work and became a useful member of human society. When the blow of fate struck him, he experienced it as a great misfortune. Later, he had to realize that this great misfortune had befallen him for his own good. Without that misfortune, he would have remained incapable; he would have become a useless person.

[ 32 ] One is simply not always the best judge of one’s own fate, and least of all when one is in the midst of misfortune. One must wait for the right moment to be able to judge one’s fate in its entirety. Looking back, one will often be able to say: Yes, in full knowledge of the facts, I brought this or that misfortune upon myself. For example, a person who has struggled for ten years in search of insight, who has wrestled with the questions of existence, looks quite different after those ten years than he did before. His features will bear the marks of this inner work. If one were to ask such a person: “If you had the choice between the joys you have experienced and the sufferings you have endured, which would you prefer?” He would answer: “I would give up joy and happiness, but not my sufferings and my pain, for it is to them alone that I owe my spiritual depth.”

[ 33 ] We must see fate as life’s great educational tool; then the very idea of repeated earthly lives will bring us satisfaction. There is a sense of bliss in telling oneself: With the strengths I gather here, I build up my spiritual powers and spiritual abilities; and when I am granted a new earthly life, my body will be the expression of my spiritual experience. – Such a view of life brings strength into our lives.

[ 34 ] Someone might say that natural science must recognize heredity as the only correct explanation. It would not occur to a spiritual researcher to rebel against the truths of natural science. But just because _ one thing is true, does that mean the other cannot also be true? Suppose two people are observing a third person. One says: “I know why this person is alive—he has two lungs with which he breathes, and that is why he can live.” The other says: “That’s not true. Fourteen days ago, the man hanged himself; I cut the cord in time, which is why he is alive today.” Both are right. In the same way, the view of the inheritance of physical characteristics, as advocated by natural science, and the view of spiritual science—according to which a person has worked these characteristics into themselves in a previous life—can coexist side by side.

[ 35 ] Let us now turn to the question of immortality. It does not present itself to us as we reflect on an infinite void of time. We see a human being living, we see the powers he has developed, which shape his individuality. And the way he has become in this life is the guarantee of a new earthly life. Immortality is composed of its individual parts, exactly in the sense of the natural sciences. Now one might say: Yes, the spiritual researcher sees this, but surely not everyone can be a spiritual researcher. — After all, not everyone needs to be a painter to be able to look at and understand a painting. The fact that the spiritual researcher perceives the supersensible worlds is not enough; he must be able to convey to others a picture of these spiritual worlds through ideas and concepts. And just as a person who [looks at and] understands a painting does not have to be a painter, one does not need to be a spiritual researcher either if one is presented with insights into the supersensible worlds expressed in terms of common sense. If one allows what the spiritual researcher describes to sink in, then one can recognize everything he has to offer without being a spiritual researcher oneself. Only common sense is necessary for this. Not everyone can become a spiritual researcher, but that is not necessary either. For what does spiritual science give us? It presents the supersensible world to us in concepts and ideas, in images and representations; and what thereby enters our lives enlightens us about our own inner life. What the spiritual researcher experiences cannot mean anything to him until he has translated it [into ideas and concepts]. Only then does spiritual science become a source of comfort and security for the soul. Merely gazing at the spiritual world is of no use to us. What we need to be certain that the soul is indestructible cannot be obtained by looking into the spiritual world, but rather through what can be grasped by sound common sense.

[ 36 ] Once spiritual science finds its way into spiritual culture and the education of young people, then as a person grows old, he or she will feel how true Goethe’s words are: “In old age, a person becomes a mystic.” – They will feel that, despite the fading of the outer body, an inner core of the soul has matured within them. Just as a plant dies in the fall to blossom in the spring, so will human beings know that they will unfold the seed of their soul when they enter the life between death and new birth. We feel within ourselves the strengthening of that which passes from one earthly life to the next. Today we cannot yet speak of the end of these repetitions. But it may follow from what has been described that what is secured through repeated earthly lives does not consist merely of theories, but that it acts as a force for earthly life itself. What spiritual science can give us thus becomes the elixir of life, a source of security in life. It gives us comfort in suffering and pain, because we learn to view life in the right way. It is precisely the way of life that flows from supersensible knowledge that is the most important thing, the essential. When a person equips themselves with this essential element, they gain inner stability, which can already be strong today—if only the person has enough patience to delve deeply enough to attain true knowledge in the realm of the supersensible—so that they can respond to their opponents, their enemies—those who seek to deny the supersensible world—in the same way that Goethe once responded in another matter. Goethe encountered many things that seemed to him to be contrary [to his views]. This included the view, already expressed in antiquity, that there is no such thing as motion. It has always had—and still has today—adherents who say, for example: An arrow that has been shot is always at rest at a single point during its flight; therefore, motion is a continuous state of rest; therefore, there is no motion. To Goethe, this seemed like a caricature—something that, while it could indeed be strictly proven, is nonetheless nonsense. In response to these deniers of motion, Goethe came up with a beautiful phrase:

You may spot something hostile,
Stay calm, stay silent;
And if they deny you the freedom to move,
Go right under their noses.

[ 37 ] He believes this is probably the best proof of movement. Life, grasped vividly in the spiritual realm, provides the kind of certainty that Goethe had in the face of those who denied movement. And when people today appear who are hostile to the teaching of the immortality of the human soul and the supersensible world, then—armed with the certainty of life that arises from spiritual science—one can summarize what one feels in the face of such opposition in the following words:

Hostile events may occur,
But you, remain calm, remain cheerful,
And even if they deny the Spirit,
Do not dwell on it any further.
Yes, in the end, even agree with them on this point,
For their spirit is indeed in a sorry state.