The Rudolf Steiner Archive

24. How Does the Human Soul Find Its True Essence?

[ 1 ] Spiritualism; the human soul could never know anything about spiritual beings and things if those spiritual beings and things possessed qualities that also exist in the physical world. Poor memory: this is because [one] has not been taught—or has not taught oneself—to cultivate attention. Attention [is] one thing; the other [is] that we always remember what our “I” experiences, so that a person can repeatedly reconnect with their past. Attention must always [be] directed toward things already experienced. This inner attention, which [already exists] in ordinary life, must be heightened to the infinite—that is the concentration of the soul’s powers. It is best to make this a duty of one’s own free will through the free activity of the soul. It is not effective to concentrate on this or that idea, but rather to surrender oneself to this concentration again and again. Constant dripping hollows out the stone; not like a single drop hollows out the stone.

[ 2 ] Then [one practices] devotion, a negative mental activity. [One should] become completely absorbed in this negation. The first [mental activity] is concentration; the second is meditation, devotion. They [function] like a pendulum. The two exercises must be performed at different times. Then [follows] an experience outside the physical body. [This] can never be dangerous with proper training, but it is always unsettling. Perhaps [it happens at night], [or in] daily life, right in the middle of the street. [There appear to me] delusional beings [?]; [among whom] I stand not at the very top, but at the very bottom. The spiritual world is truly different from the sensory world in every detail. One is looked upon by spiritual beings; one feels their gaze while looking back at them. The problem of materialism is one of fear and dread—the fear of experiencing one’s self within the surging spiritual life. [In this way,] memory can grow stronger, and then [one can] look back on the time before the “I” memory, before birth, to earlier earthly lives. Previously, [these powers] were used as forces for the soul’s adaptation, [to adapt it] in an unconscious manner. You would have become a perfect being if you had not told that lie. [One must] reverse the view that the spirit grows out of the body like a flower; no, on the contrary, [the] effect of the spirit is the physical. It is habits of thought that turn judgment into prejudice, and we need only dispel these prejudices; only this is necessary: to become unbiased. This puts an end to prejudices, and only the judgment that is spontaneous and unbiased within the soul unfolds. Judgment does not resist; only prejudice resists. Even in the nineteenth century, writings appeared that contradicted Copernicanism. Giordano Bruno, on the basis of Copernicanism, set forth what is truly a worldview. A blue sphere, finite—[that is how the firmament was previously viewed]. It is significant that people have become accustomed to saying: The worlds extend out into infinity. Not just the boundary; that cannot be expanded or made more powerful. So much ingenuity has been expended to show that the spiritual person cannot penetrate the spiritual worlds. Before that, the microscope and the telescope. These objections may be correct, ingenious, and brilliant. The opposition is against spiritual science because so much can be used to prove against it. And these proofs are not what matters at all; rather, it is the whole picture that matters. What the spiritual researcher experiences in the initial stages can be imagined as something that brings bliss to the soul. But...: Returning to the body again causes states of mind in the spiritual researcher’s soul that can lead to the greatest pain, to the greatest suffering. People often become spiritual researchers out of a mere desire to learn something about the higher worlds. What one expends from waking until falling asleep—which is like a death of life—the forces [will] flow into [one] during sleep. Immortality [can thus] truly become [an] experience.

Question and Answer

Question: Why doesn't anthroposophy present itself to the public as a religion in the Jesuit sense?

[ 3 ] Rudolf Steiner: I can’t really imagine anything very specific in connection with this question, because it does not intend to be a religion in the sense of the historical religions. It does, however, offer content that can be experienced as religious by human beings—and indeed must be experienced as such. Here [lies] a misunderstanding: Many people wish that spiritual science had handed down a religion. Columbus; the spiritual sun of the life of the soul. The old religious traditions are gradually losing their strength. A time of transition; what matters is that one understands what the transition consists of for one’s own time. [In our time, this means:] “Do not distinguish—at least not in scientific recognition—between good and evil.” It [spiritual science] does not present itself as a religion because, above all, it does not wish to adopt the forms of dissemination used by the old religions as its own. Spiritual science seeks to exert its influence through what it can say. One must be able to respond to it with inner understanding. This requires something different from the dissemination of religions.

Question: What is the basis of inheritance?

[ 4 ] Rudolf Steiner: The spiritual researcher could truly provide a framework for all opposing objections. A person falls into the water and [therefore] gets wet. In spiritual research, [a] much more refined logic is necessary than in ordinary science, where a much coarser logic is usually sufficient. At the river [someone falls in; now it may be that] death is the cause of the fall and not at all the effect of the fall [itself]. Things are connected by cause and effect. — Certainly, they are. But causality is taken far too [lightly:] One must not only prove that the cause actually causes something. When a person [stands before us, one cannot] immediately [conclude] that he is the father of a son. One must look not only at whether [something] can be a cause, but also at whether it actually causes something in the specific, concrete case. [In the case of the Bach] family: [It is] the physical structure of the ear [to which the] individual is always drawn. Such is heredity in human life.

[ 5 ] It [would be] quite different if one were to examine them in terms of animal life; [or in the case of] death, [if one were to believe that] death is the same—as with [inanimate] plants, [so with animate] animals and humans. Only the outward appearance [is similar]; in fact, [it is] something entirely different in plants, animals, and humans. [One objection to this necessary distinction is: There must] be plant souls, [since there are carnivorous plants that] cause animals to vanish into them. [This is] by no means a logical necessity: [even] a mousetrap, [which has no soul], [can cause] small creatures to vanish into itself.

Question: When does the egg become animated?

[ 6 ] Rudolf Steiner: [At the] midnight of the worlds, there is already an interaction between the generational line and the human soul that seeks to incarnate. Not “when,” but [it happens] little by little and gradually, three to four weeks after conception; but [it is a] continuous connection; the spiritual takes hold of what is still unorganized—the nervous system—and gradually establishes itself; [it is a] natural process that unfolds gradually.

Question: Where is the soul of a person with a mental illness?

[ 7 ] Rudolf Steiner: I answer [questions] only within the limits of what I know; not [with] speculation. In Kant’s case, [there was a] significant decline in mental faculties in old age: None of this constitutes an objection. When the physical body begins to dissolve or weaken, the soul can no longer express itself through it in the same way: Nietzsche. There is no such thing as a sick soul; there is no such thing as a sick mind. The entire body, the entire nervous system, acts like a mirror. Physical processes underlie the soul—that is true—but it is the soul that brings about these processes. [If you look into a] concave mirror, [you will] look the way you do not actually want to look. In the same way, [even a sick body cannot] properly reflect the soul. Everything [is] merely a figurative expression, even when science speaks of an “impact”; [even the] mirror [is] merely a figurative expression.