The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. How Does the Soul Find Its True Nature

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! How does the soul find its true essence? It is a question that, in essence, every soul asks itself ceaselessly. One need not even ask this question in such explicit terms as it has just been posed. In the darkest depths of feeling, in the recesses of the soul, there undoubtedly exists within every human being the sense that the deepest destiny of their soul itself has something to do with this very question. And one need not, ladies and gentlemen, ask: What good is an answer to this question? What does an answer to this question mean? What scientific value does it have?—and the like; rather, one can sense that a person’s inner peace and inner balance depend on whether they can at least develop the feeling that some answer to this question can be found. From the perspective of spiritual science, as it is accessible to the inquiring human soul in the present, this question will be discussed today.

[ 2 ] What spiritual science has to say about this question is, in the truest sense of the word, a product, a result of human endeavor in our time, and will, hopefully, become more and more so in the future development of humanity. Humanity passes through various stages in its development, across different peoples and epochs, and just as what is rightly so highly valued today as natural science entered human development at a specific point in time—and did not exist within it before—so it is also with spiritual science as referred to here. One might say: The conditions that existed three to four millennia ago for the development of natural science are, in the opinion and “insight” of the spiritual researcher, present for spiritual science in our time.

[ 3 ] However, if the question raised this evening is to be discussed from the perspective of this spiritual science, this does not mean, ladies and gentlemen, that what spiritual science has to say is something entirely new. On the contrary, one can say: What spiritual science has to say has always lived in human souls; it lives in a hidden way in all human souls, with greater or lesser clarity, especially in the very greatest souls. Let me quote a statement by an outstanding thinker of recent spiritual development—a statement that can, in a sense, lead us right into the heart of our question. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the great philosopher, once said, while speaking specifically about the nature of the scholar:

Not just now,

[ 4 ] as Fichte said,

It is not only after I have been torn from the context of the earthly world that I will gain entry into the supernatural world; I am already in it and living there, far more truly than in the earthly world; even now it is my only firm foothold, and the eternal life that I have long since taken possession of is the sole reason why I may still continue my earthly existence. What they call heaven does not lie beyond the grave; it is already spread out here around our very nature, and its light dawns in every pure heart.

[ 5 ] Dear friends, even though this statement was made by a profound thinker, it was made at a time when it was not yet possible to speak from the perspective of spiritual science as we can today, and when the human soul did not yet have, in a pronounced sense, the needs regarding the supernatural life that it has today. It can be said: The time has already come for every thinking soul—and it will come more and more—this time—only the short-sighted can disagree on this point—the time has come and will come more and more when souls will feel uneasy when they must realize: Yes, the soul’s true home—that which must be called the spiritual world—is something whose concept must dawn in every loving heart; but that which we value as science, that which the best of our contemporaries say is alone entitled to establish the truth, either turns away from any exploration of the supersensible worlds, or at the very least presumes to claim that human cognitive faculties are so limited and restricted that they cannot penetrate the supersensible world, and that therefore all knowledge and insight into this world must be set aside.

[ 6 ] The times have passed, esteemed audience, when souls did not feel this disharmony, which manifested itself in the heart’s inner certainty of a supersensible homeland, while reason claimed to be unable to reach this homeland. Precisely for this reason, spiritual research in our time feels that what must become part of general culture is the realization that the forces within humanity—which have been cultivated over centuries through work on natural phenomena—are indeed capable, when used in the right way, of truly penetrating the spiritual worlds, just as external knowledge, which is bound to the senses and the brain, can penetrate the natural world. However, this assertion still meets with opposition today. It encounters misunderstandings. Indeed, one might say—indeed, one must say—that if one wishes to speak of spiritual science in the sense intended here, one must use terms so unfamiliar that, precisely when one is immersed in them, it seems entirely understandable why countless people who today believe they stand on the firm ground of scientific thinking must still turn against this spiritual science. But just as a fundamental shift in habits of thought had to take place three or four centuries ago, when the natural sciences brought about a completely different way of thinking about the spatial world, so too will that shift in the habits of thought take place within the human soul—a shift that is necessary if an ever-increasing understanding is to spread regarding the truths that I shall take the liberty of outlining in this lecture.

[ 7 ] However, distinguished guests, as certain as it is that spiritual science is indeed the true child of natural science, it must be admitted that today one might believe one has been abandoned by all the guiding spirits of natural science when standing on the ground of this spiritual science. For the entire mood in the soul of the spiritual researcher is fundamentally different from that in the soul of the natural scientist. Let us consider, ladies and gentlemen, the natural scientist’s attitude toward external nature. He directs his senses—either unarmed or armed with the appropriate tools—toward external things; he employs his thinking to discern the laws governing the facts of nature. Just as human beings are—just as they are, so to speak, placed in this world of their own accord—so do they confront the world in their quest to understand nature. They apply their thoughts, their power of judgment, and their senses, just as they are given to them, to the exploration of the facts of existence.

[ 8 ] One who wishes to penetrate the spiritual world must proceed quite differently. That is why I would like to begin by describing a little of the mindset that the spiritual researcher must possess. The natural scientist approaches external things and human beings themselves directly through his senses, his power of judgment, and his ordinary cognitive faculties; the spiritual researcher, however, does not initially apply these directly. Everything that is so characteristic of him—the very means by which he otherwise confronts the world directly—the spiritual researcher first uses as preparation for the actual research. Whatever capacity for thought he can muster in this inner work—the acuity of his thinking, the strength of his feelings and sensations—he applies it all to bring his soul into a state of development, to gradually transform it inwardly as if into a different being, to first ripen it for what he intends to undertake. And by approaching the development of one’s soul in the manner to be described later, one feels quite differently than one does in relation to external life. One feels that, when one engages honestly in spiritual research, a timid reverence for the truth arises within the soul; one feels as if the truth were hovering far above one and one must first draw near to it. Indeed, this mood intensifies more and more, so that—precisely the further one progresses in spiritual research—one develops the feeling: You must wait. Given the state of your soul at present, it is better for you not yet to attempt to fathom certain questions of spiritual life. Continue to work on your soul, and you will reach a point where you will be more mature, where the questions you wish to answer today will be answered.

[ 9 ] To wait with sacred reverence to see where the soul may lead, indeed, to refrain, as it were, from addressing certain questions about the depths of existence—such will be the spirit of the spiritual seeker. He then lives in such a way that he is trustingly and devotedly attuned to the flow of existence, confident that wisdom reigns in existence and that this flowing wisdom will make him ever more mature. With words like these, I would like to begin by suggesting the frame of mind that is essential for the spiritual researcher. Much depends on the fact that he has a sacred reverence for the truth, that he can sense he must first become more and more mature in order to be permitted to approach it. And it follows for him, as if by an inner necessity, to immerse everything he has to accomplish with his soul in the very mood I have just characterized. Not that I wish to claim, esteemed audience, that such a state of mind must be artificially created, or that it should be prescribed to anyone who wishes to become a spiritual researcher—no, it arises quite of its own accord when one carries out what is necessary for the soul to find its true essence. How is this to be carried out? — I can only briefly outline the fundamental principles here; you will find the details in my books *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds* and *An Outline of Esoteric Science* in the second part, or, with regard to very specific details, in one of my most recent writings: *The Threshold of the Spiritual World*.

[ 10 ] It would be easy to believe that one must perform very special, wondrous deeds in order to enter the spiritual world. That is not the case. Essentially, what the soul needs to enter the spiritual world is already present in every human soul life. It takes place amidst the other experiences of ordinary existence. And what otherwise takes place—if I may use the expression—as it were, between the lines of life, must be developed by the spiritual researcher to an unlimited degree. And there is one thing that at first appears to us as something quite inconspicuous in the life of the soul: what we call “attention” in ordinary life.

[ 11 ] As we all know, distinguished guests, we must cultivate attentiveness even in our everyday lives; we must take an interest in the individual things that come our way; we cannot let life simply wash over us as it presents itself to the senses and the intellect; rather, we must single out individual facts and entities and look at them closely. Only in this way can we shape our inner life into an orderly one. We develop this attentiveness quite spontaneously. Before I discuss its application to spiritual science, I would like to illustrate in two points how this inner attentiveness is already significant in everyday life. A certain philosopher rightly said: “Fundamentally, the question of the capacity for recollection—of memory—is actually the question of the attentiveness of the human soul.” – And we would gain immeasurably in matters of education and educational principles if we were truly willing to recognize what spiritual science has to say about the connection between attention and memory.

[ 12 ] How many people—one might almost say, all people—complain of a poor memory, and, at a certain age, of a declining memory! If people were to recognize the connection between attention and memory at the right time, things would be better. One can say the following to everyone: The more a person strives to develop the power of attention—that is, to repeatedly focus their interest on individual facts of life—the more they concentrate their soul on attention through inner effort, the stronger their memory and their ability to recall will become. Not only do we remember more easily what we have paid attention to, but the power of recollection—the power of memory—becomes all the stronger the more we are trained, or train ourselves, to continually develop the activity of paying attention. Activity and ability are interconnected here. Not only—as is very easy to observe in life—do we remember more easily what we have paid attention to, but the power of memory is also strengthened through the development of the activity of attention. That is one point.

[ 13 ] Another matter, I would say, is something that can lead us into a sad chapter of human psychological life. Many of you have certainly already heard how, in extreme cases, human psychological life can be disrupted when the recollection of one’s own experiences is somehow interrupted. In very special cases, it happens that a person suddenly feels torn away from what they are doing; they no longer know what they are doing; they have forgotten their former inner life, either partially or entirely; they live as if in a different state of consciousness. They can travel, can undertake all sorts of activities, but only later does the undisturbed, continuous memory of their experiences resurface. Then, all of a sudden, they become aware of who they are, whereas before they had forgotten their “I.” Even if this, in such a radical form, constitutes a medical condition in humans, the disturbance of memory in the human soul nevertheless occurs in more or less mild forms, and these issues would arise far less frequently in life if one were to bear in mind that this continuity of consciousness—this overview of one’s own experiences, such that one is truly and strongly present with oneself at all times—depends on developing the activity of attention as much as possible. And one does children an immense favor for their later years by encouraging them to focus their interest on individual processes and entities. One strengthens their willpower—insofar as it arises from the interconnected experiences of life—and also their power of judgment through attention. But when one looks into ordinary inner life in this way, one must say: Attention takes place between the lines of life.

[ 14 ] The spiritual researcher—or anyone who wishes to become one—must continually increase the activity of their attention. Whereas we are usually prompted by external factors to develop an interest in this or that, the spiritual researcher must develop concentration in an inner, artful manner. At will, through a strong inner exertion of the soul’s power, the spiritual researcher must gather together everything present in his soul and direct it as far as possible toward something to which he is not prompted from without—whether toward ideas formed within the soul itself or toward those suggested by knowledgeable spiritual researchers. One allows these images to arise arbitrarily in one’s soul at specific moments; otherwise, one attempts to place oneself in a state in which the external senses perceive nothing, as in sleep, and in which ordinary thinking comes to a standstill, as in sleep—with the exception that the entire soul, with all its powers, is directed toward the single image one holds onto for as long as possible. This is called concentration. You can read more details in the books mentioned above. The more one uses such images—which, in a sense, have no counterpart in the external world—and the more one places symbolic images at the center of one’s consciousness, the better the results. And now it is a matter of the spiritual researcher performing this exercise over and over again; some, depending on their abilities, achieve something in a short time, while others only after years, but as it is set before us, we attain—so to speak—the ability to cultivate something within the soul by behaving in this way—a development made possible by the current state of human progress. Forces that otherwise slumber in the depths of the soul are brought to the surface when we repeatedly perform such exercises in concentration with patient, persevering effort. One does not become a spiritual researcher in an external, tumultuous way, but through such processes in the soul as [those] described in *The Expansion of Attention into the Infinite*.

[ 15 ] Then, at an appropriate moment, something occurs that one might now call—and I expressly note that no particular importance is attached to the term itself, nor is it intended to prove anything—one experiences what might be called a “process of spiritual chemistry.” And as I discuss this process of spiritual chemistry, you will see that modern spiritual science, as it is understood here, does indeed seek the true essence of the soul in a similar—but only in a similar—way to how natural science attempts to unravel the mysteries of nature. However, precisely because spiritual science enters the spiritual realm, its methods and preparatory work must differ from those of natural science.

[ 16 ] Spiritual chemistry! Well, if we want to use the term as a way to help us understand the matter: When you look at water, you cannot tell that a chemist can separate hydrogen from it, because hydrogen cannot be seen in water. Water extinguishes fire; hydrogen burns. Just as the nature of hydrogen cannot be seen when one has water before one, so too the nature of the soul cannot be seen in the human being standing before us in the flesh. But just as the chemist separates hydrogen from water as something that has entirely different properties from water, so the spiritual researcher—though by making his own soul the instrument of his research—separates his soul from the body through concentration; he extracts his spiritual-soul aspect from the physical-bodily aspect. If an abstract, monistic natural science or worldview that disregards the facts calls this “dualism,” one can calmly endure such a charge. One might just as well say that there is dualism in water; water is not merely a unity, a “monos,” but in order to come to know it, one must extract the hydrogen. Just as hydrogen can be extracted from water through physical chemistry, so too is the spiritual-soul aspect separated from the physical-bodily through processes such as the one described here—we find other such processes in the books mentioned—and thus the spiritual-soul aspect is separated from the physical-bodily. And the spiritual researcher then experiences that momentous, that great moment when he can truly attach meaning to words to which, if one knows nothing of the facts of spiritual experience, one cannot attach any meaning: I experience myself as a soul-spiritual being independent of my body, outside of my body. – And since I do not wish to speak in abstractions but rather of the facts of spiritual experience, of the facts of discovering the true nature of the soul, I shall not hesitate to describe individual experiences that the spiritual researcher undergoes.

[ 17 ] When one stands in ordinary life, where the soul-spiritual is bound to the physical just as hydrogen is bound to oxygen, then, my dear friends, one views the world in such a way that one knows: You develop the power of your soul through the instruments of your body; you make use of your senses and your brain; you live within this body of yours. — The first thing one knows—after performing the exercises I have described—is that one lives with one’s soul and spirit outside one’s body; this is what one might call the power of thought. In ordinary life, we know this about the power of thought: we can use it only by being bound to the brain through our thinking. Now, however, one experiences oneself weaving and existing in thought outside one’s brain. What I am telling you is no fairy tale, no hypothesis, but something that anyone who performs the relevant exercises can experience; one comes to realize: Now you are living in your thought life as if hovering around your own brain; the power of your thinking unfolds outside the body. — One experiences this moment in particular as especially vivid—one might even say, as particularly overwhelming. If one makes an effort to do the exercises for a while, there comes a time when one cannot yet fully experience thinking outside the brain. It is something that spreads like a dreamlike twilight, as a result of concentration; but the moment when one plunges back into the brain—when the thinking taking place outside the body merges with the thinking within the body—that is actually the first thing one notices very clearly. One feels oneself sinking back into the being one has experienced outside one’s body, as if penetrating something dense, and, as in soothing currents, one feels one’s thinking being draw back into one’s body and permeate the brain, in order to use it once more for external thinking. These facts are such that one can understand why so many people today feel compelled to say: “Anyone who says that is talking nonsense; these are the fantasies of a half-mad person.”—But these are the facts through which people will come to recognize how one learns to perceive the true nature of the soul. These are facts that will spread throughout the culture of the future, for souls yearn for them, even if they are not yet conscious of it. These facts will spread just as the Copernican worldview—that the Earth moves at great speed through space—once spread.

[ 18 ] The first thing, then, that can be separated from the physical body is the power of thought, and—if one has the perseverance to continue the exercises described for a longer period—one can, in essence, experience this emancipation from the physical organ of thought as one’s first supersensory experience. It is simply a matter of having to overcome certain obstacles, so to speak, in order to have such experiences. People, for example, whose interests are limited to what physical existence alone entails—who are unable to develop broad-minded interests—will certainly find that serious obstacles stand in their way when they make the attempt as just described. A broad-mindedness of interests—the ability to respond to the beauty and sublimity that every being already offers even in the physical world—must be inherent in the soul. Anyone who is interested only in themselves will notice that, to the very extent that they perform the exercises —anyone can do them; the point is to do them correctly—who is so completely absorbed in selfishness with their ordinary thinking will already notice that, as they do indeed make progress through the exercises described, something comes over their soul that can be called a certain inner fear of the world they are to enter—a world they experience outside the body. This fear is, in essence, always present in the soul; one is simply unaware of it. In spiritual science, one speaks of the threshold that separates the sensory world from the spiritual, the earthly from the super-earthly. It is said that one must cross this threshold; indeed, it is even said that this threshold is guarded by a guardian—by which, of course, a spiritual force is meant. That is to say: It is true—and spiritual science confirms this—that, as Fichte says, the spiritual world is always around us and that we can also find our way into it. Why does this spiritual world not always appear to the human soul in the same way as the physical world? Because what the aspiring spiritual researcher may experience through encounters such as those just described causes fear to arise in the soul—because this fear is within the soul; and this fear is a good remedy against an immature intrusion into the spiritual world. It is always there, in the souls—this fear—but it does not manifest as fear; rather, it manifests in the fact that people simply lose heart in the efforts they could make to enter the spiritual world. They seem to become indifferent; they are no longer interested in continuing the exercises; but in truth, it is fear that they do not feel, because they do not perceive it as fear. One can even say that spiritual research proves with certainty where humanity’s materialistic mindset actually comes from. After all, there are materialistically minded souls in our time who say either that one cannot speak of a spiritual world, or that one should not concern oneself with it because human cognitive faculties are directed solely toward the sensory world. They also say that it is unscientific to speak of a life in the spirit. Yes, such people—who are now elegantly called “monists,” though they used to be called “materialists”—consider themselves particularly scientific when they completely reject the spiritual world, when they say that science has nothing to do with the spiritual world. Certainly, it is not exactly easy to find followers among these people—who are, I might say, die-hard monists—when one speaks the truth about these facts, but this truth is, after all, the truth. It is not logical reasons, nor anything that can be proven, that keep the soul captive to materialism or monism, but rather a fear that people do not recognize as fear, a fear they do not admit to themselves. It gives rise to notions such as the idea that it is unscientific to acknowledge the spiritual world. The one who sees through these things knows that souls gather in materialist assemblies because the fear of the spiritual world reigns within them all. It is not pleasant to tell people that they are, at heart, souls driven by fear, that they cloak this fear in a semblance of logic, as if they could prove that only the facts of the physical world are valid.

[ 19 ] We have thus pointed out the obstacles that prevent the soul from entering the spiritual world, where it belongs by virtue of its true nature.

[ 20 ] The exercises already described must now be supplemented by others, but not in such a way that the soul combines one with the other, but rather alternately. Just as the pendulum of a clock swings alternately to one side and then the other—and not to both sides at the same time—so the soul cannot perform different exercises at the same time, but should perform them alternately; then they will support one another.

[ 21 ] We have spoken of an increase in awareness. There is something else, too, that exists between the lines of life, which we can increase to infinite proportions; that is what we call devotion—devotion as we experience it when we are so completely absorbed by something that we forget everything else around us and live solely for that which demands our devotion. We must surrender passively, whereas with attention we must be active. But this devotion must, in a sense, become universal if we are to become spiritual researchers. This must take place in such a way that we once again develop a state of mind that resembles sleep, yet is its opposite. All will is at rest, even that will which expresses itself in the slightest movement of the limbs. All arbitrary thinking is at rest—perception is at rest—but the soul is awake, and it is awake in such a way that it is wholly surrendered to the flow of existence, so that it develops that state of absolute stillness which the religious person perhaps knows when he is deeply and devoutly engaged in prayer; but in spiritual research, one does not even surrender to the content of a prayer —for that would put the soul into a specific state of mind—but, I would say, simply to be wholly surrendered with one’s entire being to the eternal power of existence, which causes forces other than mere powers of thought to rise up from within the soul. So I will now characterize a second force that we can draw from the realm of soul experience. When I speak to you in this way, I form my words by directing my thoughts in the brain so that they take hold of the speech organ. I use physical organs to express what I wish to say to you. Just as one can, through concentration, emancipate the power of thought from the physical organ of the brain, so one can tear away from the speech organs—and indeed from the brain—the power that in ordinary life pours into them, and develop it purely in the soul in a state of complete outward, I might say, silence. When one retains within the soul what would otherwise flow into speech, developing it only inwardly, the unspoken inner word becomes alive—the word that cannot be heard with a physical organ, the word that one hears inwardly, through inner listening to one’s own self. And this word—this silent word, which speaks all the more clearly in a spiritual sense—is attained through the emancipation of the power of speech from the physical organ of speech; into this inner word pours what one might call the “spiritual outer world.” Just as one is surrounded in the physical world by beings of the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, so too, when one detaches the power of thought and the power of speech from the body, one enters—through a soul-spiritual inner experience—into a world in which one is surrounded by spiritual beings, spiritual forces, and spiritual processes.

[ 22 ] Even today, one is not really forgiven, so to speak, for speaking of this world; although some philosophers already allow one to speak of a spiritual world in general—because they already recognize the absurdity of denying such a world—they say: Behind the sensory world lies a spiritual world. – And certain intellectuals already consider themselves superior when they espouse so-called “pantheism.” To those who see through these things, this is no better than the pan-naturalist who, walking across a meadow, would say: What do I care about yellow or red flowers, these forests, those mountains and valleys and rivers—it’s all nature, nature, nature. I am not interested in the fact that there are individual physical processes that can be observed. – Just as such a person, in pannenaturalism, would call everything merely “nature,” so too does the one who is willing only to permit speaking of the spirit in a pantheistic sense, in a pantheistic manner, stand opposed to the spiritual world. This stands in contrast to true spiritual science, which truly separates the soul-spiritual from the physical-bodily, just as hydrogen is distinct from water. This spiritual science enters the spiritual world in such a way that it distinguishes the individual concrete processes and entities of the spiritual world, of which we must say: Just as we stand here in the physical world as human beings and look upon beings of the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, so do we face the spiritual world through spiritual research; there, however, we are no longer on the highest level, but on the lowest, and above us, as our own soul lives itself into the spiritual world as a spiritual being, begins the hierarchy of higher spirits. One ascends to the hierarchy of spiritual beings to which we belong through the soul-spiritual, just as we belong to the physical-mineral kingdom through the physical body.

[ 23 ] And above all, esteemed audience, one arrives at this by emancipating the power of speech; by retaining inwardly that which otherwise pours out through the physical organs of speech and is thereby connected to the body—then one arrives at expanding what we might call “memory” in ordinary life. Just as it manifests in the soul in such a way that we look back on the experiences of our existence as far back as we can remember—as those experiences rise up in the form of images and thoughts of the past from the depths of the soul— so, as the soul progresses as described, the time also comes when images rise from the indefinite depths of the soul—not those that express what we have experienced in this life, but those that lead us out of this world into a purely spiritual world—and the soul’s power of memory expands to such an extent that our soul truly connects a meaning to the words: Before I was born or conceived from physical matter through my parents, I was in a spiritual world; I had experiences there, and I existed even further back in previous earthly lives, and when I pass through the gate of death, I will pass through a spiritual world; and what I develop in this life is the seed for the following earthly lives, which I will live through with the same certainty as I am living through this earthly life. – As a fact of inner experience, as a result of the search for its true nature, the soul discovers the repeated earthly lives and the forms of existence in between, between death and new birth. The soul discovers this as an inner fact.

[ 24 ] The inner experience one has when one has detached the power of thought can be compared to an inner, purely spiritual play of expressions. For just as passively as we face the external world with our senses, we cannot face the spiritual world. The moment we experience ourselves outside the body through the power of thought, that power must always be kept active. This is the difference between spiritual perception and physical perception. In physical perception, we can think and give ourselves over to thinking; as soon as we enter the spiritual world with our emancipated power of thought, we must always be active; we must slip into the spiritual beings we wish to perceive. We must always be active. If we cease to be active, spiritual perception also ceases. One might call this perception an inner play of expressions. One must always, at will, express what perception is—what one can learn about the other being by adapting one’s own emancipated thinking to the processes and beings one perceives.

[ 25 ] Thus, emancipated speech—life in the inner word—can be called an inner gesture, an inner sign. Just as in external life, when one is fully engaged in a matter, one needs gestures—sometimes too many, as I do during a lecture—one expresses through action what one is experiencing; just as in physical life one is in motion through gestures and thereby expresses what is within oneself, so too, in the emancipation of the power of speech, in the transition into the spiritual world and into the processes of the spiritual world, one must express through inner gesture that which belongs to other beings. From this you can see the great difference between true spiritual knowledge and sensory perception. Sensory perception is passive; spiritual knowledge is active.

[ 26 ] If one continues with the exercises, one eventually arrives at something else. To express what I wish to make clear, I would like to refer to the development of the child. Human beings—and this can also be substantiated scientifically—enter physical life in such a way that they must first acquire the power of orientation and positioning for external life. Animals enter physical life in a different way; the arguments against this are merely spurious. Human beings enter life in such a way that they are at first crawling, helpless beings who must first acquire the power of orientation. And significant thinkers have always pointed out what it means for human beings to stand upright and be able to gaze into the vastness of the heavens. Human beings acquire this in childhood. That is when the forces within him awaken, through which he can become this upright being. That is when he gives his entire body its outward form; what he is as a spirit, he instills into his body, which is given to him through the process of heredity; the spirit erects this body through forces that are unique to the spirit in human beings—this can also be proven scientifically, though that would take us too far afield today—forces that are not merely physical, but lie within the spiritual-soul realm, permeate the body, and give it its upright orientation. What we instill in the body in early childhood—what we pour into the body so that we may become upright beings—we can also emancipate from the body, just as we emancipate the powers of thought and speech. This is, admittedly, the most difficult thing to accomplish, but one gradually gains the ability to truly extract from the body that which gives a person direction in childhood, so that one can give oneself any direction one wishes outside the body. In particular, one can come to know the great difference between “up” and “down”; these are not spatial directions, but the direction “up” is an inner experience. Once one has emancipated the upward-striving force from the body, something then rises up in the soul, outside of the body, which the soul experiences profoundly on a moral level—something about which it can say: It is like working against gravity. However, this is not meant in a directional or spatial sense; rather, what the soul experiences can be expressed something like this: As the soul experiences this “upward movement,” it feels increasingly lonely. And then, by truly experiencing this within the soul, one goes through all those states of mind that can be experienced under the impression of being more and more alone. To be so alone that one knows: There is a world outside of you, but you now perceive nothing of this world, even spiritually. You vanish, as it were, from this world and are more and more within yourself. – It goes so far that, if the soul is not attuned to this solitude in the manner described in the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, this solitude overwhelms the person to such an extent that they feel a whole world within themselves, that they feel, as it were, more and more only themselves as they ascend, while the world seems to sink away from them. This state of mind, in which the soul does indeed feel a world within itself, can in turn be linked to a fear of oneself—that one is now experiencing all the tragic and all the blissful conflicts, that one becomes aware of everything that lies in the depths of the human soul.

[ 27 ] Spiritual research has found that, between death and a new birth, the soul repeatedly experiences such states of mind in the purely spiritual world, alternating with the other states of mind that I will describe shortly. And the moment that occurs exactly midway between death and a new birth—I have taken the liberty of calling it, in the Mystery Drama *The Awakening of the Soul*, “the spiritual midnight hour of existence,” because there, in the midst of the bliss of spiritual life before the next birth, the soul indeed experiences a moment when it is entirely within itself, experiencing only itself, yet can become quite anxious in the realization: There is a world around you, but it lies outside your consciousness; you know nothing of it; a world—indeed, worlds—arise from your own inner being. With these worlds, you are alone.

[ 28 ] The spiritual researcher becomes acquainted with this state of mind. And he becomes acquainted with another one, which can be described as a “descending” state—the state in which the soul feels as if it were, so to speak, radiating its own soul light. Just as in physical life we see and perceive things because the sun shines upon them, so too in the spiritual world we must allow the light of the spirit itself to stream over things. And moments of loneliness then flow into us when we grow weary of letting the inner sun shine. When the light of the inner sun shines, we spread out, as it were, over the world of other beings. What one might call “spiritual fellowship” or “spiritual togetherness” with the souls who have passed away before or after us, with those with whom we lived together, or with those who are on Earth—for from the spirit realm we perceive the souls who are still incarnated on Earth— this state—of perceiving spiritually and soulfully, of living within it—alternates between death and a new birth with the state of solitude. These two states alternate with the same regularity as day and night alternate in our physical life. In this way, one acquires the ability to feel, as it were, isolated yet connected to an inner world, to feel immersed in the spiritual world and its beings and processes. But one also comes to know other forces that can be compared to right and left, front and back. But by immersing oneself in these forces—by allowing the soul to develop these forces, of which one knows nothing in ordinary life but which arise in the subconscious when the soul forms its first perception of the world—and by developing all these forces, of which the uplifting force is one, one then attains the ability to to delve even further into the spiritual world, into the world of the spiritual beings that surround us; then we step completely out of ourselves. We view our body as external to ourselves and can enter into the other spiritual beings; we can assume their form. For just as we develop our first form here—our upright gait—so must we assume the inner constitution of the spiritual beings in the spiritual world. In this way, the soul connects, as it were, with the world in which its spiritual being is truly rooted.

[ 29 ] Everything I have tried to describe is really—I must put it somewhat trivially—a kind of spiritual chemistry. The soul is freed from the physical body and enters into a new connection, just as hydrogen does when it is removed from water. This new connection is the connection with the world in which the soul is actually rooted as in its true home. Of course, someone might now say: Well, then it is only the spiritual researcher who can know anything about the spiritual world! So one would have to become a spiritual researcher to truly settle into this spiritual world. — That is not the case, dear friends. Just as one does not need to be a painter to understand a painting created by a painter, so too does one not need to be a spiritual researcher to find what the spiritual researcher explores comprehensible and understandable. Although, as you can see from my books, it is possible for anyone in our time to become a spiritual researcher to a certain extent, one does not need to become one. One must be a painter if one wants to paint pictures; one must be a spiritual researcher to penetrate the spiritual world; but if what is explored in this spiritual world is described—and if one truly succeeds in finding the right words in the physical world to express this spiritual world—then what the spiritual researcher has to say can be understood by every soul. And then what the spiritual researcher has to say is truly not like any other doctrine or theory, but relates to life in an entirely different way. One might say: It is not merely the case that, while one must be a chemist oneself to investigate chemical processes, one need not be one to understand what the chemist has discovered; rather, just as one need not cultivate the field oneself and yet lives off it, just as one need not know everything that must happen to produce food, and need not do the work oneself, yet still enjoy the food—so what the spiritual researcher has to say—if what the spiritual researcher says is rooted in truth—penetrates a mysterious language present in every soul, truly present in every soul. This language is present in every soul. And if many people today still believe that what the spiritual researcher says is absurd or insane, it is only because these people have acquired prejudices rather than the ability to judge. Once the significance of even the external sciences is truly recognized, these prejudices will disappear, and then these mysterious powers of understanding, which are already present in souls today, will come to the fore, and people will understand spiritual science because it strikes secret chords in the human soul that must resound—just as surely as our taste buds develop the sense of taste when food is placed upon them.

[ 30 ] The time will come, dear friends, when people will no longer speak of spiritual science as they do today, but when the words of the spiritual teachers will resonate in such a way that souls will take them in, even if they are not spiritual researchers. Just as one enjoys the fruits of the field without cultivating it oneself, just as one enjoys the grain without operating the mill oneself, so will one spiritually “absorb” and spiritually “savour” what belongs to the soul through spiritual science. The time will come—even though we are still far from it today—when the mysterious language living within every soul will come alive in the soul, so that the spiritual researcher will no longer be a preacher in the wilderness, but will be able to speak to people in such a way that they say: “What the spiritual researcher says merely brings forth what is already present in all souls.” – But then the time will come when people will know that there is a knowledge of the spiritual world that is not only as certain as natural science, but much, much more certain; and what Fichte intuited will be proven true in a genuinely scientific sense: Not only can one live in a spiritual world after death, but even here in the physical world, one can live in and understand the spiritual world—indeed, live more truly in the spiritual world than in the physical world. – People will come to understand that physical existence derives its value, its security, and its validity precisely from the fact that one understands how the soul finds its true essence in the spiritual world.

[ 31 ] Just as an aside, I would like to mention—not to dwell on the matter, but because it may already be stated as a fact—that there is indeed already some understanding of this world, which is to be revealed to humanity through the science of the spirit as a truly divine-spiritual world in which the soul is truly rooted. The fact that an understanding is beginning to take root in the world is evidenced by the fact that, with relatively substantial resources, a site dedicated to this science— we call it a “School of Spiritual Science”—a place that is to be built, more than for any other reason, so that, in terms of style and artistic expression, we may one day have a building that, even in its outward forms, expresses what flows into the soul from divine-spiritual life when it fathoms its true essence. The building already exists in its form; it only needs to be completed both externally and internally as a two-domed wooden structure, and it will artistically express, in its outward appearance, what spiritual science seeks to convey. A number of friends of spiritual science have joined forces to raise the funds—which are by no means insignificant—for this building. It would only be desirable that this building not be understood as described in a newspaper article that has just appeared in Paris—and is now circulating around the world—but rather that it be understood as a first sanctuary dedicated to spiritual science, the science of the divine origin of the soul, the science of the soul as true being—just as the spiritual researcher, based on his insight, must believe that this science is already being longed for today by souls—by numerous souls who do not yet know it, but who nevertheless long for it—just as it must be and will be longed for more and more in the future by the human soul. One may also point with a certain satisfaction to this outward symbol—the imposing building we have been privileged to erect—as evidence of the impression that spiritual science has already been able to make on individual souls, even though one still encounters misunderstanding after misunderstanding today when speaking of this spiritual science.

[ 32 ] But even today, I think I can draw a comparison regarding the spirit that animates the spiritual researcher, even as he sees a world of prejudices piling up against spiritual science. The spiritual researcher must then think: There was once a time when people looked up as far as their eyes could see; there they saw the blue vault of heaven, and trusting their senses, they said: Up there is the vault of heaven; there is the moon, the stars, and the sun, moving back and forth across this vault of heaven. — Then came Copernicus, then came Giordano Bruno; standing alone before their contemporaries, they proclaimed to them: What you believe you see with your eyes is not in space. This blue vault of heaven is the product of your limited powers of perception; there is no boundary; the world extends out into the infinity of space, and infinite worlds are embedded within these vast expanses. You yourselves create the firmament through the limitations of your cognition.

[ 33 ] The spiritual researcher knows today that, just as the firmament once appeared to people who trusted only their senses as a real boundary of the world—not because it was there, but because their cognitive faculties posited it—so too is the confinement between birth or conception and death a temporal firmament that human beings create for themselves. And spiritual research today must step before this temporal firmament of birth or conception and death, just as Giordano Bruno stepped before the spatial firmament, and say: Beyond birth and death lies the spiritual world; there, poured out into time, lies life, embedded in infinite repetitions of earthly existence—moving forward and backward—like the infinite worlds to which Giordano Bruno once pointed. – And just as people have become accustomed to no longer seeing the spatial firmament as a boundary, so too will people become accustomed to viewing the entering into the body and the leaving of the body as a temporal firmament, beyond which lies the spiritual world, in which we live with forces that spiritual science reveals to us.

[ 34 ] Ladies and gentlemen, I pointed out that when a person, through concentration and meditation, frees their soul from the body, they experience something that can be called: inner facial expressions, inner gestures, inner physiognomy. By experiencing this, a person already experiences in this life what will then completely surround the soul in the spiritual world after death. Knowledge of the spiritual world reaches into this world, and the soul recognizes itself by finding itself rooted in its true essence within the spiritual world. One might say: It is understandable that there is little appreciation for these discussions in our present time; when we look at our present, we understand this. Indeed, what do people focus on most today? Let me use a trivial example: A notice on a bulletin board announces “A lecture with slides.” Next to it is an announcement for a lecture without slides. Which lecture do people feel most drawn to? Well, the one where they can passively surrender themselves, where they do not need to be active, where everything is so beautifully presented in pictures. Spiritual science cannot proceed in this way. Although what is perceived in the spirit could also be presented in pictures, I have only attempted to work through the mere word, which can affect thinking and feeling. Spiritual science can only count on the active participation of the soul. After all, we have had to witness in our time the publication of an article in a prominent weekly magazine that said something along these lines: When one reads Spinoza and Kant, well, one’s concepts get all mixed up. One can’t make sense of it. – This is true for many people today. But the philosopher now makes a suggestion: Why shouldn’t we make use of a new technological achievement here as well? Let’s make a film! – You sit down to watch a film, and then you can have Spinoza presented to you—first how he begins grinding glass, then how thoughts arise within him, how his philosophy takes shape, and so on and so forth. You just need to passively let yourself be carried away; the thoughts no longer swirl around inside you. That’s right up our alley these days! In a slide lecture, you’d see how Spinoza’s *Ethics* and Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason* come into being. People would go to such a lecture.

[ 35 ] Thus, one could say that, on the one hand, our age is characterized by the convenience of passively letting everything take its course. Spiritual science, however, must demand the opposite. The soul must actively work to attain it. Through this, however, what the souls of the present need most for their spiritual and psychological well-being is poured into them: activity, the strengthening of the will, and the fortification of the powers of thought and feeling. And they need inner strengthening from something else as well. When one immerses oneself in the world of solitude, one encounters great obstacles. Every act of unkindness one has ever committed toward people and animals is like a barrier. A completely unloving person, when developing the forces I have called “judging forces,” comes up against this lack of love, which they find everywhere, like an external world surrounding them. Thus, spiritual science will impress upon people the necessity of developing the deepest, most life-filled force of love to an ever-greater degree. And whoever knows how much the life of the future will need love also knows what spiritual science must mean for the entire life of the future and the present; such a person knows that it is in the strengthening of the forces of love that the soul finds its true essence, because through a lack of love it erects a barrier for itself in the spiritual world.

Everywhere one can see how, on the one hand, souls still resist spiritual science because it places demands on habits of thought that the soul does not yet know; yet, on the other hand, souls more or less unconsciously yearn for spiritual science. Here one encounters something that is often spoken of, but which one must simply understand correctly. Our time has been called a period of transition. But what matters is not that it is called that, but rather in what our time must actually seek its transition. In what must it seek it? It must seek the transition from passive devotion to purely sensory science—where the soul cannot find its true essence—to spiritual science, where it can find it. One may notice that at the beginning of the West’s earliest religious document there is an image; we shall not discuss the image here—one may interpret it as one wishes—but one thing will be clear to everyone: that it is connected with good and evil. The words there read:

You will be like gods and distinguish good from evil.

[ 36 ] Whether one regards this as a symbol or whatever, what is undoubtedly meant is that which is connected with human freedom, with pride and arrogance, and with humanity’s descent into evil—I do not wish to elaborate on this further today—but we live today, if what I am saying, even when expressed in radical terms, characterizes contemporary life, we live today in an age where one hears a similar whisper of temptation. When one considers what the sensory sciences—not when they are properly understood, but when they are misunderstood—produce, one need only point out how many people today believe that human beings, with all their spiritual and soul qualities, are nothing more than a higher product of the animal evolutionary chain; and some people are proud to say: The elements present in human beings are already present in the animal kingdom. Moral elements are merely higher-developed animal instincts. — Then something would have to follow as a consequence of this worldview, a conclusion that people do not draw, though they should; but because they do not draw this conclusion, they fail to realize that, if this were the case, if natural science truly taught what has just been suggested—that human beings have emerged from the animal evolutionary line, that human beings possess nothing in their moral nature or inner soul life that originates from an entirely different world—then the words one can hear whispered, as if by a new tempter, would have to be true, if one knows how to listen closely to the voices of the times. One can reject the tempter, for

This little crowd never senses the devil,
Even if he had them by the collar.

You can hear the word being whispered:

You will be like animals, and good and evil will be like the laws of nature. Just as the sun shines on both the good and the evil, so do the laws of nature. You will no longer be able to distinguish good from evil!

[ 37 ] The word is not spoken because people fail to draw the conclusion they ought to. Thus, we see the opposite temptation rearing its head during our transitional period. The tempter no longer says, “You will be like gods and distinguish between good and evil!” but rather, “You will be like animals and, like animals, do good and evil without distinction!”

[ 38 ] Spiritual science will work to ensure that the soul recognizes its true nature, and that people do not fall prey to this idea—not even in their minds or in their feelings—even if they do not dare to voice it, no matter how many opponents it may have today. Even if it is true that many prejudices against spiritual science still exist today, it is nevertheless true on the other hand that: Whatever assurance and inner peace spiritual science can offer regarding its continued influence—and regarding the “soul’s discovery of its own essence”—let what I have to say in conclusion be clothed in the words of this assurance and this peace with regard to the goals of spiritual science, as I seek to distill, as if in a single feeling, the entire meaning of what I have attempted to present to you this evening.

[ 39 ] Spiritual science as a true science, as described here, is a product of the present age. Human souls had to pass through their earlier earthly lives; now they are maturing and becoming ever more ready to develop the powers that lead to spiritual research. But when one lives this spiritual research, one feels in harmony with what people have always expressed—even before its existence—what the leading spirits of human development have expressed from the deepest intuitions and the most mature parts of their souls. Let me cite two sayings that are in harmony with what has been said here today. The physician and soul researcher Feuchtersleben, to whom we owe the book *Die Diätetik der Seele* (*The Dietetics of the Soul*), coined a beautiful phrase that is entirely, entirely in accord with what spiritual science has to say about the soul’s discovery of its true nature:

The human soul cannot deny that its happiness ultimately lies only in the expansion of its innermost being and possessions.

[ 40 ] The humanities seek to draw the soul's attention to this expansion and this possession of its innermost experience, in its spiritual home, in the spiritual world itself.

[ 41 ] When the Tempter whispers today: “You will be like the animals from which you evolved, and will no longer distinguish between good and evil, but will believe only in the laws of nature,” then, as a spiritual researcher, one can take comfort and be uplifted, once again feeling in harmony with one of the spirits who, based on their intuitions, have always expressed their harmony and unanimity with what spiritual science has to offer. In conclusion, let Schiller’s following words summarize the thoughts that can arise in the soul from spiritual science in response to the Tempter’s new words: “You will be like the animals, which do not distinguish between good and evil.” In contrast, spiritual science—filling the soul with the word as with a feeling that permeates it entirely—affirms what Schiller said, and this may serve as a fitting conclusion to what I took the liberty of saying to you this evening:

Now the dull barrier of animality fell,
And humanity emerged upon the cloudless brow,
And the sublime stranger, the thought,
Leapt from the astonished mind.

[ 42 ] These were words spoken prophetically by Schiller. And spiritual science adds to this the fact that the thought does not merely strive to emerge from the intuitive soul, but can truly emerge from the soul, experience itself outside the body, and lead the soul to its true essence.

[ 43 ] Thought sprang from the marveling mind and gave humankind its true nature and dignity; so said Schiller; this is how a properly understood spiritual science—and a properly understood human soul—must recognize it.