The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. How Does One Justify Theosophy?

[ 1 ] When, the day before yesterday, we attempted—as it were, on a trial basis—to adopt the standpoint of the opponents of our theosophical or spiritual-scientific worldview, and if today this latter worldview and philosophy of life are to be presented to you in well-founded, fundamental forms, I ask that you not interpret my task as though today we were attempting to dismantle, piece by piece, what was built up the day before yesterday—that is, to engage in a sort of conceptual game; for that would seem frivolous to me. It has already been emphasized that the aim was not to list in any haphazard manner the objections to theosophy that are easily raised by those who lack the goodwill to familiarize themselves more closely with the content and essence of these worldviews; rather, it has been stressed that only those reasons should be presented which must be regarded as serious, weighty objections and which make it difficult for today’s cultured people to approach theosophy with their innermost convictions, despite their good will.

[ 2 ] However, since those who have heard me give lectures on theosophical topics on several occasions can assume that my intention was not to refute theosophy, everything presented today should, taken as a whole, serve as a kind of refutation of what was said the day before yesterday, and I ask you to bear in mind that I must adopt a different tone here than in my usual lectures defending theosophical truths. Previously, factual evidence was presented to substantiate theosophical truths; what will be said today is intended to be set against what was said the day before yesterday in a more logically critical manner, from a more abstract perspective, which will seem entirely understandable in light of the objections that have been raised—within certain limits—as valid.

[ 3 ] In and of itself, it seems striking to attempt to present arguments for and against a matter that is claimed to be—and to be required to—become part of our cultural current; striking because this could easily lead to the conclusion that a conviction well-founded for one person is impossible for others to accept. The decision is often quite difficult, so it is first necessary to draw attention to the evidential power of human reason for or against a given matter. Only then is it possible to ask whether so much really depends on the evidential power of human reason alone, whether reason alone, with its arguments, can decide for or against a matter, or whether this does not happen in such a direct manner.

[ 4 ] Everyone knows that, with great acumen, one can argue a point until one realizes that the evidence—which at first seemed so convincing—is, upon broader reflection, no longer sufficient. This raises the question of whether evidence alone is what leads people to decide whether to accept or reject something. It might seem easy to judge that a matter is correct when the evidence supports it, and erroneous when it speaks against it, but we learn from cultural history that, over the course of time, the evidence that could be presented for or against a matter has by no means been decisive for people; rather, what has mattered—and still matters today—are things that are more decisive in determining what is held to be true than the evidence of human reason.

[ 5 ] Let this be illustrated by the following example: A so-called “freethinker’s calendar” was published for the first time this year, which also includes a discussion by an author whose love of truth must be fully acknowledged; who argues that one should not teach children anything based on notions of divine or other supernatural things. The author of the article in question holds a monistic-materialist viewpoint and feels compelled to speak out against supernatural beliefs, such as the existence of the soul, God, and so on. In doing so, he invokes an argument that holds great weight for many thinking people, namely, that children should be taught nothing other than what can be developed from their natural human nature; conversely, introducing elements of supernatural worlds into their development is something foreign, for left to their own devices, they would come to understand the sensory world. This makes sense to those familiar with modern pedagogy, who do not view the child as a sack that can be indiscriminately filled with ideas and the like.

[ 6 ] Such views might seem quite natural and reasonable to anyone, and such an argument will also appear to the reader of the calendar as absolutely irrefutable proof. But as difficult as it is to refute the author using all the arguments available from his perspective, the judgment takes on a different character when one broadens one’s horizons. If, for example, a child were raised on a deserted island, where it could be prevented from learning language from other people, the question would arise quite naturally: Should one adhere to the principle stated earlier and offer the child nothing other than what its nature already provides on its own? That would effectively prevent such a child from learning to speak. It follows from this that all relevant factors must be taken into account in our reasoning.

[ 7 ] Great minds have always recognized as a fundamental principle the endeavor to keep their thinking free and independent in this regard, and to conceive their ideas within as broad a horizon as possible. An example of the mindset of such people—one that refers to thinkers and figures who are undoubtedly regarded by most as highly impartial thinkers, and whom the most enlightened minds of the present day are accustomed to recognizing as their own—it is probably easy to cite numerous examples from experience that show how human superstition clings to certain things that actually exist but are merely misunderstood; thus, many people believe in spirits independent of the physical body. To some, on the other hand, it seems self-evident that one must be devoid of all enlightenment if one does not doubt the existence of such incorporeal spirits. Many of those who accuse such believers of blatant superstition cite Lessing as the pioneer of modern thought; we can fully agree with this assessment, in the sense that he derived his way of thinking from a broad perspective. He says:

Do we no longer believe in ghosts? Who says so? Or rather, what does that mean? Does it mean this much: We have finally reached a point in our understanding where we can prove the impossibility of ghosts; certain irrefutable truths that contradict belief in ghosts have become so widely known, and are so constantly and consistently present even to the humblest man, that anything that contradicts them must necessarily seem ridiculous and tasteless to him? That cannot be what it means. “We no longer believe in ghosts” can therefore only mean this much: In this matter—about which almost as much can be said for it as against it, which is not decided and cannot be decided—the currently prevailing way of thinking has given the arguments against it the upper hand; a few hold this way of thinking, and many seem to want to hold it; these are the ones making the noise and setting the tone; the vast majority remain silent and indifferent, their thoughts shifting from one view to another—listening with pleasure to mockery of ghosts in broad daylight and recounting tales of them with horror in the dark of night. What are we to say in the face of such a portrayal of modern thought? Is one engaging in blatant superstition if one is willing to accept views and fields of knowledge other than logically grounded reasons, if one expresses the opinion that these gain or lose weight depending on whether one broadens or narrows one’s horizons? In the former case, entirely new possibilities immediately arise. It is not the weight of the evidence that has convinced people that spirits do not exist, but rather the habit of thought that focuses on facts which undermine the evidence for their existence. Therefore, one must seek to explain what leads people to attribute probative force—or weight—to their views.

[ 8 ] It all comes down to our way of thinking, and in this regard we will be able to see that there must be—and in fact there are—apparently compelling reasons against rejecting the etheric body as taught by Theosophy.

[ 9 ] Spiritual science tells us that this etheric body permeates the physical body and processes both its own substances and those it has absorbed in such a way that the organism’s life proceeds. The objection has been raised that chemical science is capable of producing certain chemical compounds outside the living organism in the laboratory, and that it therefore concludes that all these processes and compounds observed in the living organism are also brought about by the same external forces, and that one might expect to be able to produce at least the most simply organized living beings in the laboratory someday. Based on these facts and considerations, the concept of the etheric body is therefore regarded as unscientific; for no one has the right to doubt that science will not succeed in the future in producing life phenomena and living beings.

[ 10 ] All of this is based not on reasons and evidence, but on habits of thought. This can be historically demonstrated. In the past, no one doubted the supernatural origin of life, for the alchemists, for example, and all other scholars of earlier centuries believed they could create an entire “homunculus” in the laboratory from the necessary substances—a peculiar phenomenon! What, then, was necessary for such thinkers—whom we must not simply dismiss as fools, if only because future generations might in turn regard us as even greater fools for having been short-sighted enough to view them as such—what, then, must we accept in order to no longer perceive an irresolvable contradiction? We must embrace the idea that life is everywhere—not merely confined to living organisms and their hereditary potential, but that it can arise in any suitably combined substances, in which one need only assume that life is present—provided it is given the opportunity to unfold in one form or another. When something living comes into being, we cannot assume that it arises solely from what is already present in a given location, just as flies do not simply spring from the dirt to appear on it in a short time. If we bring the necessary substances together under the right conditions in the laboratory, all we can do is thereby provide the opportunity for life to approach them. In doing so, however, we must not limit our concept of life to the living beings that have, as it were, crystallized from the substances at hand, since life is omnipresent and takes every opportunity—for example, as a germ—to manifest itself in properly arranged substances.

[ 11 ] Such a view is merely unfamiliar to us today, but it is by no means logically untenable. In a certain sense, it is indeed difficult to arrive at a comprehensive conception of life solely through the methods of theosophy; to assist you, I would like to begin with a point raised the day before yesterday in order to guide you toward the concept and acceptance of the etheric body.

[ 12 ] It has been said that there is a way to explain waking and sleeping differently than Theosophy does, which states that the astral body, together with the “I,” slips out of the physical body—which remains united with the etheric body—and that these latter two aspects of the being are then united in the spiritual world during sleep. In contrast, it seems entirely logical to conceive of the phenomenon of sleep in such a way that, while awake in the sensory world, a person accumulates so-called fatigue substances in their organs through mental and muscular activity, which no longer allow them to develop the strength needed to continue their waking life. The organism’s counterforces then come into play, waking consciousness ceases, and these forces restore the organism during sleep, so that it is able to function fully once again with all its organs, and so on. Many natural scientists [therefore] believe that the alternating states of sleep and wakefulness are based on the self-regulation of a healthy organism; that is, one need not assume, to explain sleep, that a spiritual element separates from the physical-etheric body, departs from it, and that both parts carry out a restorative activity—without any actual self-consciousness.

[ 13 ] Such an objection can pose a stumbling block for anyone who wishes to explore theosophy more deeply, and such an objection should therefore not be underestimated in a conscientious person. But even if one accepts as true that the organism regulates itself in relation to sleep and wakefulness—that is, that after fatigue, the disturbance caused in the organs is compensated for by the restoration of vital forces—the question must still be raised, and indeed as a principled, fundamental one: What can the organism do with regard to its organs during sleep? It must surely stem from a unique vital activity if the eyes, ears, brain, nervous system, and other internal organs are endowed with renewed vitality during sleep. But what is the nature of this restoration of organic activity? Is it perhaps similar to what occurs elsewhere in the organism—for example, in the constantly active human lungs, which carry out respiration, since they, too, must be sustained by the inner organic life with nourishment and organic forces? This internal organic activity, which nourishes the lungs, cannot be the sole cause of movement; and the absorption of oxygen from the air by the lungs themselves cannot be replaced by that internal nourishment, for it has nothing to do with it. The same applies to the brain and nervous system, which are also internally supplied and nourished by organic processes. But the internal restoration of the brain and nervous system that occurs during sleep has just as little in common with the sensations and perceptions that flow through us via our senses, or with the thoughts that flow through our brain.

[ 14 ] Thus, internal organic activity cannot provide anything that makes the senses and the brain thinking, feeling organs; otherwise, it would be possible to learn something about the soul of a sleeping person, just as if one were to attempt to determine the inner nature of oxygen through the internal organic nourishment of the lungs. Therefore, we can rightly say: By supplying its organs with internal organic energy, our organism has not provided anything capable of filling them with their characteristic perceptions—not even the slightest thing to the lungs to supply them with oxygen again and again. Thus, that which constitutes sensation and the content of the soul comes to the human being from an entirely different source.

[ 15 ] Accordingly, there is an indisputable justification for saying that there is something absolutely different present in the waking person than in the sleeping person, just as water (H₂O) consists of its separate parts, hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O); water cannot be conceived of if one has only hydrogen (H) without oxygen (O). Similarly, one must also provide the sleeper—who lies there devoid of mental content—with something additional, that is, from outside, which complements him as a waking person.

[ 16 ] Now we must be clear that even positivist thinkers, such as [Hume], do not claim that what we call the “I” can be found in any kind of organic activity. In itself, it always finds only warmth, cold, pleasure, suffering, joy, pain, affection, aversion, and so on. The “I” thus lives on these and is bound to such activities; upon awakening, it must, so to speak, draw them into the organism, just as oxygen must be combined with hydrogen (O + 2H = H,O) to form water.

[ 17 ] Such considerations remain consistent with the views and methods of the natural sciences; other worldviews that do not follow this approach find themselves in contradiction with their own facts, with the accurately observed facts of the natural sciences, and with the methods of those sciences, which they formally violate. Theosophy does not espouse dualism, just as one would not call a person a dualist who sees water not as an absolute unity but as a substance formed from hydrogen and oxygen or capable of being broken down into these two elements. There is no contradiction between theosophy and natural science; both stand on the solid ground of facts, but it is their interpretation that matters.

[ 18 ] From this perspective, we are justified in saying that everything that possesses immediate existence must allow its own nature to be examined apart from the organism itself; thus, we must approach the content of the human mind separately from its physical organism.

[ 19 ] This brings us to the legitimacy of what claims to be the esoteric method of theosophy, which, however, by its very nature must in a certain sense break with the requirement of natural science that spiritual life should be observable at any time and by any person. One can hardly do otherwise than to view this in accordance with its own inherent laws; the spiritual researcher must bring about a process in his own spiritual life that is unaffected by external influences, by bringing certain ideas—which appear suitable solely for esoteric research—into his observation through meditation, concentration, and his will. He detaches the soul from its connection with the body, isolates the soul’s inner life, so to speak, and thereby transforms the inner soul life into a comprehensible process that need only be symbolic. [Otherwise, a person is stimulated by external events; but in order to free the soul from the physical, one uses one’s own will to place an idea—preferably symbolic ideas—at the center of the soul’s activity during meditation.] The difference from external knowledge is simply that the relationships of the soul’s activity to anything other than itself are [not] taken into account in terms of their content. For example, in meditation, thoughts need not represent something that actually exists—just as this black cross, framed by seven red roses, the so-called Rosicrucian symbol, need not be real—but we simply ask: What does such an image do in the soul, and how does it contribute to the advancement of our development? What the thoughts accomplish in our soul—that is what matters.

[ 20 ] When we allow such things to take effect upon us, we come to know the activity of the soul in the spiritual world. The soul enters a state similar to sleep, yet without losing consciousness; the content of this state is given to it as supersensible, through which the researcher perceives the supersensible world in its reality. One might object that this is merely a subjective process of the soul, but for the true connoisseur of such processes, this objection does not hold: for him, they are precisely like the insights into mathematical truths—such as the fact that the sum of the three angles of a plane triangle is always equal to 2 R = 180°, a truth that is recognized purely within the soul; the fact that others may or may not consider it true contributes nothing to the recognition of this mathematical truth; it proves itself in and of itself. It is just as foolish to say, when someone arrives at spiritual processes through certain exercises, that this is merely a subjective certainty of one’s own, this one soul.

[ 21 ] When someone begins spiritual exercises, they initially encounter all sorts of pitfalls, errors, and self-deceptions; these, however, are merely subjective. Beyond that, once sufficient progress has been made, the certainty arises that one is dealing with something objective—or, rather, experiencing it within oneself. These are no longer merely subjective convictions. That would be like objecting by saying that one should not study mathematics because it causes subjective difficulties; yet, at the end of the path, something objective can be demonstrated.

[ 22 ] But someone might raise yet another objection, namely, that one should not compare the path to supernatural knowledge with that of mathematical knowledge, since the latter has only formal value. The knowledge that 3 × 3 = 9 does not prove that there are 3 × 3 things = 9 things in the world, nor does the fact that the sum of the three angles in a plane triangle equals 180° exist in reality in that way; therefore, inner mental processes must also correspond to [no] supersensory facts. Do such facts exist, or not?

[ 23 ] It would have to be shown that it is not only we humans who think mathematics, but that mathematics also operates on its own, outside of us, as Plato, for example, says: “God engages in geometry!” If we acknowledge this, then mathematical laws are real and exist in the world. Thus, the mental processes that are correctly perceived must also exist externally as real things. For example, we find within ourselves what we call an “I” as it develops internally, and [which] coincides with the contents of our soul—thoughts, feelings, will, and so on. Is it not merely something subjective? What guarantees its objectivity? Does it also act and weave its way through the external world? Human beings develop between birth and death in such a way that they can recall events back to a certain point in their youth. Their memory does not extend beyond this point, although no one would claim that they only came into being in their fourth or fifth year of life—after all, they had already been alive for several years prior to that. Human consciousness must thus take shape from the point at which it first had to emerge anew.

[ 24 ] But what existed within the human being as the content of the “I” beforehand? We can answer this as follows: During the early years of childhood, the human being develops the convolutions of the brain, and only when this work is complete—that is, when the tool of the intellect has been chiseled out by the individuality—does “I”-consciousness emerge for the human being; it corresponds to the tool now in place, and this tool corresponds to the developing “I.” Thus, theosophy shows that everything that is later experienced purely inwardly was first worked out by our brain. The child’s early life shows that its brain is being “I-fied”; what later becomes the content of the soul was previously present creatively in the human being, in the early years as an outer aura, and later as an inner aura.

[ 25 ] In these processes, what we need to demonstrate—namely, outwardly what was previously present inwardly—is fulfilled. The following experiment may illustrate this: If the researcher of the soul applies all his exercises to himself and places his soul under their influence, he will eventually notice that, while awake, he slips out of his physical and etheric bodies with his soul—a process that was otherwise only possible while falling asleep. Having thus achieved independence from his physical body, the researcher of the soul finds himself in the first stage; he then knows that he is experiencing something like the following within himself: I perceive a content independent of the organs of my body, but I cannot express this content in concepts, since these are bound to the brain, and this is a tormenting inner state for me, one that is also carried over into ordinary bodily consciousness. The human being then has something idiotic about the expression of his higher spiritual experiences.

[ 26 ] If the necessary exercises are continued with iron will, what has been liberated in the increasingly independent soul—in the form of supersensory experiences—manifests as forces extending into the physical body, and [it] becomes possible to express in concepts what was previously experienced only spiritually, without the involvement of the brain—just as a child gradually develops its brain in order to express what it later wishes to articulate as an experience. – This is how one proceeds step by step. – The spiritual-soul core must therefore have been present already at the very first formation of the body, since it is to work on its further development from the spiritual world; and so it works into the physical organization with the forces it draws from the stored and processed reserves of earlier earthly lives.

[ 27 ] We see, then, that anyone who wishes to arrive at the concept of the “I” must necessarily grapple with the objections raised by skeptics in order to recognize their true scope, and is compelled to seek out broader perspectives. However, no one should rashly pass judgment on those who are unable to grasp theosophy.

[ 28 ] Furthermore, the day before yesterday, serious objections were raised on ethical, moral, and religious grounds; it has been argued that belief in karma, with its rewards and punishments, could turn people into egoists, and it must be admitted that such narrow-minded views can, in a certain sense, lead to egoism. However, I would like to refer here to Schopenhauer, who says:

It's easy to preach morality, but hard to justify it!

[ 29 ] The latter means presenting those things that inspire moral conduct. If this were possible within theosophy, outsiders might say that karma would produce egoists, considering that it need only be a transitional state, accompanied by the awareness of a balancing justice throughout various earthly lives. For example, parents want to raise their children properly so that the children can support and care for them in their old age. Although this is selfish, it does result in such children becoming decent people, allowing the parents to see their hopes fulfilled and to experience joy in their children’s competence; thus, their selfishness is transformed into a disposition for selfless joy in their children’s well-being and personal development.

[ 30 ] For example, in a somewhat crude way of illustrating karma, it is said: A person’s good deeds bring about reward, while evil deeds result in pain and suffering. If a person acts in accordance with this principle—even while still under the influence of selfishness—the good will have a reciprocal effect on them, and they will gradually become an unselfish person.

[ 31 ] Morality can only be justified by taking true, selfish human nature as a starting point and taking karma into account; this then gradually transforms the selfish person into a moral, selfless one.

[ 32 ] If someone were to raise other moral objections—namely, that some parents love their children as part of themselves, as heirs to their own qualities, and that it would be unreasonable to expect them to accept, or even possible for them to accept, the realization that a spiritual-soul core foreign to them was descending from spiritual worlds to, in a sense, oppose the physical parents— we can respond that a deeply inner kinship existed, which led the child precisely to this particular pair of parents—as a result of loving relationships of a higher order that existed even before birth and developed the forces that enabled the spiritual-soul aspect of the child’s being to reach precisely these parents —forces that developed from earlier earthly lives and that also enable the child’s further favorable development only through the body inherited from its parents.

[ 33 ] If it is even said that, in reincarnation, human beings attribute to themselves a kind of self-righteousness without emphasizing their divine sonship, thereby placing themselves in opposition to the righteous God, then—with a broader perspective—one might say: If a person feels that the divine power is at work within them, it would be utterly incomprehensible not to also attribute to themselves a divine core of being—one that must and can be developed to ever higher levels from life to life—for otherwise they commit a sin the moment they believe they should deny the divine spark within themselves, or when, instead of developing it, they distort it into a caricature. Thus, drawing as close as possible to the divine ideal is a sacred religious duty of the theosophist.

[ 34 ] We are willing to consider all the objections raised by our opponents, but we should also note, in weighing the pros and cons, that this is not simply resolved through evidence and counterarguments, but rather by broadening our spiritual horizons beyond all that is narrow in our culture. This is what Theosophy, or the Science of the Spirit, is meant to bring to the people of our culture, and thereby enable them to rise above the mere physical and sensory world.

[ 35 ] If, in the course of further development and in close connection with laboratory methods, someone were to attempt to incorporate the supersensible world into their results and findings, they might apply it successfully in some instances and fail in others; but this would be just as if doubts were to arise regarding certain scientific facts and one were to realize that, in their interpretation and application, some details are incorrect; yet the perspective gained in this way can, when the various facts are strung together, coalesce into a valid hypothesis that is refined, gradually develops more and more effectively, and, in its entirety—supported by frequent confirmation—ultimately becomes a theory. Then we must say that the objection raised by some—that such hypotheses of supernatural worlds contradict all previous views—is just as weighty as that of a famous Academy of Sciences [in Paris], which, in its report on the case of meteorites, sought to deny their existence even if the stones themselves were presented.

[ 36 ] Thus, in this long-past case as in the present one, it is not the facts but the views that must be corrected; that is to say, people’s horizons must broaden under the influence of the humanities in their research and convictions. – We are dealing here with a spiritual realm that has its own unique laws, which differ from those of the material world, for the latter’s laws pertain only to coming into being and passing away. If we emphasize what may seem like a minor point—that mental processes in the brain act, in a certain sense, like gravity acts on masses of matter—then we can also concede that this gravity, if the Earth could sleep, would manifest itself independently, and furthermore, we can rightly assume that, as an independent force, it will outlast matter. We can also express those truths as follows:

They speak to human souls
The things in the vastness of space;
The soul can preserve them throughout the course of time!
Yet the human soul lives in awareness,
Unbounded by the vastness of space,
And undeterred by the passage of time,
In the realm of eternity
And finds in the spiritual realm
The deepest foundation of its own being.