The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. Truths and Errors in Spiritual Research

[ 1 ] If the question of truth and error is one of profound significance in every area of human life, it may be said that in the field of spiritual research this question takes on a very special significance; this is likely because what spiritual science seeks to give to and be for human beings is connected to those questions of life that do not merely approach the soul in the same way as the questions of one science or another, but rather—one might say—approach the soul daily and ultimately constitute the very interest of this human soul, constituting everything that can give the soul, on the one hand, comfort and hope, [on the other hand] security and strength in life.

[ 2 ] The field of spiritual research is vast. It extends, so to speak, to the entire realm of the development of every being with which human beings can be conceived to have some connection; for everything that approaches human beings in these realms of spiritual research—one might say—coalesces into significant life’s riddles and life’s questions. A question that truly confronts us every hour is encapsulated in the weighty words of human destinies. When, on the one hand, we see the human being entering into existence, surrounded from the cradle onward by hardship and misery, and we can predict that hardship and misery may accompany him (the human being) throughout his entire life—if we find him endowed with limited abilities in childhood, so that we can know, in a certain sense, that he will initially be only a marginally useful member of the human community—then this may seem enigmatic on the one hand; on the other hand, we need only compare how many others enter life, blessed with good fortune or endowed with significant abilities, so that one can know they will become a useful member of humanity. External science is not at all capable of raising such questions, for this external science, with its presuppositions, proves itself incapable of answering such questions from the outset. Finally, the other aspect—which, so to speak, brings spiritual research together—approaches humanity: the question [of immortality], which ultimately confronts the incomprehensible aspects of the human being.

[ 3 ] Perhaps it can be said, especially in our time, that this question does not approach human beings in the same way as scientific questions do. How many desires, hopes, and feelings—which have no place whatsoever in a scientific question—are intertwined in this question. There have been, and still are, plenty of people in our time who do not believe in the continued existence of the human soul once the gate of life has closed, and who deny precisely such a continued existence of the human soul after death; and it may be said that a materialistic way of thinking must inevitably lead to this view. It is precisely noble souls who can say that it is selfish to want to live only on the condition that this being passes through the gate of death and then takes on another form of existence, whereas it is selfless to give what one has achieved to the community. Many truly noble souls, viewing the matter from this very perspective, have found the necessity that materialism presents to us here to be more selfless than a selfish need for life after death.

[ 4 ] If human desires and passions, along with the fear and anxiety of continuing to exist after ‘death,’ were truly the decisive factors, one might easily assume that noble sentiments would inevitably lead to more materialistic views. But if one examines the question more deeply, it reveals itself to be an eminently scientific question, even if science does not have the means to provide an answer. One need only be a connoisseur of the human soul to say that the most significant thing a person can achieve for their soul is a wholly individual life. The subtlety and uniqueness that serve our powers most, that most promote what we can achieve—these cannot be surrendered to anything; and if the soul were to surrender them upon death, they would be lost. From this would follow that significant enigma: such a loss would violate the order of the world, for the best that the soul can attain is to vanish as if into nothingness. Not that this is an answer to the question that has been raised. But the necessity arises to raise this question. These are questions that cannot really be called scientific in the usual sense—questions that may well be of no concern to many a soul who lives from day to day.

[ 5 ] But regardless of whether we can answer these questions or not, the question of where the sources of truth and error lie in this realm is most closely connected to our inner spiritual life and destiny. I have had the opportunity to speak on this topic—what spiritual research has to offer—on several occasions here as well. Of course, it is not possible to discuss individual topics even briefly, and it is not my task here to speak about what can be heard in other lectures or found in the literature. I want to speak about how people come to such questions, what the insights are, and then what the sources are and how people can fall into error.

[ 6 ] Since there is a certain need to disseminate the findings of spiritual science, we should not speak merely of truth and error in the field of spiritual science—insofar as these lie on the path of the spiritual researcher himself—but also in relation to the dissemination of the findings of spiritual science. The destiny of the human being—after all, it cannot be understood if one stops merely at what the sensory world provides—and even those who have little familiarity with our science know that the intellect has no say in the reasons why a soul is destined for this or that fate. They also know that the intellect has no say regarding the soul’s destiny after death, for the soul then dwells in the supersensible, invisible realm—if indeed it still exists as such at all. The ordinary faculties, then, that human beings have at their disposal to understand the world are not sufficient to answer these deepest questions.

[ 7 ] This then raises the question: Are there forces within the human soul that transcend the ordinary senses, that do not rely solely on the intellect, which is bound to the human brain? If we come to the conclusion that the soul does not merely pass through one earthly life, but that this life repeats itself between birth and death, and that what befalls the soul as fate is what it has earned in a past life—and that what we do now creates causes for a future life—then we must say: Certainly, what enters physical existence through birth brings with it the forces it carries into the outer worlds through birth, and knowledge of these supersensible worlds can answer questions about why a soul finds itself in very specific life situations. Everywhere we are reminded of the necessity of such questions, of the necessity to investigate, through the powers of the soul, all that our science cannot investigate.

[ 8 ] But do such forces exist in the human soul? The easiest way to understand how such forces can operate in the soul is to start with everyday phenomena—phenomena that, admittedly, do not confront us in the same way as, say, the shocking and unexpected event of death, but rather ones that we encounter without giving them much thought. As is well known, people reflect only on what surprises them; they give less thought to what falls within their daily routines, and yet it is precisely this that can point to the deepest depths of human life. One such phenomenon that occurs daily is the state of waking and sleeping. The state of sleep is mysterious. Every day we are compelled to slip into unconsciousness, into a state that casts darkness around us. This is a profound mystery.

[ 9 ] Let us first consider this state from a purely external perspective. When we fall asleep, we see how our physical body, so to speak, slips away from us, how we gradually become unable to control our limbs as we do during the day. Finally, we see how our senses cease to be alert to us, how our mind becomes, as it were, paralyzed, and then we slip into a state of unconsciousness. Now, it would be impossible for everything that takes place in the soul during the waking state—from morning to evening—in terms of emotions, suffering, drives, and desires—to simply vanish when we fall asleep and then arise anew every morning. It must be there, even if the person is not aware of it.

[ 10 ] Let us first make a hypothetical assumption based on what spiritual research reveals. At this point, we can only point this out; it cannot be demonstrated in detail. So let us hypothetically assume that what we see with our physical eyes, what we can grasp with our hands, contains a supersensible spiritual element—a spiritual-soul element. Let this be the source of difficulties, of nascent passion, and so on, and let this spiritual-soul element emerge from its dormant state into a spiritual world—in other words, let it exist. Let it be explicitly stated that this is, for the time being, a hypothesis. Through our considerations, we will see that it has a certain validity. If this is the case, then we must say that this spiritual-soul aspect is also present during sleep, but is unaware of itself when it plunges into that world; after all, it makes use of the brain to perceive and assimilate the external world.

[ 11 ] We can therefore assume that this spiritual-soul aspect is not strong enough—when separated from the physical body—to lead a conscious life; it is too weak for such a life. If this is the case, then there must indeed be a way to strengthen these forces. Human beings would therefore have to be able to artificially induce a kind of sleep, such that a state of the soul would be brought about that is, on the one hand, similar to ordinary sleep, but on the other hand, fundamentally different. Inducing such a state is indeed necessary, and only in such a state can true spiritual research take place. The question, then, is whether the spiritual-soul aspect in human beings can be made strong enough for a person to place themselves, as it were, into a kind of artificial sleep that is not sleep. Then the person would have to be able to bring about what occurs during sleep: that their spiritual-soul aspect has nothing to do with the body, that the intellect is silent, and that the person is also physically still, as in sleep. In sleep, a person is in a state where their inner being is silent, subdued, and completely shrouded in darkness. If a person can now, of their own volition and through their own soul forces, free themselves so that they can have experiences while being free of the body—as it were, disembodied—then they experience these in the spirit; then, through inner experiences, they can initially, at least, remember themselves as spiritual beings.

[ 12 ] What seems like folly to the broadest strata of humanity today ought to be feasible. After all, there can be no proof that it is not feasible. People believe they have evidence against it, but such people can at most claim that, with their current faculties, they cannot know anything about such matters. However, one can only make a claim about something one knows, not about something one knows nothing about. Otherwise, such a worldview commits a logical fallacy. First, however, one must learn to develop a strong will—to artificially free oneself from all sensory impressions, to achieve silence, to dampen all impressions of color and light, to desire to know nothing of any of it, nor of auditory impressions or any other impressions; in short, to bring ordinary thinking to a standstill, and so on. All of this must be brought to a standstill through the exercise of the will, just as it is during sleep. A person must now strengthen that which is otherwise so weak during sleep. This is achieved through meditation and similar practices.

[ 13 ] What are these purely mental activities? For they are indeed purely mental activities. Meditation is a kind of spiritual experience; but it differs from everything else to which human beings are otherwise accustomed. Let us consider how this activity of the mind is understood. It differs from all other human activities in that the latter serve to form concepts, ideas, and feelings in order to perceive something external inwardly, to represent something external. People seek images and expressions in everyday life. Only in this way can everyday life be sustained. Yet the entire purpose of such mechanisms, which exist for the sake of everyday life, cannot be decisive for the soul’s development that has been spiritually demanded. For this soul development, everything that can be spiritually thought, imagined, sensed, felt, and desired serves only for inner self-education—to advance the soul, to endow the soul, as it were, with inner strength. Thus, what matters is not what one feels or what one has recognized as external truth through one’s thinking and feeling, but rather what this thinking, feeling, and sensing brings forth in the soul, what it makes of the soul.

[ 14 ] This places us on entirely different ground than that of ordinary life or science. In a certain sense, a person must free themselves from the meanings of their concepts and from the objects to which their sensations are attached, and must devote their entire soul to some form of practice. It is best not to use ideas for meditation that represent something external, for in doing so one feels a dependence on the external world. The best ideas for meditation are those that can live entirely within the soul.

[ 15 ] An idea that will seem foolish to those who think in purely material terms: Imagine that someone has two glasses in front of them, one filled with water, the other empty. Now imagine that he pours water from one glass into the other, and the partially filled one does not become emptier, but rather fuller and fuller—and the more he pours out, the fuller the glass becomes.

[ 16 ] This is not an external, real event. That is not what matters; rather, what matters is what it can evoke in the soul. It can be a symbol for the following: It points us toward a realm of life that, on the one hand, leads us deeper and deeper into its depths, and on the other hand, repeatedly presents us with life’s mysteries—that which we summarize as “love,” ranging from passionate love all the way up to the spiritual form of love. Immeasurable amounts of human suffering can be summed up in this concept, and love has one characteristic: the characteristic that when a loving person does something for another out of love, they give of their spiritual wealth—and in doing so, they do not become poorer or emptier, but fuller and fuller.

[ 17 ] It’s not entirely foolish to form such images and symbols. In other areas, people are accustomed to forming such symbols [such as] a medal. A medal is circular. We don’t need to worry about it any further; we simply draw a circle. All the properties of the circle apply to the medal.

[ 18 ] What matters is not recognizing an object in order to perhaps fathom the essence of love, but rather having a conception that is emancipated from external reality. Let us consider what happens when one succeeds in emptying the soul of all intellectual judgments, of all external impressions, and concentrates the full scope of one’s soul power solely on such a concept as one has formulated for oneself. Otherwise, in life, we distribute the manifold powers of the soul that we possess among the manifold ideas derived from human behavior. We often have our soul occupied with many things at once. We now completely empty the soul of these and concentrate entirely on a single concept—for example, benevolence or kindness. We must focus exclusively on this, live within it, and if we have enough patience and perseverance to perform such exercises over and over again, then we will indeed succeed in awakening dormant powers within our soul. We learn to transform ourselves—from beings who are otherwise more passive and prone to suffering—into active beings, and in this way we first come to understand ourselves. However, it is not enough to do just a few such soul exercises; rather, everything depends on having the patience to prepare the soul so that it always feels a sense of vitality.

[ 19 ] Then there comes a point when the soul feels as if it were reborn, because it no longer needs to form such images or conjure up such ideas for itself; instead, these arise as if from the depths of the soul itself, and the person then truly lives as if in a new world that emerges from the hidden depths. When a person has reached this point, that is when the true training of the spirit actually begins, for a new world then appears before them. But what is this world? To understand what this world is, let us point out that today’s materialistic person, when it comes to the imaginative world, believes: These are delusions, fantasies; they are to be regarded as equivalent to what arises in a sick, pathological soul.

[ 20 ] When we realize that this imaginative world is only the beginning of spiritual research, we compare what the spiritual researcher has attained through meditation with what one can experience in an unhealthy soul. There is a trait—one with which you are likely familiar—that we encounter in sick people: the fact that such individuals hold the unshakable belief that they are facing an objective world, and it is futile to try to dissuade them of this. With the greatest acuity, they present arguments that one had not even considered, thereby mastering the thinking mind. If the researcher of the spirit were never able to distinguish between truth and error here, he would be no different from such a sick soul. The question is how one relates to this.

[ 21 ] From this alone, you can see that these are, at first, nothing more than formations that arise from within oneself—and thus need be nothing more than reflections of what a person holds within. A person has activated forces and awakened an inner life that was not there before, yet they have lived in nothing other than themselves. What stands before them is, at first, nothing other than the reflection of their own inner being. Because this reflection is experienced in this way by the person, it is extraordinarily difficult to make the decision that the true researcher of the spiritual must now make. One must come to the realization that one is dealing with nothing other than the reflections of one’s own inner being—that which one carries within one’s own soul. But it is not enough for the spiritual researcher merely to know that everything is merely a reflection of one’s own inner being; rather, [he] must also actually possess the strength to suppress the entire imaginative world so that it no longer exists.

[ 22 ] It is also possible for people to have such experiences without any training. Such people are usually enamored with these kinds of experiences. A person is usually immensely happy when such a world appears within them. Therefore, if a person wishes to become a researcher of the spirit, it can only be achieved through rigorous training of the will—to the point where they suppress the entire imaginative world so that it no longer exists. In doing so, they are actually suppressing their own essence, which is precisely what they have trained themselves to develop. Only then does one realize how deeply in love one is with oneself.

[ 23 ] Suppressing these reflections requires one of the greatest acts of willpower. A person already lives in self-love in their outer life, and this intensifies when their inner life begins. Now one must suppress what one has strived to achieve. But it must be done. Then, however, once one has completely suppressed this and developed the strong resolve to eradicate these reflections, one has shed the imaginations and must wait until they return. Then they return in a new form, making it impossible to mistake them for anything other than an objective world. Anyone familiar with such matters will find it understandable that many people simply deny this process, simply because none of this is easy to carry out. But once a new world has emerged—after one has suppressed the first imaginative world—one is then able to distinguish just as clearly in this new world between fantasy and reality. Many believe that the world is merely our imagination. And even if such a philosophy claims that one cannot go beyond imagination, it would be all the easier to say: How, then, can one still distinguish between imagination and reality? This statement is easily refutable. What I am about to say is a truism, but that does not matter. The taste of lemonade on the tongue from mere imagination—that cannot quench one’s thirst.

[ 24 ] There is no logical proof as to whether something is real or merely a figment of the imagination. Proof can only be provided by life itself. But experience also makes a clear distinction between imagination, mere fantasy, and what is real; or should a person be unable to distinguish between an imagined hot iron and a real hot iron? The same applies to Kant’s proposition that three real talers contain no more or less than three possible talers. One can pay a debt with real talers, but not with possible ones.

[ 25 ] One might say that things are different in the spiritual realm, where what one perceives could indeed be mere self-suggestion. Real life is what makes the difference. But one must first be immersed in real life. Life alone determines reality, and this is also true in the spiritual realm. The training of the soul—the awakening of the soul’s power of insight—enables us to distinguish between imagination and reality. In this way, the human being is led to bring about a state that is, admittedly, similar to the state of sleep in that the human being does not make use of the body. Then, once a person has attained this imaginative insight, they ascend to higher levels, where they actually begin to experience what is called the spiritual world—not merely in the manner that exists between death and a new birth, but in such a way that it enters into their mental images, which they recall. The individual gains insight into truths about the world beyond. How to resolve the questions described through meditation must be looked up in the literature. The point is that when the individual attempts to gain insights in this way, error does not arise in the same way it does in relation to external knowledge, but rather error then emerges everywhere. In the external world, we are corrected by various things to which we are accustomed. In this realm, correction does not come so easily. Human beings must rely on themselves.

[ 26 ] There are, first of all, two things that must be taken into account. Today, they can only be stated as principles derived from experience. These are two things that a person brings into the spiritual world, for they bring their entire soul disposition into it—the nature of their power of judgment and their moral disposition. What does a person bring into these spiritual worlds? Whatever a person develops as good or poor judgment contributes to whether that person will receive stimulation in the right way. Sound judgment will stimulate the soul in the right way. What must live in the soul is developed in a regular way, just as our normal eyes and ears are. Just as poorly developed senses relate to the world, so too does that which is formed in the soul when a person does not strive to maintain sound judgment. Anyone who wishes to enter the spiritual world must proceed from sound common sense.

[ 27 ] The second thing we must bring into ourselves is a healthy moral state of mind and mood—a state of mind and mood that, in a certain sense, has led us to be free from moods. When a person brings in immoral states of mind, this does not manifest as unhealthy judgment; rather, the immoral state of mind acts as a numbing influence—not one that extinguishes, but one that evokes false images, untrue images. Mere deception on the part of the soul-world could simply be corrected by the power of judgment; but what is evoked as an illusion by an immoral state of mind is present, and one believes in it unless moral energy is applied alongside spiritual training.

[ 28 ] For in spiritual training, one must take into account that a person must free themselves from certain things, which are difficult to let go of if they wish to conduct objective research. Let us take ordinary life as our starting point. There we find a phenomenon that can actually be studied anywhere. We find people who are materialists and believe only in nature and the laws of nature. Such people believe that anyone who does not believe solely in nature is simply a fool, and that anything that cannot be explained in materialistic terms is nonsense. In contrast, there are idealists who are not very accustomed to dealing with matter. They are more accustomed to—and place greater value on—people with a pronounced inner life. They are therefore better suited to understanding the world and its immaterial realities. There is realism and spiritualism, and the greatest mistake in everyday life is that everyone swears by their own “-ism.” What is this “-ism” other than what they have imagined it to be: the expression of their own self. That is why they love it. The idealist loves his ideas, and so on. More far-sighted minds like Goethe are in fact not inclined to say, “I am an idealist; from my point of view, this is how things are”—rather, in Goethe’s case in particular, we can see how convinced he is of what the true materialist actually regards as folly.

[ 29 ] The world of materialistic phenomena unfolds before us, and one must study matter and its laws—and one will come to realize that what matter offers has its justification. Thus, one must also explain that which belongs to the world and its material phenomena through these very material phenomena. One can certainly accept the explanations that the materialist offers for matter. Goethe says: “Between the various one-sided tendencies, the path to truth opens up.” – One must recognize that the world is an extremely diverse one and that one must approach the various fields through the most diverse forms of thought and modes of perception. Thus, one will repeatedly find that matter must be explained in a materialistic way. If one wishes to become a researcher of the spirit, it is necessary to find one’s bearings in ordinary life. One goes beyond this by practicing self-knowledge, which is often quite difficult. When one tries to practice self-knowledge objectively, one soon realizes what standpoint one takes. This has no further significance except in our inner life. One is then more inclined to grant others such a standpoint as well. Such perspectives are necessary.

[ 30 ] The spiritual researcher must recognize that there are different perspectives for different regions of the world, and that one must, as it were, be able to grasp the world as a whole—that one approaches it from various sides with different perspectives, just as one recognizes the shape of a tree by photographing it from different angles. Both a materialistic and an idealistic worldview can be correct. One must arrive at this realization through self-knowledge. Through self-knowledge, one seeks to overcome one-sidedness.

[ 31 ] In practice, many things turn out differently than in theory when one takes the trouble to carry them out seriously. One has attained a point of view, and when one recognizes its limitations, one feels the ground shifting beneath one’s feet. The standpoint we have attained is our very self. And that is precisely why one must go through such feelings; otherwise, one cannot break free from one’s own self, and everything remains shaped by subjectivity. This “breaking free from oneself” is what matters most. When we speak of errors here, one cannot simply say: “These are truths and those are errors.” One becomes free from errors through self-education, by detaching oneself from one’s own perspective, by being able to let go of the history of one’s own standpoint. In nothing is a person so attached as to their own standpoint.

[ 32 ] But he must go even further. He must not only break free from what we call a “point of view,” but also break free from the subjectivity of his thinking and feeling. One must practice self-knowledge, yet this comes naturally when the training of the mind is carried out in the right way.

[ 33 ] When we face the spiritual world, we are outside the ordinary life in which we otherwise find ourselves. We stand face to face with ourselves; we have become a thing in and of ourselves. Normally we live as ourselves; now we face ourselves as if we were an external object. The spiritual researcher joins the ranks of spiritual beings when he aspires toward the spiritual world. We compare ourselves to the spiritual world. This comparison usually does not turn out favorably. This is easy to understand, for when a person begins to recognize himself, he then knows everything that he lacks. People recoil from self-knowledge. It is indeed true: self-knowledge is the act of tearing ourselves away from what we have loved. We float in the air. Until now, we have felt in a certain way; we must regard this as a narrowly limited personality. We have thought in a certain way—a narrowly limited personality. Only now does a person realize how much he is in love with himself. Self-knowledge is difficult not only because it is so hard to attain, but also because it requires moral courage—because one steps outside of oneself, sets aside what one was; because one enters a new state of mind to which one is entirely unaccustomed.

[ 34 ] To have experienced this state of mind—that is what is necessary to avoid errors in the field of spiritual research. Errors arise from within us. We must always be able to renew this impression, to stand beside ourselves; then we will know what to eliminate; then we will know how to eliminate errors. In the field of spiritual research, it is not like in the ordinary world, where one simply repeats a mistake. We must combat errors at every turn; they are realities. In the spiritual realm, truths must be drawn upon at every turn; for only when we understand all this can we agree on the value of insights into the spiritual world—since the objection might be raised: “Then the spiritual world has significance only for those who can look into it.” That is not the case: only those who wish to explore the spiritual world must be able to look into it. Any open-minded person can understand it.

[ 35 ] How does the spiritual researcher relate to the ordinary state of mind? A painter must learn a great deal before he can create a painting. When looking at the painting, one person sees only the color combinations, while another looks for what the painter has put into it; and it is precisely the person who experiences it most deeply who would be disturbed if a theorist came along and explained how colors are mixed, or if someone were to engage in debates about art history and so on. One stands before the painting: if one can grasp what has been put into it, then one grasps it, and one need not be a painter. The same is true of what the spiritual researcher brings to light.

[ 36 ] Then the spiritual researcher must express what he is investigating in terms that are familiar to the people of his time, terms that are comprehensible to sound judgment; and then the other person—whether listener or reader—will receive it, provided that the person does not approach what the spiritual researcher has to say with preconceptions. Then, through sound judgment, they will understand what the spiritual researcher has conveyed. It is not the case that one can only grasp what the spiritual researcher presents by applying this faculty of judgment; what moves the soul is sufficiently conveyed, even if the soul itself is not a spiritual researcher.

[ 37 ] The spiritual researcher himself gains nothing from his research if he merely remains there observing things, if he does not distill what he sees [so] that he can communicate it to other people. In what can be conveyed through spiritual research, the spiritual researcher is no different from someone who perceives things solely through a sound sense of truth. Because this is the case, the knowledge of spiritual research can only be fruitfully disseminated by taking this characteristic of truth and error into account; and here it must be pointed out that the truth of what spiritual research has to say can be proclaimed by the spiritual researcher, and that everything can be understood by the ordinary mind, provided one is open-minded enough. The entirety of science can be used to verify what is stated by spiritual research; half of science cannot. While it is true, on the one hand, that a natural sense of truth can always be convinced by what the spiritual researcher presents, it must also be said that this sense of truth must likewise be applied to the spiritual researcher—and this is where we encounter the error in dissemination.

[ 38 ] One can understand those who reject spiritual research. These are not even the ones who cause the spiritual researcher concern. Such people sometimes feel an obligation to examine the matter, and the time will come for them when, out of their sense of needing to examine it, they will see what many have already seen. It is not opponents of this kind that concern the spiritual researcher. He is far more concerned about some of his own adherents.

[ 39 ] Just as it is true that some people reject things for no reason, it is also true that many people declare themselves believers for no reason, simply based on what is called “belief in authority.” This is why many people do not use common sense at all. For such people, there is no way to distinguish between the charlatan, who talks about all sorts of things he knows little about, and the one who knows how to conduct research conscientiously. A sound mind always recognizes these two phenomena. One knows that the two have always coexisted, and that people have been reluctant to distinguish between them. People who lack moral firmness are therefore exposed to a certain danger, for they are susceptible to temptation. The reason for this is that the spiritual researcher—and anyone who can glimpse into the spiritual world—is regarded as something quite special. This is an unhealthy judgment regarding the dissemination of spiritual research, for the fact that someone gains insight into this realm makes them nothing more than a researcher in this field—only what can be learned here is far more important than what can be researched in other fields. But a person is not a different, higher, or better person because of this, and when one considers that the fool brings his follies and the wise person brings his wisdom into it, one will not regard someone who has something to share from spiritual research as a higher being. One can judge him by what he has in common with others. The value of a human being lies in the moral state of his soul.

[ 40 ] Whoever understands the life of the soul in a spiritual sense will know how the longing of the human soul and the impulse of human nature are directed precisely toward those solutions that can truly be provided only by spiritual science. This makes it all the more necessary for spiritual science to spread in a healthy way, for it is meant to give people the opportunity to understand their destiny—and thereby also the opportunity to experience their destiny in an appropriate way—so that they do not stand without a foundation in life.

[ 41 ] What spiritual research can offer us is wisdom about life that strengthens and fortifies us for existence. Those who lack the strength and fortification provided by spiritual science will find that, little by little, they also lack the strength and power to live at all. Spiritual research will increasingly become a necessity of our time. This makes it all the more essential to recognize its sources, truths, and errors. When a person engages with such approaches and ideas—which today could only be sketched out—he or she will arrive at what spiritual research can increasingly become for spiritual culture, and this will strengthen him or her inwardly through recognition of this research and through being imbued with its truth; and he or she will remain calm toward those who do not wish to engage with this research. They remain calm, so that their calmness appears to us as a sign of the conviction they have steadily gained through spiritual science. Then, having looked into and thought deeply about the things themselves, he understands the words with which we wish to conclude today’s reflection—as a conclusion rooted in feeling—for the best way in which spiritual science can conclude is that which can be synthesized into a feeling; truth and error are rarely viewed in this way in the face of everything that can shake spiritual science and its power. We must, in contrast, stand in the same way that Goethe, for example, stood in relation to a matter comparable to the way the spiritual researcher relates to spiritual research. He once had to grapple with a major philosophical school that denied motion, so that people said there was actually no such thing as motion.

[ 42 ] Goethe, who was acutely aware of the emptiness of such views, found words that aptly refuted them, stemming from a sound sense of truth. He said:

You may spot something hostile,
Stay calm, stay silent;
And if they try to stop you from moving,
Go right around them.

[ 43 ] Anyone who truly understands spiritual research can respond to the criticisms of spiritual research in much the same way as Goethe does here.