The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. Spiritual Science and the Spiritual World: A Look Ahead to the Goals of Our Time

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen, for a number of years now, I have taken the liberty of speaking from this very place on the subject of spiritual science, as it will also be understood in tonight’s lecture. May I be permitted, in a certain sense, to present the foundations of this spiritual science—I would say—in a clear and concise manner, so that I may then speak in more detail about some specific topics within this spiritual science in the next lecture the day after tomorrow.

[ 2 ] It is precisely—and this has, after all, been mentioned frequently over the years—that those who stand on the ground of this spiritual science, as it is understood here, fully understand that, especially in our time, not only the most diverse objections but—one might even say—hostility toward this spiritual science are being voiced from all sides. Not only does this spiritual science present itself within the rest of contemporary spiritual life as something that is still foreign to that life today—which it has in common with everything that, in a certain sense, has been incorporated as a new achievement of human spiritual culture—but precisely in relation to the spiritual goals of our time, this spiritual science must, on the one hand, appear as something entirely incomprehensible, fantastical, and dreamlike, even though, on the other hand, it represents something that arises from the deepest longings—and one might say, from the most urgent necessities—of contemporary spiritual life; and with that, I would like to have defined, so to speak, the theme of this evening.

[ 3 ] The humanities, as understood here, differ from the very outset—and in a truly fundamental way—from that which they seek to continue, and it is only too understandable that they face one hostility after another precisely from this quarter. I am referring to the scientific way of thinking of our time, for fundamentally, the humanities—as understood here—aim, in the truest and most genuine sense, to be a continuation of scientific thinking applied to the spirit and its mysteries, its laws—a continuation of the scientific way of thinking as it has shaped the intellectual life of the West for the past three to four centuries.

[ 4 ] Nevertheless, although it is precisely because of this characteristic that the science of the spirit is in no way compelled to oppose the legitimate claims of the natural sciences, it nevertheless differs in a certain respect from what is today actually called “science” from the perspective of the natural scientific way of thinking. It is just as much a science as natural science, but because it examines the objects, entities, and processes of spiritual life, it must necessarily develop scientific methods in a different way than natural science—which is limited to the sensory realm and to the intellect, which has this sensory realm as its foundation—must do today. And so let us immediately turn our attention to this fundamental difference between research in the humanities and research in the natural sciences.

[ 5 ] What is commonly called science today stems from that state, that mood of the human soul that is, after all, present in normal life, in everyday human life. We speak of what a person can do by virtue of their soul, their body, and their intellect—applied to sensory observations and experimentation—and of what a person can achieve through all of this, as well as where the limits of knowledge lie for what has been indicated; in short, one may rightly say that this scientific approach takes the human soul as it is, allows it to observe its surroundings, and derives from this the laws of sensory-physical existence. The most important work for this science, therefore, is carried out in research that is always conducted within the activity of working itself, and what emerges from this activity is science—it is a scientific result.

[ 6 ] Spiritual research, on the other hand—spiritual research as it is understood here: Admittedly, as we shall soon see, the same mental processes that spiritual research must undertake are also those that govern external science and external scientific knowledge; but for the spiritual researcher, these mental processes serve as preparations for his research—they are meant to first prepare the soul so that it may attain what might be called “insight.” Of course, all of this is meant in a spiritual sense, but if one accepts this spiritual perspective, then one can say: External science presupposes the human soul, and these observations are grounded in sensory perception and in what the intellect has to say about the laws of existence.

[ 7 ] Spiritual research draws upon all the powers of the human soul—whether they be powers of the intellect, will, or feeling—to prepare what might be called the “senses”—in a figurative sense, of course—which lead to perception, so that the spiritual researcher must devote his work and activity to preparing himself first, in order then, so to speak, to allow the impressions of perceptions from the spiritual world to reach him through himself.

[ 8 ] Now, I do not wish—at least not in this discussion—to speak of abstractions, concepts, speculations, or a philosophy of ideas, but rather I would like to lead you directly into the facts of the life of the soul, which is suited to spiritual research. All spiritual research is based on the fact that the human soul can apply to itself what is constantly on everyone’s lips today as a scientific buzzword—that the human soul can apply to itself what is contained in the word “development.” Spiritual science proceeds from the premise that the human soul can undergo an inner development that brings about a transformation and alteration of these soul forces, so that, in a certain sense, these soul forces become something else. Thus, all the findings of this spiritual research are not obtained simply by accepting the soul as it is in its capacities, but arise only when the soul, through careful preparation, has transformed itself to such an extent that it no longer perceives the sensory world around it through its immediate spiritual perception, but instead has another, higher, spiritual world around it, just as in ordinary life—as perceived through the senses—it has the sensory-physical world around it.

[ 9 ] Now, one might easily believe that some very special actions are necessary to transform the soul. That is not actually the case. What the soul must undertake stems from elements that are always present in everyday soul life—elements that belong to the very most essential forces of this soul life—but which, in order to be made suitable for spiritual research, must be developed, so to speak, to the infinite.

[ 10 ] I now wish to show—from a different perspective than I have often taken in past years—how the human soul, as it were, transcends itself and its everyday perspective to become an observer of the spiritual world. What the soul must undertake in its intimate inner life includes, among its elements and as its starting point, forces that are absolutely necessary in the most ordinary of daily life. One of these forces is touched upon when we use a word that clearly refers to something that is an absolute necessity of everyday life. It is what we call, in this everyday life, attention—the interest in the things around us. This attention—which I have also spoken of from another perspective in these lectures—consists in our taking some object in our surroundings into our field of vision, so that through this act of taking it in, it, as it were, remains imprinted in our inner life and lives on in our memory.

[ 11 ] Just how necessary this attention is for everyday life can be seen from a very ordinary perspective that considers the connection between this attention and memory. Many people will complain that their memory is either failing or that it exhibits errors or deficiencies of some kind. If one were to study—to the extent that such a study is necessary for everyday life—the connection between attention and memory, one would overcome many of the things that are so often perceived as errors.

[ 12 ] I want to start with something very trivial. Many people find themselves unable to locate an object in the morning that they still had the night before. They set it down half-asleep, not with any real attention. A cufflink that we set down in the evening, thinking casually: “I’ll put this in this spot”—perhaps we even picture the surroundings as we do so—in this spot. You’ll see that if you let these thoughts pass through your mind in the evening, you’ll go straight to the button’s location in the morning, and it turns out that there’s a connection between our memory and what we might call attention. In a sense, the problem of memory is a problem of attention, and if we could get into the habit of paying attention to things we know must be retained, we would thereby contribute immensely—not only to remembering those specific things, but we would also come to realize that through frequent practice of such an activity, our memory is truly strengthened, that is, the powers underlying memory would also become stronger. Just as it is true that a good memory is, to a certain extent, part of an outwardly healthy mental life, so it is true that the practice of what is called “attention” is very necessary in everyday life.

[ 13 ] But there are other ways to gain insight into the connections between human inner life and attention. Everyone knows—and this is especially true of those who are somewhat familiar with the literature on contemporary psychological life—that a healthy psychological life must be a coherent one, so that when we look back to the point in childhood as far as we can usually remember, we must recognize the events that have come to us as our own. It would be unhealthy if our memory were so riddled with gaps that we regarded our own experiences as those of a stranger, if we did not recognize them as our own. In unhealthy souls, these experiences emerge as if they belonged to another self.

[ 14 ] Much could be accomplished if, through spiritual science, one had already been trained to such an extent that one were attentive to them—one can recognize this—that one were attentive to souls who show a predisposition toward such a “perforation,” so to speak, of their “I,” of their continuous memories, and one would then intervene in such a way as to strengthen their interest, to strengthen it systematically. One could already avert many misfortunes befalling such souls through a certain kind of education, if one were to take into account the connection between the life of memory—and the life of the soul as a whole—and what is called attention.

[ 15 ] What one might call attention is not, in fact, attention to this or that, but rather the activity of attention—the activity that unfolds in the life of the soul while one is attentive. For the purposes of spiritual research, this must be intensified and heightened to an infinite degree, and this occurs in what might be called the concentration of human thinking, feeling, and willing—or, more generally, the concentration of the entire life of the soul.

[ 16 ] In our outer, everyday life, we develop attention by being stimulated by external impressions—by what, I might say, has a more brilliant, more striking effect on our soul than other things. This challenges our attention. We very rarely have the opportunity to generate this attention through pure volition; but this is what spiritual research must prepare us to do: to increase attention to infinite levels through inner volition, through training the soul, through—one might even say—intimate practice.

[ 17 ] An increase in attention is brought about in the following way: Once we have stimulated certain ideas—perhaps ideas that do not correspond to any external reality, symbolic ideas that we can nevertheless grasp precisely, so that we know no supernaturally conscious ideas are at play; that we take these ideas and, entirely of our own volition—without being compelled by any external process—place them at the center of our consciousness, thereby bringing about a state of consciousness that, in normal human existence, develops only during sleep.

[ 18 ] During sleep, all our external senses fall silent, all movement ceases, and the human being lies still in terms of their physicality. Even the worries and [emotions] of life fall silent during sleep; it is simply that, in normal life, unconsciousness sets in during sleep. Here, too, I can only describe the general principles, not everything. You will find more detailed information in my book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds* and in my *Esoteric Science*. But through training—through years of practice—the soul can create within itself such a state that its inner being can, at will, silence within itself everything that is otherwise silent only during sleep. In a sense, the soul is in the same state with regard to external activity and perception as it is during sleep, except that it is awake and thus withdrawn from all external life. The soul directs its entire activity, with the most intense attention, solely toward the self-chosen mental image. As a result, all the energy the soul would otherwise expend to take in and process the manifold impressions of the day—all the energy the soul would otherwise use for this purpose—is now directed toward this single mental objective. The life of the soul becomes concentrated, and something is now brought about through that which the most significant spirits in the development of humanity have always regarded as the most worthy instrument for all exploration of the world. What is now being used is the instrument of the human soul, which can be compared—though I do not attach any particular importance to the comparison—to something like spiritual chemistry.

[ 19 ] To understand why human beings, as it were, carry out a “soul experiment”—which is not merely an inner process of imagination, but a real process in the soul through which something actually happens—and to help us grasp this, I will use a comparison drawn from chemistry. Something takes place within the soul that could be called a spiritual chemistry. When we have water before us, the components of this water are necessarily not discernible from the outside. The chemist breaks this water down into hydrogen and oxygen. He separates the hydrogen from the water. Hydrogen has entirely different properties than water—properties that one cannot suspect exist in water as such. Just as one can only suspect the properties of hydrogen in water—just as one can only suspect the properties of hydrogen in water—so, too, can one only suspect the properties of genuine soul-spiritual experience in the human being standing before us in everyday life; for just as hydrogen is bound to water, so too is the soul-spiritual bound to the physical-bodily in everyday life. What I have described to you as an infinite intensification of attention focused on an arbitrary image, sensation, or idea concentrates the powers of the soul, so that this soul lifts itself out of the physical-bodily. Now, however, it must be said that if the soul wishes to prepare itself in this way, it must do so with patience and energy, and it often takes years—this varies from person to person—but then the one who prepares their soul truly succeeds in attaching meaning to something that, it must be said, must rightly appear nonsensical to many people today. The spiritual researcher comes to associate a meaning with the word in his or her immediate inner experience: I am now experiencing, I am now feeling in the purely spiritual-soul realm, and I know that in what I experience and feel, nothing lives anymore that is connected to the physical-sensory realm. The spiritual researcher now knows what this word—which seems nonsensical in ordinary life—means, because he experiences this meaning through an immediately real power: I have stepped out of my physical-sensory body with my spiritual-soul aspect. The spiritual-soul aspect is then as independent and endowed with different properties in relation to the physical-bodily aspect as hydrogen is endowed with different properties when it is extracted from water. These are not external processes that can be experimentally compared to anything in the external world, but rather a process that leads to the spiritual-soul aspect being drawn out. Only then does it reveal itself in its true independence; only then does it manifest itself in what it is in its true, inherent nature—and in what connects it, in everyday life, to the physical-sensory realm, which it utilizes to perceive the external world and carry out the activities of the external world.

[ 20 ] The first thing a person can experience, as it were, through their physical-sensory nature is thinking and imagining, and since, as I have said, I do not wish to speak in abstractions but in concrete facts drawn from the inner experience of the spiritual researcher, I do not wish to shy away from pointing specifically to this experience—even at the risk, which I fully understand, of not being taken seriously by some people who believe they stand on the firm ground of science. When the spiritual researcher, through years of self-sacrificing work on his soul, has reached the point where he can attach meaning to the words: “You experience, you perceive outside your body,” then he first experienced this in relation to thinking—that which one can already sense in ordinary life and which one knows through spiritual science. The need to rely on the brain for thinking ceases. One feels that one is weaving within one’s imagination, and one does not feel connected to this inner experiential content of the brain and nervous system; rather, one feels—as I said, I say this at the risk of not being taken seriously by some—that with what one is now experiencing, one feels oneself as an external object, as an inner being encircling a body located outside of oneself, once one has granted it independence, and one experiences oneself as encircling one’s own body, one’s own brain, and an important experience then occurs. One learns to recognize how ordinary thinking takes place, for in order to make progress in genuine spiritual research, one must advance step by step. At first, it is often a vague experience. But once one has advanced far enough to fully grasp the meaning of the words, “You are now living in a thought process that takes place outside your brain”—for human life is, after all, the time between birth and death—one must return to that specific time once again.

[ 21 ] The thoughts one has outside the body—when one returns, one can give them form only with the brain. This produces a feeling quite different from the usual one, for one is aware of the process as it unfolds; one plunges into one’s own brain. One begins to use one’s brain as an instrument; one knows that there is something within the brain that offers resistance, into which one must force one’s way—what one has experienced outside. A peculiar feeling arises during the transition from external imagination to mental imagination—a feeling that can only be compared to a certain fear of now having to think again through the instrument of the brain, precisely because one is now facing life from the outside. One has, so to speak, come to know oneself from the outside for the first time; one has learned to look back at one’s physical body from the outside, and this immersion imposes upon one the necessity of working with—so to speak—heavy matter, dense substances, in a plastic way, so that those experiences one first undertook outside this brain can now find expression within it.

[ 22 ] In a sense, this can lead to a kind of emancipation of intellectual life from physical, bodily life. When this emancipation occurs, one is no longer surrounded by the physical-sensory world. This physical-sensory world disappears at the very moment one steps out of the physical body. One is surrounded by a new world, a world that can be described as the world of spiritual states. Only now can one see through direct perception what spiritual states are. Something comes into play here that I would like to mention again, because I always wish to proceed from the abstract to the concrete in these reflections; one misconstrues this immersion into the spiritual world if one imagines it according to the pattern of external perceptions. Here, the observer stands here and the object there. In perceiving what spiritual states are—what now occurs within a researcher of the spiritual realm once they have prepared themselves—one must, in a certain sense, immerse one’s entire being into the object or into the being one is perceiving; and just as, in one’s own soul in everyday life, when one experiences something—this or that mood, this or that inner [emotion], just as one expresses this in what is called the “development of the field of vision”—so, too, one can only experience what mental states are by immersing oneself with the spirit liberated from the body into what one perceives, imitating—truly imitating—in an inner play of expressions the states of the outer spiritual world.

[ 23 ] It is, therefore, an inner interplay of expressions into which one immerses oneself, and one cannot say—if one is speaking quite correctly—that one has perceived an object or a being of the spiritual world in the same way as a being of the sensory world—but only: I have experienced in this being that which causes me, through my spiritual-soul life, to express myself in such and such a way. In my inner expression, I imitate what constitutes the distinctive character of the being in question. — One becomes acquainted with an inner play of expressions in which one receives cipher-like impressions; in a certain sense, one becomes one with the being of the spiritual world. But this requires the spirit within oneself to be so sensitive that the spirit expresses its own states just as one otherwise expresses the states of one’s own soul. An experience—in contrast to mere perception—is the beholding of the spiritual world, a becoming-one with its states. This is precisely what distinguishes this immersion into the spiritual world from the experience of everyday reality, which is ultimately something passive—something one stands beside, as it were—whereas that which allows itself to be led upward by the will and immerses itself in spiritual phenomena must be entirely active—this inner activity that creates expression and forms within itself. The soul must transform itself to accommodate the states of the spiritual world if it wishes to penetrate it.

[ 24 ] In this way, one experiences the states of the spiritual world, so to speak, just as one experiences forms in the physical-sensory world. But one can experience not only the states of the spiritual world, but also the processes and events of the spiritual world. This happens by elevating other powers of the soul from the physical-bodily realm. It is not only the power of imagination that can be raised up, but also another power. Then, however, another everyday activity of the soul must in turn be elevated into the boundless, and this is what can be described with a word that represents a necessity in everyday life: the word “surrender.” If one succeeds in consciously developing precisely that devotion—as it were—to the general world process that we otherwise develop only unconsciously in sleep, when one is, so to speak, completely devoted to general events without doing anything oneself, as in sleep—if one learns to devote oneself in this way, while fully conscious and awake, to the spiritual world, then one succeeds in, so to speak, tearing another soul activity of our inner life away, drawing it out of the physical-sensory realm. This activity is the one through which we—as strange as it may sound, it is nevertheless true—experience its fruit in the outer physical realm: [the] speaking, the power of speech. This power of speech, as is well known, is rooted in the activity of the brain, in the activity of the organs that ultimately lead to the larynx, and so on. This power of speech plays a very different role than is commonly believed. Most human thinking, after all, essentially flows into words, so that the words unfold, as it were, inwardly; so that for those—and this is acknowledged today by external science—who observe things more closely, even all wordless thinking in human beings proceeds in such a way that they subtly resonate inwardly. The body is actually in a state of constant inner activity when it thinks. This activity silently echoes, so to speak, what is otherwise expressed more robustly in the movements of the speech organs and the nervous system.

[ 25 ] If, through careful practice, increased attention—that is, through concentration—and increased devotion—that is, through meditation— one comes to direct the activity that the soul must expend when speaking in everyday life—if one comes to direct this activity without acting it out in outward speech—then one has raised a second soul force from the physical-bodily realm. This elevation is somewhat more difficult than the other, but it can be achieved through [robust], energetic practice.

[ 26 ] When I speak to you, my soul is, of course, spontaneously at work, and what is accomplished in that activity is expressed in the outward word. If one succeeds in holding back the activity that otherwise finds its expression in the word—so that it is carried out purely inwardly in the soul, without a word and without that vibration—if, so to speak, the word “strength” is experienced inwardly in the soul, then the soul life is strengthened and fortified inwardly even more than in the mere operation [separation?] of the thought from the physical-sensory realm, and one then, through a kind of spiritual alchemy, so to speak, draws the power of speech out of the physical body and experiences it solely within the soul. One knows once again what it means: You are outside your physical body in your soul-spiritual experience, and now—since you cannot use your larynx to speak, since you are unfolding these activities outside your body, as you normally do when speaking—you now experience the power of speech inwardly. You now experience the inner word. You experience the inner word in a purely spiritual way.

[ 27 ] This experience of the inner word is very closely related to the experience of the power of memory. Of course, when I say “the experience of the power of memory,” I do not mean what manifests itself in the ability to recall, but rather what lies behind this ability—that which does not live consciously in everyday life, that which acts and remains semi-unconscious. When we incorporate a thought into our memory, we are engaging in a soul activity, and this is related to the power of speech. This is therefore something we call the “sub-soul” power of memory, just as we can speak of the “sub-soul” power of speech, which we draw out of ordinary speech and in which we then live as researchers of the spirit. We live purely in the spiritual-soul realm—in speech and in the power of memory—when, in ordinary daily life, memory is transformed so that we simply recall everyday experiences, even those during which all memory is silent, as in sleep. Now, so to speak, what remains is that which is otherwise devoted to memory. In everyday life, something is always used for remembering; inner energy is expended to make what is happening take root in the life of the soul. Now that we have brought about a life of the soul that erases ordinary memory, this energy—which is otherwise used for remembering—is now employed purely in a spiritual-soul context; it pulses, so to speak, in the inner, purely spiritual realm, recognizing it literally.

[ 28 ] So when we elevate the power of language beyond the physical and bodily, we come to not only experience states of being, but we can also immerse ourselves in the beings of the spiritual world, so that we witness what is happening within them. We are now developing not merely a play of facial expressions, but what one might call an inner spiritual power of gesture, [an inner gesture]. This must always be emphasized—that upon which activity as a spiritual experience is based. If one wishes to experience a spiritual being, one must immerse oneself in it and witness its inner processes, just as we accompany our own inner experiences with gestures, expressing in the gesture what is taking place within our own soul. Some people—myself, for example—use far too many gestures to express what constitutes inner soul life. Just as soul life flows out and branches off, so must it lead to an inner gesture of spiritual-soul experience. Then one experiences processes, not merely states; one experiences these through thoughts that are raised to a higher level, and the processes through the elevated faculties of speech and memory. Then, when one experiences states of the spiritual world, one also experiences one’s own inner states, and this already leads deep into the very essence of the human soul.

[ 29 ] As the spiritual researcher begins to experience inner states, he comes to understand the following: He knows why the materialistic worldview of the present is so difficult to refute from a purely idealistic standpoint—namely, because everyday thinking does indeed, as the materialistic view asserts, spring from the nervous system, from the brain. For what is experienced as a mental content in ordinary consciousness is, at its core, merely an image of the mental.

[ 30 ] There is not enough time here to go into detail about the debates concerning pictoriality. I will merely suggest that for the spiritual researcher who has advanced this far, it is perfectly clear what ordinary perception, the will, and the life of the imagination are seeking. Thus, they unfold in images that emerge from the physical body. They emerge like the mirror images of our own selves when we step in front of a mirror. The body is, in a sense, what one might call a mirror for spiritual and soul experiences. However, the image—like any image—is not actually complete. The image would only be complete if, in ordinary life, when stepping in front of a mirror, we had to send out forces from ourselves to shape the mirror in such a way that its material nature would be such that it reflects the images back to us. For what we actually accomplish with our body is this: we first endow this body, through our deeper spiritual and soul life, with the capacity to reflect back to us what we call our everyday life. We are the ones who truly make it a mirror, one must say, and upon this rests the mystery of human soul life.

[ 31 ] The spiritual researcher is led to a spiritual-soul experience that lies beyond and behind the physical body, and he observes how the truly spiritual-soul aspect first works upon the body, so that the contents of everyday soul experience then emerge from the body. It is just as impossible for the spiritual researcher who sees through this to conceive of the spiritual-soul experience as merely a function of the brain as it would be to think that the image we see before us rises from the mirror as a reality. One might just as well claim: When one sees oneself in the mirror, what looks into the mirror comes out of it—as if the spiritual-psychic were emerging from the nervous system. The spiritual-psychic, in its reality, lies behind the physical, and in truth the body stands between the truly spiritual-psychic—which is its active agent and formative shaper—and everyday experience, limited to the sensory world, which in reality unfolds only in images. In this way, one arrives at what stands behind the physical as the truly spiritual-psychic. When one arrives at this, however, what one experiences as a state appears quite differently from what one might seek to address as the spiritual-psychic through external speculation; for one is faced with direct perception—that which the “I” is, spiritually and psychically, within human nature. Then the teaching of repeated earthly lives ceases to be a mere theoretical insight. Then an expansion begins—one might say, of memory—which can then extend across the repeated earthly lives. One gains insight into the entirety of human experience, not merely as it unfolds between birth and death, but through many earthly lives and through the spiritual experiences between death and birth. What one might call “repeated earthly lives” becomes a direct experience. By elevating memory and the power of speech—transforming them into a power of insight and experience—past earthly lives emerge as reality from the depths of spiritual life, and the certainty arises that the present life, too, is the cause of those that follow, and that between death and a new birth there is a life far longer than the earthly life.

[ 32 ] By suppressing the ordinary power of memory, the higher power of memory is awakened. When the power of memory—which otherwise allows us to look back only as far as birth—is erased, it awakens to a heightened power that now extends to an awareness of repeated earthly lives! This insight does not need to incorporate a modern spiritual truth from ancient religious systems. People who know nothing about the methods of spiritual research and who have only superficially grasped that this spiritual science must speak of repeated earthly lives can very easily come to believe that some ancient Buddhist truth is being recycled. Such a claim is as preposterous as if one were to assert that today only one person could prove the Pythagorean theorem by [gap in the transcript].

[ 33 ] Spiritual science has nothing to do with anything handed down historically, but solely with what the spirit can explore within itself at any time through the specified means. Just as one arrives at the findings of science through external experimentation, so one arrives at the findings of this spiritual research through inner experimentation. That the findings of this spiritual science seem fanciful today—well, this can hardly surprise anyone who knows the nature of this spiritual science, who knows how it can be integrated into the spiritual life of the present. In this sense, it must be emphasized again and again: Just as the Copernican view seemed strange at the time, so, of course, the findings of spiritual science may seem paradoxical to the modern mind. But just as the Copernican worldview has become an integral part of modern culture, so too will what this spiritual research has to say become an integral part of it. Certainly, just as people today approach this spiritual research, so too did they approach the Copernican worldview; and if, back then, one had set out in lectures to advocate something like the Copernican worldview—which at the time must also have seemed utterly fantastical—one might perhaps have announced such a lecture as follows: “The Copernican Worldview as a Surrogate for Christianity”; namely because one might have believed that the Copernican worldview endangered Christianity. It was only gradually that people came to realize that the matter is different, and in our present time, one can indeed gain different insights simply from the genuine goals of the present.

[ 34 ] In light of the experiences I have had here, one cannot help but be moved by the words of a Catholic theologian—who is also a deeply sensitive philosopher—as he said: Certainly, there was once a prejudiced world that opposed the Copernican worldview as if it could endanger religious life; today—and this is not my own statement, but that of this Catholic theologian—today, the true Catholic will even know that what is explored regarding the mysteries of existence, what is recognized about the grandeur of the world, can never contribute to the fulfillment of religious life, but only to admiring the greatness of the divine Creator all the more as one comes to know His deeds in the development of the world. — The time will also come when people will recognize, in repeated earthly lives, an advancement of the Christian point of view, just as today the Copernican worldview represents an advancement of the Christian perspective. Thus I have spoken to you, so to speak, of two spiritual forces that can be elevated through experience with the physical body.

[ 35 ] There is still a third soul force that must be spontaneously developed on the path to spiritual research, and through this third soul force one now gains access not merely to the states and processes, but to the beings of the spiritual world itself, so that on another level this spiritual world becomes something like the natural world — not something one speaks of in general terms, but rather as one speaks not of nature in general, but of individual animals, plants, stones, individual clouds, mountains, rivers, and so on.

[ 36 ] Where the spirit does not appear to the soul as a sum of real spiritual entities, something else must certainly be drawn upward from this human truth as it stands before us in everyday life. We must remember how we, as human beings, entered into life. What distinguishes us as human beings from the other sensory phenomena of the earth is that, in a sense, we must already in the earliest stages bring forth from within ourselves that which most beautifully characterizes our destiny. We enter the world, so to speak, as four-legged creatures—we must first acquire the balance needed to stand upright and walk. I note from the outset, so that no misunderstanding may arise—as has happened elsewhere—that I am, of course, aware that other beings also walk on two legs, such as chickens; but the difference is that they are organized for this purpose from the very beginning, whereas human beings overcome gravity—a force acting purely in the material realm—by applying an inner power. In the first years of his sensory existence, human beings develop into upright beings—beings of whom those with a deeper insight have always known what it means to stand upright and to be able to cast their gaze out into the cosmos. But human beings bring this about themselves. An inner force is exerted, through which human beings actually become what they are destined to be.

[ 37 ] This power—it no longer comes to our consciousness at all as we go through life. At a time when our consciousness is still in a dreamlike state, we experience what, so to speak, gave us our upright posture—the balance in the world—through which we become human beings. But we can rediscover these forces, and the spiritual researcher must rediscover them. These forces remain in the soul. In ordinary life, they are used solely to give the human being an upright posture, but then they rest. They are brought forth again, and this inner soul force, when raised up, is something that—when experienced—reveals itself as a will that is simultaneously lifted up, permeated by that will which allows our spiritual-soul experience, outside the physical body, to be attuned to the various truths of the universe. Through this, one now attains the following: Just as a human being makes himself in the physical world into what he alone is through his upright balance, just as he grasps, so to speak, his I-being in its inner activity and preparatory power for the Earth, so, when he grasps this inner activity through which he becomes a human being—when he grasps this activity in its organization—he grasps the inner truth of other spiritual beings, grasps the inner essence of real spirits, and shares in the experience of how other beings become their own essence, just as he becomes a being on Earth through the process described above.

[ 38 ] However, all these things can only be attained through a certain resignation, through a certain inner sense of tragedy. Much must be overcome, and these struggles are, in a certain sense, a kind of suffering. But when the spiritual researcher courageously perseveres through this suffering, he succeeds in drawing from it the inner activity that is now capable not only of shaping the situation that gives human beings on Earth their true external purpose—the one that enables them to turn their gaze out into the cosmos—but also of immersing himself in other beings, grasping their purpose, by empathizing with them, and to experience how, in their own worlds, they become what they are in a different way than human beings on Earth do. Now one experiences not merely states and processes, but the inner life of the spiritual beings themselves. One immerses oneself in them by becoming one with these truths through inner flexibility and true inner strength. Now it is a certain, yet inwardly flexible, physiognomy. Just as a human being acquires his or her overall physiognomy on Earth, so too does he or she immerse oneself in the physiognomies of the other truths on this third stage.

[ 39 ] In this way, one ascends to a spiritual sharing in the experiences of spiritual beings through inner facial expressions, through inner gestures and movements, then through inner physiognomy, and through the knowledge of the inner essence of other spiritual beings. In this way, the spiritual world gradually becomes a true reality, and it always becomes apparent that this process of the spiritual world becoming a true reality differs from the experience of the outer physical world. The latter is experienced passively. A spiritual world can only be experienced actively, and this brings us to the point that truly shows us how this spiritual science must be integrated into the spiritual cultural life of the present.

[ 40 ] As I said, today I wanted to show how the spiritual researcher arrives at his experiences. I will elaborate on specific experiences the day after tomorrow. What can be gleaned from today’s discussion, however, is that the spiritual researcher appeals to the activity of the soul—to that which the soul can experience only in a purely spiritual-soul activity that transcends the physical-bodily realm. [gap in the transcript] activity—can experience purely spiritual-soul activity. In this immersion—which is, however, purely spiritual-soul in nature—into the other truths, the states, processes, and the very essence of these truths are experienced firsthand.

[ 41 ] None of these things can be experienced without extending to the entire spiritual realm what is otherwise, in essence, experienced only in the moral realm. When a person experiences inwardly in the moral realm: “You want to do this; it is a good thing”—then the experience of inner duty, which must become an outward act, is precisely the experience of the highest moral reality. This experience is an inner one, one that requires the person to look beyond themselves, for, fundamentally, everything immoral stems from selfishness. What is moral, however, arises from turning away from the narrowly defined “I” that a person places in the foreground. Just as a person, in the moral realm, becomes free—at least through their feelings—from that which otherwise anchors them in everyday life, so too do they become free in the experience of the higher worlds within the soul’s overall life. In a certain sense, the moral life is the obscure prototype for the higher life of knowledge.

[ 42 ] I wanted to show—not through words, but through a description of psychological processes—what spiritual science consists of and what the relationship is between spiritual life and spiritual science. When we look at life today, however, we can truly say: This experience is not oriented toward inner activity of the soul. In particular, when it comes to understanding the world, people today are passive. One could illustrate just how willing people are to be passive today with downright grotesque examples. It is very gratifying that so many of you have come here today—where there are [gap in the transcript]—with photographs. But you will all admit that presentations accompanied by photographs are more popular than those that do not offer such attractions. The spiritual researcher appeals to the supernatural, the invisible, and even if he were to make use of photographs, it would be only to make something extraordinarily tangible. But humanity today is, to a high degree, predisposed not to be won over to the spirit or to anything that can be explored by appealing to the activity of the soul, but rather by appealing to the sense of sight.

[ 43 ] Certainly, in the intellectual realms that have produced the most admirable achievements, this contemplation is necessary; but the mind cannot be grasped through external observation. What is sensory is not spiritual. This is trivial, yet it is not understood. I am not telling fairy tales. It so happened that a contemporary philosopher—otherwise very distinguished—recently recounted and presented a [monistic] idea. In an introduction in which he intended to write about an evolution in philosophy, he said that when one reads Kant and so on, one becomes immersed in concepts, but this could be remedied, after all, today we have—and again, let it be noted that nothing is to be said against the technical achievements of the present age; these technical achievements have their significance, their justification; but what was said there is indeed characteristic—the philosopher says that if one wants to immerse oneself in Spinoza’s *Ethics*, it is difficult to immerse oneself in those incomprehensible concepts. So let us turn to film for help! Imagine Spinoza sitting there spontaneously when a thought occurs to him, and how the extension of that thought then presents itself to him. Then, on the one hand, consider the force that constitutes the extension; on the other hand, formulate the rest of the concept in the usual way, as concepts are generally formed.

[ 44 ] The person in question has set his sights on nothing less than portraying Spinozist ethics through film. Thus, one might hope to see Spinoza’s *Ethics*—or Kant’s *Pure Reason*—brought to life on the screen. As mentioned, nothing is to be said against these arts, although it makes a peculiar impression when the editor states that, in this way, the ancient metaphysical longings of the human soul can be satisfied by an art that superficial reason usually regards as merely playful. Thus, through the application of this cinematic art, ancient metaphysical longings could be satisfied.

[ 45 ] I wanted to mention this because it shows how people today feel no need to translate their soul into action, no need to appeal to that which must emerge from complete passivity into the fullest activity, as well as everything that people today are willing to accept, that is to say, how they do not boldly seek to attain Being through their own activity, do not seek to prove Being to themselves by raising this activity—through their own activity—to a proof of Being, but rather want to have Being proven to them from the outside. The reasons why one accepts something as existing must be accommodating. This is what the habits of thought in all of philosophy are for: it becomes increasingly apparent from the standpoint that all thinking which cannot demonstrate that it is grounded in the foundations of something to which one has contributed nothing is regarded as mere fantasy.

[ 46 ] Gradually, the goals of the present tend to dismiss as mere fantasy any thought that cannot prove it is derived from the material reality that presents itself from the outside. I have [previously] described this fundamental characteristic of contemporary goals. This fundamental characteristic was necessary, for it is solely through humanity’s education in the natural sciences that the great, monumental discoveries of natural science have come about—that which has transformed the globe commercially and technically, and which has also elevated human knowledge in a magnificent way. For this to come about, it was necessary for human beings to adopt a passive stance toward the external world. The boldness that human beings must develop for inner experience flows, so to speak, into their external actions today.

[ 47 ] There is a law in human life that whatever grows great on one side must, in a certain sense, wither away on the other. The last three to four centuries have made it possible for humanity to undertake such immensely bold endeavors as the achievements leading up to air travel. Because this boldness was developed for external achievements, a form of education has emerged within humanity that, for a certain time, fostered inner boldness—necessary for grasping a spiritual reality that cannot be grasped through positive effort alone, but only when one is able to surrender to this spiritual reality through one’s own activity, so that one stands on the following position: What you yourself experience within yourself is not reality. One can never arrive at a true understanding of the spirit, for the spirit allows us to enter its spheres only through active engagement.

[ 48 ] Thus, however, what is the fundamental requirement for the recognition of spiritual science appears, at first glance, to be at odds with the goals of the present. Yet it also becomes evident in the course of the entire process of becoming that, just as something stretched to its limit—like an elastic body that, when compressed sufficiently, exerts a counterforce—so, when something is driven to a certain point, the opposing force, the reaction, asserts itself; and anyone who can observe our age who knows how that opposing longing is already quite present in people’s souls—without their being deeply aware of it themselves—because education in the external natural sciences has taken them to a certain high point—the soul, as I said, often without realizing it today, yearns for a knowledge of that which lies beyond the senses as the actual foundation of all human life. Let me use the comparison once more: Spiritual science today stands, in relation to the goals of our time, at the same point where natural science stood in the time of Giordano Bruno, who, through his insight, broke through what had been conceived as a blue celestial sphere, as a blue vault. What was significant was that Bruno said: What is up there is not a real boundary; it is merely brought about by the boundary that human beings set for themselves. What the little human being perceives and must set as a boundary—that is what spreads out there. At that time, the limited world was broken through, and the gaze was expanded outward into the boundless distances of space.

[ 49 ] Such a firmament, however—now a temporal firmament—exists for the natural sciences alone, and when they assert it from their own standpoint, they are justified in doing so; they should, however, acknowledge their limits. Such a temporal moment is what asserts itself for the outer world in birth and death. Just as the physical firmament was placed in space only by human beings themselves, and knowledge could be newly expanded with regard to spatial infinity, so spiritual science will do the same for the spirit, [just as] what once broke through the temporal firmament—which is given for birth and death—and taught us to look into a temporal infinity, that is, into eternity, into the immortality of the human soul. The opponents [gap in the transcript] will still have to discover this new expansion of the spiritual gaze today.

[ 50 ] But precisely when one, so to speak, takes a close look at the goals of the present, one sees that on the one hand there must be those people to whom it seems utterly absurd that such things could be said as spiritual science does. On the other hand, however, one can already perceive how a thirst arises in people’s souls to truly come to know the world as spiritual science recognizes it as its task to explore. Much of what later emerges clearly and distinctly in the soul is initially present as a vague impulse. The spiritual researcher sees this; he knows that the very near future will find souls who will come to recognize spiritual research through the path of spiritual science.

[ 51 ] On the surface, everything seems to speak against the spiritual sciences. [But] if one considers what asserts itself in the depths of the soul, then there is assurance that the spiritual sciences will truly win over the hearts and souls of human beings. Today, people draw conclusions only from what is often said to be based on the true goals of science; they do not draw the right conclusions. Otherwise, they might arrive at something that I will now explain to you through a kind of metaphor.

[ 52 ] I do not wish to dwell on the meaning of the great and significant word that appears at the beginning of the Bible. To what extent it corresponds to a reality in human life on earth is a matter that can be discussed on another occasion. But with a profound perspective on the development of human experience, this biblical passage stands before us—this passage that is, so to speak, placed into the mouth of the adversary of humanity:

You will be like gods and know the difference between good and evil.

[ 53 ] And this implies—for both the religious person and the scientifically minded person—that, if the matter is considered in its depth, humanity has, in a certain sense, been tempted to go beyond the limits assigned to it in primeval times. Here, too, it has already been discussed how this word—or rather, what lies behind it—is connected to the possibility of evil and the reality of human freedom.

[ 54 ] One could say, then, that a worldview sanctified by tradition—one that certainly recognizes spiritual science just as much as anyone else does—places at the very beginning of human development the idea of the temptation to seek to transcend the human being in inner experience. One can say of every age that it is a time of transition. This is often a trite expression, but what matters—even if every age is a time of transition—is that one characterizes the moments of transition correctly, and that the one who attempts to penetrate the goals of the age recognizes them even where they remain unconscious to souls. But whoever uncovers them, whoever penetrates them in this way, will notice that today, in fact—though I do not mean this in a superstitious sense—something like an evil spirit stands lurking at humanity’s side. Allow me to use a strong expression to convey what I wish to say. [Gap in the transcript.]

[ 55 ] This statement may seem paradoxical to some; but the purpose of this apparent [paradox] is to express what needs to be said as clearly as possible. When one considers the transitional moments of our time, it becomes apparent that much of what is believed today—here, too, a certain kind of seducer can be observed, though not in the superstitious sense. However, when one expresses such things using supernatural language, one must recall the words:

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

[ 56 ] Once again, there is something like a tempter at work, and it is difficult to gain clarity about him because people do not draw the necessary conclusions from what lies dormant in the world’s goals. Because people do not draw these conclusions, it seems paradoxical when someone points out the consequences to them. If what some materialistically minded people derive from contemporary science were true, then one would have to say: Human beings are placed within the mere animal kingdom by what is today understood as the theory of evolution. People today simply feel quite clever, and they think they can dismiss the aforementioned paragraph [?] as foolish if they can say: “What human beings experience in terms of morality and intellect is merely a higher development of what appears in the animal kingdom, and the more one can link human beings to the animal kingdom, the more one believes oneself to be scientific today.”

[ 57 ] Even if a philosophy today makes a somewhat feeble attempt to establish a theory of values alongside it, this theory itself is somewhat imperfect; for it must be said that if the logical conclusion were truly drawn from what is today regarded as a genuine scientific mode of thought, it would follow that the distinction between good and evil would amount to the same thing we feel toward the laws of nature. Good and evil would spring forth from the human soul with the necessity of a natural law. Since, when one wishes to stand on the ground of science—as is often done—specifically on the ground of narrowly defined science, it is inconsistent not to draw the conclusion that human beings should in fact be understood merely as a transformation of the animal realm, and that morality should be classified among what is recognized as the laws of nature, as a necessity of nature. But then it follows that, just as there is no distinction between good and evil in natural law, there is no distinction between good and evil.

[ 58 ] Paradoxical, as I said, as it may sound, it is nonetheless true; the tempter stands there once more, but out of inconsistency we do not see him—the tempter who now says the opposite of that tempter whom the Bible places at the forefront. Now he says: “You will be like animals and will no longer be able to distinguish between good and evil.” This may seem ridiculous to some today; it seems ridiculous only to those who fail to grasp the consequences inherent in certain purely materialistic views of the present. One could say, then, that today the tempter speaks the opposite of what he did back then. Back then he said:

You will be like gods, able to distinguish between good and evil.

[ 59 ] Humanity should be elevated beyond itself. As a result, it stands here today, saying: You will be like animals; you will perceive as animals do and will no longer be able to distinguish between good and evil. — Just as that was a word of temptation, so is this a word of temptation, even if it is not spoken due to inconsistency. The more one comes to realize—it lies in the goals of the present—how the soul, when it becomes aware of this word of temptation, will then develop the longing to recognize the spirit once again in its immediate form, which lifts it out of what the [gap in the transcript].

[ 60 ] On the one hand, [spiritual science] may be perceived as the realm of dreamers, as something nonsensical. That is understandable. But on the other hand, it can also be viewed as a response to the deepest goals of our time, which lie dormant within the soul. Because it is so intimately intertwined with all the goals of the human soul, one feels—when standing on its ground—that one is in harmony with what spiritual science seeks to articulate with clarity, in harmony with the intuitions of the spirits who have always worked for spiritual science. These spirits of the past—because spiritual science is something that is only now to be bestowed upon our time—have not [yet] attempted to express clearly what spiritual science has to say today. But just as that which can be clearly expressed in a given era [gap in the transcript], so have the leading spirits always sensed what spiritual science is.

[ 61 ] I had to clearly express many things that today, so to speak, were bound to follow from what is often called science—which is simply not followed because people are not consistent enough; [this] is what the soul, familiar with the spirit and its development, has always sensed. Even if evolution is fully recognized as the central axis of our lives, something enters into this human experience through the human soul that transcends everything that can be regarded externally as external evolution, and spiritual research merely shows— one might say—if I may use this word, which does indeed sound dry and pedantic in this context—shows only through spiritual experimentation that what we call the immortal, the eternal, the truly spiritual human soul can indeed be experienced in detachment from the physical.

[ 62 ] Thus, it is precisely through spiritual science that human beings come to focus on what truly constitutes human dignity and the human purpose in earthly life. We sense when the tempter approaches—even if only in the subconscious, even if he approaches without being acknowledged—and seeks to tell us: Evolution shows humanity merely as the final link in this animalistic chain of development—when he says: ‘You will be like the animals and will no longer distinguish evil from good’—then spiritual science will know itself to be united in goodness with the personalities of all ages who strive luminously toward the spiritual, and will now counter this tempter with knowledge—that which Schiller delicately expressed out of deep poetic intuitions, and in which what has been considered is to be summarized. When Schiller became aware that, through Herder and Goethe, a similar idea was emerging—that human beings [are] placed at the pinnacle of the animal kingdom—it was clear to Schiller that such a teaching could only be properly understood if, at the same time, the spirit is fully recognized in its autonomous significance, independent of the physical. That is why Schiller does not say what so many say today—and what, taken to its ultimate conclusion, ultimately gives voice to the tempter—but rather, Schiller said this—and at the same time perceiving humanity’s true destiny—he said, regarding the incarnation of humanity on earth, that which I confess here [gap in the transcript] at the very moment when the human being enters into existence:

Now the dull barrier of animality fell,
and humanity stepped onto the cloudless brow,
and the sublime stranger, the thought,
leapt from the astonished brain.