The Rudolf Steiner Archive

17. Theosophy as a Way of Life

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Following yesterday’s lecture, which I had the privilege of delivering here, some in the audience may be surprised that one can speak of spiritual science or theosophy as a source of life. For what I attempted to expound here yesterday—as it were, the fundamental, the essential principle of the exploration of the spiritual worlds—requires an energetic, patient, and sustained cultivation of the human soul. Only through this can what was spoken of yesterday be achieved: that the soul is strengthened and empowered within itself to perceive itself as a spiritual-soul being and to actually leave the physical-bodily realm—that is, to live in such a way that, in the true sense of the word, the soul itself, in its experience, becomes a spiritual being among other spiritual beings, entering a new world within this spiritual world.

[ 2 ] That was the very point for which the paths were presented yesterday. If we allow what has emerged there to pass through our soul once more very briefly, it is this: that the human soul is capable of engaging in spiritual chemistry; that it is capable of withdrawing itself—as a spiritual-soul being—from the connection in which it stands with the body in everyday life, just as one is capable of extracting hydrogen from water. And we have seen that through the energetic continuation of the exercises characterized yesterday, the soul truly comes to perceive its physical body, at first, as something external, like other things, while perceiving itself as lifted out and placed into a spiritual world. And as the soul’s training progresses further, it becomes apparent that the soul also leaves behind what it experiences, so to speak, in everyday life on a soul level —which merely brings back to her the memory of her life up to the point at which our ordinary memory, like a moment from our childhood, emerged before our self-consciousness—but that this inner content of the soul then changes, and that what emerges along with it is what one might call the spiritual core of the human being, which, when experienced, contains the eternal aspect of the human being, which passes through the gate of death, and from which one can then know, through true insight, that the human being passes through repeated earthly lives, that he leads a life alternating between a life on earth, which extends from birth to death, and a life in the spiritual world, which extends from death to a new birth.

[ 3 ] Now one might say: Isn’t it simply in the nature of things that this leaving of the physical body—this experiencing oneself as a spiritual-soul being in a completely different world, which can only be achieved through great effort—is perhaps not suitable for many people in the present, [and that] therefore not everyone can become a researcher of the soul? Is it not therefore unnecessary to make common knowledge what only a few can truly do, what only a few can know? One might object: How can someone who does not become a spiritual researcher themselves derive any benefit from the information provided to them by a spiritual researcher regarding processes, states, and beings of the spiritual world? For individuals—for a select few, one might say—the attainment of spiritual science may be a source of fulfillment in life; but for those who do not wish to follow this path, who do not reach a certain point along the path described yesterday, spiritual science cannot be a source of fulfillment in life. — And yet! Even to the abstract mind, it must seem as though what can be attained in the manner described must be a true inner good.

[ 4 ] Today’s lecture topic uses the term “theosophy.” One might say that spiritual science is a theosophical worldview. For this has always been understood to mean a worldview that gives the human soul the certainty and knowledge that the deepest, innermost core of our being is attainable, and thus it becomes clear that we experience in its essence: It is connected, as the root of our existence, to the root of all existence in the world—to the divine-spiritual existence of the world. Through the very core of our being, we are rooted in the divine-spiritual. This is precisely what the term “theosophy” is meant to convey. And a theosophical worldview does not merely seek to say that one can sense or believe that human beings are connected in their very being to the divine-spiritual world; rather, it seeks to assert that human beings can also recognize this connection of theirs, that they can penetrate to that point within themselves where they are connected to the divine-spiritual, which permeates and interweaves the world. And from the awareness of this recognizable connection, a theosophical worldview seeks to draw strength and hope for life.

[ 5 ] Thus, a theosophical worldview should actually be a true treasure in life. But even if someone were to have gained the conviction—through the path of the soul described yesterday—that one can recognize how our soul is connected to its source, it might still seem as though only those who are capable of undertaking such investigations of the soul themselves could possess a true awareness, a conscious understanding, of this connection. Yet this is not the case. This must be emphasized again and again: The states, processes, and entities of the spiritual world can be explored only through the path described yesterday. Only by stepping beyond our physical body ourselves through the application of the described method—and becoming spirit among spirits—can we recognize the spiritual foundations of the world. But once they have been recognized by the spiritual researcher, the person to whom they are communicated need not be a spiritual researcher themselves in order to find them understandable and comprehensible, to apply them to life in the fullest sense, and to permeate life with them.

[ 6 ] To be able to explore something in the spiritual world, one must be a spiritual researcher, just as one must be a painter to be able to paint a picture. But once the picture is there, it would be a shame if only the painter could understand it. And so it is with what can be discovered through spiritual research. If it is presented in the right way, the human soul is attuned to truth and not to error. And just as we can understand the painting created by a skilled painter, so too can we comprehend everything the spiritual researcher has to say, find it meaningful, and put it to use in life—without being spiritual researchers ourselves.

[ 7 ] However, there is still a long way to go before this becomes true for a wider circle of people in our time. For there are many obstacles standing in the way of the modern soul when it seeks to understand what the spiritual researcher has to say to the world. People today come from an admirable scientific culture. It has equipped them with habits of thought directed toward the external world. People today are not accustomed to immersing themselves in the very different concepts that the spiritual researcher draws from the realm of the spiritual world.

[ 8 ] But this will change once people’s ways of thinking have come to recognize that what stands in the way of spiritual research is prejudice. Then people will discover that the concepts of spiritual science are generally understandable. Just as with chemistry, physics, or any other science—even though not everyone who becomes a chemist, physicist, and so on, serves life, and people make use of what comes from chemistry and physics without being chemists or physicists themselves—so it is certainly true that what the spiritual researcher has to say can serve life, can take root in our soul, and can penetrate the soul.

[ 9 ] But then the concepts and ideas that the spiritual researcher must convey directly from the spiritual world have a different effect on the soul than external concepts and ideas. And only when one views what spiritual research can be as the theosophical worldview does one come to realize what a treasure this spiritual science is. Admittedly, one might say: When the spiritual researcher speaks of a treasure—this spiritual science cannot, at first, provide bread or material goods. But what it has, it gives; and what it gives is nourishment for the soul—nourishment of the soul that, in fact, souls will increasingly need due to a certain configuration that our lives have taken on in our time.

[ 10 ] Now, in order to understand the essence of spiritual science, let us first consider one thing. That is, spiritual research differs from ordinary research in the sensory world in that, in the other sciences, a person is passively influenced by the truth; a person must surrender, and the world conveys the truth to him from the outside. In spiritual research, however, the soul must be active from the very beginning and develop inner energy.

[ 11 ] We have seen how the soul must ascend in three ways to the purely supersensible states, processes, and beings. By placing itself within these states, it attains an inner mimicry, a purely spiritual mimicry. One cannot merely allow the states of the spiritual world to shine in from the outside. One must unite with them; one must become so one with them that one expresses them within oneself—but expresses them in one’s soul, which has been emancipated from the body. As a spiritual researcher, one thus steps into the spiritual world. As long as one remains passive, it reveals nothing. Only when one expresses for oneself what it has to communicate, when the inner spiritual expression is a reflection of what one experiences—only then does it speak. And the gesture, the gesture within the soul, immerses itself in the spiritual world—but again, actively—not by immersing oneself as in external science, through speculation, but by allowing thoughts to flow vividly within oneself; in this way, one grasps the processes of the spiritual world. Only by imitating them with one’s own spiritual being can one become aware of them. And the third aspect was that a person penetrates through spiritual physiognomy by attuning oneself to the spiritual being and drawing up from within one’s depths the forces that make one’s own spiritual-soul constitution similar to that of the spiritual being for those moments when one wishes to attune oneself to it.

[ 12 ] The spiritual researcher thus enters the spiritual world in three ways: through spiritual facial expressions, through spiritual gestures and movements, and through spiritual physiognomy—but always actively, always in motion. And whatever he draws from the spiritual world in this way, he must cast into concepts. And here we come to the point where it becomes clear that it is actually more difficult to communicate insights from the spiritual world than it is to communicate insights from the physical world. People of our age insist that spiritual science, too, should express itself externally in exactly the same way that external science does. Well, external science expresses itself in such a way that it presupposes the object it seeks to understand. And only afterward does it provide the concepts regarding it. And it is right to do so from its own standpoint. The spiritual researcher actively immerses himself in the spiritual world and must himself, in the threefold manner described, become an expression of what he experiences; and his concepts are formed in such a way that they arise vividly within him, testifying to their truth not as mere images but through their content and their power. The external researcher communicates what he has seen and observed. The spiritual researcher is different: what he has experienced—what has become a part of himself, what he has struggled to grasp—he shapes into concepts; these must be in a state of flux, they must illuminate one another, so that the concepts are like living beings. But they are such that they arise precisely from what the deepest essence itself is.

[ 13 ] When the spiritual researcher formulates his concepts and presents them to the public, these concepts contain content that he can experience only by bringing together the deepest recesses of the human soul with the foundations of the worlds—insofar as they are accessible to us—with the spiritual foundations of the worlds, so that his concepts are drawn from the depths of the soul. And these depths of the soul are present in every human soul. The spiritual researcher speaks of something that is present in every human soul. When he has explored it and expresses it, he does so in a way that strikes a chord with which the strings of the soul can resonate—a chord to which the soul can respond with full understanding, because it is, after all, the very tone of its own being.

[ 14 ] But these concepts, these ideas, these feelings—into which the spiritual researcher must clothe what he experiences—have the power to impress the innermost part of our soul so deeply that it feels drawn to them, because the concepts arise from activity and lead to activity. One cannot understand spiritual science with a casual mind that does not wish to be alive within itself. One can understand it only by attempting to follow it with the living life and interweaving of concepts. Thus, spiritual research stems from the activity of the soul and, at the same time, challenges the activity of the soul as it is grasped.

[ 15 ] From this, however, we see that when we show understanding toward spiritual research, we awaken the active power of the soul. It appeals precisely to everything within our soul that seeks to be active. Centuries of scientific education, however, have caused this active force of the soul to recede into the background. But when a force is stretched to its limit, the counterforce makes itself felt. And anyone who can look into the depths of today’s souls knows that they yearn to break free from mere watching and observing, toward that which calls forth their innermost activity. Through this, human beings learn to feel and experience that they stand in the midst of the spiritual world—but not as rational beings who merely participate in its life.

[ 16 ] Thus, the concepts, ideas, and feelings of spiritual science itself are the educators of the soul, seeking to guide it toward participation in the foundations of existence in which we are rooted. This first makes itself felt in that our thinking is guided—and we can truly speak of an inner spiritual treasure that permeates us through the understanding we bring to the concepts of spiritual science—in that our habits of thought, our way of perceiving, and our spiritual disposition are transformed. And while one may otherwise observe that in our time, especially among well-meaning thinkers, there is something about the orientation of thought that leaves much to be desired, spiritual science—the findings of spiritual research—can truly lead people to orient their thinking in such a way that it is permeated by habits that have a certain natural inclination toward truth; habits that have a tendency not to engage with the contradictions of life; to notice how thinking must penetrate external things. The education of our thinking, the sharpening of our thinking, is what will first emerge when spiritual science penetrates our cultural life.

[ 17 ] I would like to cite an example that clearly illustrates the state of intellectual acuity in our time. Let us suppose that a very prominent contemporary thinker—who is widely regarded today as a sharp mind—has engaged in various lines of thought that are noticed by those who have trained their own thinking in what thinking must not do. There is, for example, a recent book by such a thinker in which two assertions appear, separated by thirty or forty pages. The thinker in question seeks to explain in what sense people today can still be Christians. And one appeals in a pleasing way to the souls of today’s free-thinking people when one says—and he does say it—: “Today we must move beyond the stories of demons told in the Bible.”—Well, he may hold that view. Thirty pages later, however, one reads this curious sentence in the same book: “When the spiritual and the physical come into contact in the soul, demonic forces arise.” — If you tell this to someone, they might say: “Well, he didn’t mean it that way the second time; he meant it figuratively.” — Yes, my esteemed audience, that is precisely the point: that one is allowed to use such phrases without realizing how grotesquely one is thumbing one’s nose at all orderly thinking.

[ 18 ] But people don’t notice this today. And we are only just beginning to see our thinking corrupted in this direction by sheer passivity. This is the case for those who can see through things and observe them. In another famous book you can read today—it discusses the fight against a certain philosophical school of thought—that an author uses the following image: This philosophy moves like a clown who pulls the ladder he climbed up after him and then falls down. The book is certainly witty, but I would like to ask you how the clown is supposed to pull the ladder up after him. One thinks and writes such things only when one’s thinking is disoriented. But we are only at the beginning today; such books are brimming with intellectual impossibilities.

[ 19 ] But since external culture is, as it were, the imprint of what people think, our culture must gradually become permeated by disordered thinking—unless this very thinking gradually educates itself to the point where it can respond with a subtle sense of what can and cannot be said. What can be said must be felt as connected to the essence and fabric of reality. Immersing oneself in reality through focused thinking—that will be the fruit of spiritual science. Everyone will notice that this fruit of spiritual science harmonizes our lives; that it will thus pour into the soul something capable of truly bringing this life into harmony with reality. In this way, spiritual science already has a training and educational effect on our thinking, so that it becomes inwardly active and alive.

[ 20 ] And something else follows from this. Whoever gradually takes in within themselves what thinking—trained in spiritual science—can form within them will sense within themselves the independence of their inner being, the wisdom, and the spirituality of their very core. And there would be no materialism and no monism if one were truly to engage with a genuinely trained, energetic, and self-aware way of thinking. The strengthening and fortification of our soul is the fruit of what we gain for our thinking from spiritual science.

[ 21 ] But spiritual science also brings forth, as a second fruit of life, that which belongs to the realm of self-knowledge. Just as a diseased organism sometimes cannot tolerate even the freshest air—yet it is precisely this that reveals the organism’s illness—so, too, some people may find, when they adopt erroneous concepts regarding spiritual science, that they cannot tolerate it, that it gives them the impression that this spiritual science is mere fantasy or illusion. One will gradually come to realize that this is a matter of self-knowledge; that from it one can see how one must strive within the soul to gain an understanding of what the spiritual researchers can draw from the depths of the worlds.

[ 22 ] One can gauge how far one is from self-knowledge by measuring oneself against the demands that the spiritual researcher places on the soul. Therefore, no one should be deterred if they notice that, through spiritual science, their thinking is at first, in a certain way, as if numbed or thrown into disarray, or that their memory no longer seems as coherent as it used to be. These are all temporary phenomena. It is precisely here that we must recognize ourselves and tell ourselves: We must strive to rise to the point where we can endure the greater demands placed on the soul. Then, however, this spiritual science will impart its wholesome spiritual breath of life to us all the more.

[ 23 ] And if we take this further, we may find that even today, spiritual science is not universally valued as an essential part of life, simply because its value is not immediately apparent. After all, people today naturally value material goods far more than spiritual ones, because they do not fully grasp how material goods are, in fact, dependent on spiritual ones. But if some people could truly ask themselves—based on a certain understanding of things—and we can hear this question in our time from many souls who do not quite know what to make of this or that, who lack a healthy direction in life, who are unable to give themselves direction and strength from a powerful inner source—if some people could ask themselves: Where does all this come from?

[ 24 ] These things extend all the way down to our physical well-being. Today, more than ever before, we must speak of the nervousness of our age—how unbalanced people are, how they lack a sense of equilibrium. Where does this lack of equilibrium come from? Ultimately, it is rooted in the soul. Here is an example: What can most lead to a sense of physical discomfort, to all manner of symptoms of nervousness, and to everything else that makes our social life so difficult—what can lead to all of this—is spiritual desolation, an emptiness of the soul, and a disconnect between the soul and what spiritual research seeks to offer, what spiritual research seeks to fill the soul with.

[ 25 ] There are, of course, some people today who say they have no need at all for the concepts of spiritual science. That is certainly true. But this is only true at the level of their conscious mind. In the depths of the soul there is always a longing for the sources of existence. And what we do not give to the soul manifests itself within it as emptiness, desolation, and doubt. And—not overnight, but over the course of decades—what is lacking in the soul, what exists as chaos within it, spills over into the physical organism. We are no longer up to the task of life. We can no longer channel the soul’s forces into the physical body because the soul is empty. Because, in a natural way over the course of centuries, people have become accustomed to clinging to the external, they have become alienated from that which can permeate the soul with spiritual content. A vast array of unhealthy symptoms, extending even into the physical body—which prevent people from coping with life—stems from this. And this will only get worse unless spiritual science intervenes and gives the souls what they yearn for, without even realizing it in their conscious awareness.

[ 26 ] Have we not seen that in our time—I do not mean to say that pessimism exists at all, but rather that it has been examined in a peculiar way? When one speaks of pessimism in general, one would have to mention all sorts of misunderstandings. One could say that some older religions also contain elements of pessimism. But that is not the point; rather, it is the way in which people today attempt to substantiate pessimism. This substantiation reveals something very peculiar. Perhaps some of you will regard what I am about to say as a curiosity. In our time, Kant has found successors. And one of these successors has written *Studies on a Psychology of Pessimism*. He has conducted a peculiar investigation that takes a completely objective, passively scientific approach to human beings, seeking to determine whether life contains more suffering and unpleasantness than pleasure, happiness, and so on. This professor [Kowalewski] first attempted to determine whether this is truly the case by turning to schoolchildren. He had the children write down what they consider to be the joys of life and what they consider to be the sorrows of life. As sorrows, they wrote down: illness, death, flooding. As pleasures, they wrote down: ice cream, play, gifts. We should not be surprised by the nature of this zest for life. But for the positive researcher, it is the numerical ratios that matter, and Kowalewski did indeed not merely present ordinary numbers but complex integral concepts. His reasoning regarding pessimism is therefore not easy to follow. He found that in 39 cases, sorrow was emphasized, while in 25 to 27 cases, joy was emphasized. Thus, one can conclude from the children’s perspectives that life offers more sorrow than joy. And he argued: “That doesn’t quite lead to a positive conclusion; we need to approach it differently.” — He also consulted the diary of a well-known contemporary philosopher. This philosopher had always written down when he felt pleasure and when he felt suffering. And when Professor Kowalewski had reviewed this diary, he found that suffering outweighed pleasure. There he had his second piece of evidence. But he went even further; he sought something even more certain. He observed people who walk quickly and people who walk slowly. When one is sad, he says, one walks slowly; when one is happy, one walks quickly. That is the premise of that professor. And lo and behold, it turns out once again that there is a far greater number of sad, slow walkers. And so a book came into being in which these numerical ratios have been expressed in mathematical integral form, and, armed with these, one might say: Well, if one examines external life, the pessimistic worldview turns out to be justified, for external life contains far more of the fatal and the painful than of what is beneficial or pleasurable. Science has now proven this!

[ 27 ] Well, there’s really no need to even smile at such ideas. I don’t even want to discuss the value of such research or the extent to which it truly characterizes certain sciences. I simply want to ask: What exactly is the focus here? Well, it is on what affects human beings from the external world, what makes an impression on them, for nothing else can be investigated using such methods. The focus is not on what human beings are capable of offering—in terms of the coherence and integrity of their inner being—in response to the impressions coming from the outside.

[ 28 ] I’d like to mention something else that Mechnikov cited in his *Contributions to Optimism*. He speaks of a friend of his, a man who was very nervous, who experienced a profound aversion to life. He could no longer bear the sound of a carriage rattling. He could not hear when someone rang his doorbell. He could not see that many people were coming toward him. And many other things as well. You can imagine what was all unbearable for this man. In the end, he saw no other way to save himself than through morphine, in order to maintain a certain sense of stability within himself. He was often close to taking a dose of morphine so large that it would lead to his death. He was also close to death on several occasions, but time and again he was saved. Then Mechnikov continued: “That’s what this man was like, but his pessimism kept getting better and better.” And Mechnikov actually explains quite correctly why that is: “His external perception, so to speak, became increasingly dulled; the outside world no longer made as strong an impression on him as it used to.”

[ 29 ] Now let us ask ourselves: What brought about a greater equanimity of soul in this person? It was the fact that he became more numb to the impressions of the outside world, that he was able to shut himself off from these impressions. But throughout his life, his inner self was weak. However, it can never be a matter of first weakening ourselves to everything beautiful and sublime that the world has to offer in order to avoid becoming nervous; rather, it must come down to what I would like to express in the following words: Could this person not have achieved the same thing earlier, if a strong inner life, imbued with the substance of the soul, had stood in opposition to the perceptions of the external world? But this is precisely what spiritual science strives for: to make people internally steadfast against the changing impressions of the external world; so that we need not become numb to the world, and yet stand securely in the world.

[ 30 ] Then there will no longer be any need to examine questions about a better or worse life based on purely external factors. Kowalewski conducted an even more precise experiment and, through careful analysis, concluded that when we confront the external world, we have every reason to regard it as far richer in suffering than in pleasure. Here is what he did. He says: Let’s assume we are examining the sense of taste. — Now he determined—in the external sciences, concepts are necessary; where the spirit is lacking, concepts and words are needed—he called the sensation that even the smallest amount of any substance can still evoke in us the “gustie”; and so he determined what the gustie of quinine is, which creates an unpleasant sensation; sugar creates a pleasant sensation. He then had a number of people take quinine and sugar together to test how much of each was needed to balance them out. And lo and behold, he discovered that nearly twice as much sugar “gustie” had to be used as quinine “gustie” if the sugar “gustie” was to counteract the quinine “gustie.” That is to say, when it comes to the sense of taste, we must double the pleasant sensation if the unpleasant one is to be neutralized.

[ 31 ] What I am reflecting on is that one cannot measure something that nevertheless has an impact on our lives. And the mistake lies in failing to take into account that, when it comes to external life, we are actually not at all equipped to assess the “sugar taste” properly. We take it for granted, but we place a great deal of value on the taste of quinine. As is well known, illness affects us very deeply, while we rarely feel the joy of good health to its fullest extent. And this is related to the errors made in such studies.

[ 32 ] But we can also fill our health—which, if the emptiness of the soul persists, will gradually lead to boredom—with what comes to us from the spiritual world; and we can counter, so to speak, the self-evident dismalness of the external world with that which flows into us from the spiritual world, which can always sustain and support us. One should not deal with a pessimistic mood by asking: Is the world good or bad? — but rather by telling oneself: The person who cannot find the strength to stand firmly in the world has not drawn enough from the spiritual world. The equanimity that the person of whom Mechnikov speaks has acquired through the dulling of his outer constitution flows into our soul as a true source of life when we take in the concepts and ideas of spiritual science. Just as the most essential elements for the development of the spiritual researcher’s own soul flow from the soul’s equanimity, so, in turn, equanimity and harmony of the soul flow forth as a source of life from the findings of spiritual research.

[ 33 ] And there is one more point we can raise. We have now spoken of the influences of spiritual science on our thinking and imagination, on our mind. We can also speak of an influence on our will, on the initiative of our actions. Because the spiritual scientist provides us with concepts drawn down from the spiritual worlds, these concepts penetrate our soul in such a way that they are capable of directing our soul toward that which within it is independent of the external sensory world.

[ 34 ] But now, how much of our volition arises in response to external stimuli? I see something, and it stimulates me. Perhaps I see a flower; I pick it; I am stimulated by it. I carry out something in life one way or another. At one time, my teachers taught me something; as a result, I developed the skill to do this or that. When we examine our will, we find external stimuli everywhere. This is precisely what characterizes the will in everyday life: that it is stimulated from the outside to a greater extent than is commonly believed. Even people who consider themselves the freest are dependent on one stimulus or another. They believe they are acting freely, but they are acting only in response to what the outside world has presented as a stimulus. In particular, we can often observe that when people resist this or that in the name of the freedom of their soul, they are in truth resisting as a result of their own obstinacy, their lack of freedom—not as a result of the freedom of their spirit. In short, the will is, so to speak, initially rooted in the external world everywhere.

[ 35 ] When we take up spiritual science, what flows from its insights has a strengthening and invigorating effect precisely on this will. It works in such a way that this will becomes independent within the soul. But when it does so, we feel it as a force in the soul, as something that can receive inspiration only from within. We are enriched in our soul when we thus strengthen our will. External circumstances no longer affect this part of our inner being, which we have acquired as our self-determined will. We withdraw from external influences through our will. When someone delves ever deeper into spiritual science, they feel their will growing stronger within them. They can say: “I can now will more than before.” But this is attained only through devotion to spiritual science.

[ 36 ] But if there is no external impetus for the will, where must such impulses come from? Again, that which arises as a new will does not remain at rest, in inactivity, when it receives an impulse from within. There is only one thing that no longer compels: what is called love in the broadest sense. This means: The motives of our will must be warmed by love through the influence of spiritual science. We are learning more and more to recognize the deep meaning of the word:

[Duty]: where one loves what one commands of oneself —,

[ 37 ] where what leads us to act guides us entirely through the fact that we love what is to be done, that we strive to accomplish it with the power of the soul, with which we strive to accomplish everything that springs from love. In this way, we have attained a beautiful fruit as a treasure of life from spiritual science. We have achieved the transformation of our will into a will of love. The treasure of loving will grows ever greater when spiritual science becomes a source of life for us. Again, it is not, at first, something that provides us with material goods. But this loving will is a strengthening, valuable asset for our external security in life—and if we truly delve into spiritual science, we will see it growing ever more through the concepts and ideas of spiritual science.

[ 38 ] And once again, a measure of self-knowledge may be associated with this. One often finds that people give themselves a lot of credit when it comes to their will to love. But this is not very far-reaching. For when people, through wise self-observation, come to realize how the infusion of ideas and concepts from spiritual science makes them aware of what selfishness and lack of love still remain within them, then spiritual science once again becomes the beautiful corrective, the true guide to self-knowledge. On the one hand, it gives us the will to love; on the other hand, it makes us aware of how much of this will to love we still lack. Thus, spiritual science is also, to the highest degree, the treasure of life that can be described by the term “self-education.”

[ 39 ] Furthermore, spiritual science leads us beyond what concepts borrowed from the external world can offer us. It leads us to what the spiritual researcher discovers by stepping out of his body with his soul and connecting with the roots of the world from which he, spirit born of spirit, has been taken. It thus leads us to the very depths of our soul.

[ 40 ] It will become increasingly clear—as I also tried to explain yesterday through the parable at the end—that science, structured along the lines of external science, must come to a standstill at a certain point if it is to become a worldview. I could illustrate this with many ideas that are central to our understanding of life. But for now, I will illustrate it with just one idea. Let us suppose a philosopher who initially wants nothing to do with spiritual science—Lotze, a man of great intellect—I will stick to my habit of citing those whom I consider worthy of debate and regard as authorities — Lotze, who wrote a book, *Mikrokosmos*, and who has written many significant works on philosophy; he has also attempted to present a philosophy of religion. However, he arrives only at a concept of truth, at a recognition of such knowledge of truth that is gained according to the pattern of those concepts and ideas that are removed from external reality, that are passively acquired. Lotze therefore attempts to arrive at a philosophy of religion by constructing it in the spirit of external science. And lo and behold, Lotze goes as far as is humanly possible. Based on his premises, he arrives at the assumption of a spiritual being, a divine being that permeates and surges through the world, acting creatively. He comes to conceive of the laws of nature as shaped and imbued with spirit by a unified divine entity. But every time such a philosophy of religion seeks to show people how that which, according to the pattern of external truth, is shaped like a law of nature, is connected to moral precepts—to that which stirs us in life as inner impulses—they must come to a standstill before a duality for which they know of no connection. On the one hand, there are laws that operate with rigid, cold necessity. Where, in this entire system of natural laws, does that which lives within us as our moral impulses—that which drives us toward nobility in human existence and imbues us with morality—originate? Where does that spring forth out there? If philosophy is to become a worldview, then this question becomes pressing. It gains significance. If philosophy is to become the guide for a worldview—pointing out how, on the one hand, there is the world of necessities, and on the other, the world of moral precepts, which, however, lives within us as if excluded from the world—how is it rooted in the world? As long as one adheres to a passive concept of truth, one can never bridge this chasm, because there is a relationship between necessary truth and its lawfulness, on the one hand, and moral truth and its lawfulness, on the other—a relationship that cannot be perceived in the external world and cannot be passively grasped. Just as the relationship between the natural order and the moral order cannot be grasped, so too can the relationship between a mother and her child not be grasped through natural laws alone. The father could be there without the child being there. When the child is there, the child proceeds from the father, but the father could exist without a child. There is no necessity inherent in the father, yet the father leads to the child. One of the most significant concepts and ideas in Christianity is that the relationship of the one God to the God who is to permeate our innermost being in our morality is presented as the relationship of the Father to the Son, Christ. Theosophy, or spiritual science, shows us that there is a relationship between the moral world order and the necessity and world order governed by natural law, much like that of the Son to the Father.

[ 41 ] However, this relationship can only be understood by going beyond what can be expressed in passive concepts, to that which can be grasped in the spiritual world; which stands before us in such a way that Goethe could coin the words—he looked to Kant, who sought to set limits on human knowledge, who wished to regard the moral order of the world as mere faith; he called it an “adventure of reason” that one should not undertake—Goethe, who had to reject a worldview such as Kant’s; he said that if one could truly rise into the higher realms through virtue and faith in the moral realm, then one must bravely endure the adventure of reason and ascend into a higher world with one’s whole soul.

[ 42 ] Then something is poured into both the natural order and the moral order at the same time—something as communal as the relationship between father and son—because nature, if we consider it as it is, could exist without morality, just as a father could exist without a son. Only when we turn to what actually happened do we find the proper relationship between Father and Son.

[ 43 ] So we must turn to what has actually happened in the world, and there we come to the very heart of Christianity.

[ 44 ] I wanted to give you an example of how spiritual science can strengthen a person’s religious life in relation to the divine-spiritual force that pulses through the world—the religious concepts that the human mind needs to feel its connection to this force. For spiritual science shows us that we can truly grasp and understand that which, even according to a significant philosopher such as Kant, we were supposed to assume could only be believed.

[ 45 ] Our time, however, is moving into an epoch in which it is once again quite clear to the spiritual researcher how souls are yearning more and more not only to accept religious deepening based on the authority of faith, but also to be able to recognize, just as we recognize nature, that which binds human beings to the divine-spiritual in the cosmos outside.

[ 46 ] Another source of strength, then, will be that these concepts from the spiritual sciences will provide inner stability—and, in turn, a sense of inner grounding—for the newly awakening religious needs; for they will indeed awaken—religious needs appropriate to our time.

[ 47 ] The spiritual researcher himself is aware of all the objections that can be raised. For example, if someone were to say: “Well, you’ve presented spiritual science as a special bearer of love. Doesn’t Christianity claim that for itself?” — Yes, certainly. The person who says this is fully convinced of it, and perhaps quite rightly so from his point of view. But one could give him an answer that I once had to give to a clergyman who said to me: “Yes, what spiritual science says about Christianity—one can certainly go along with that, at least in many respects.” But one thing strikes me. The way you speak, you are speaking only to a select group of educated people who meet certain prerequisites. We, however, speak to all people. And surely a true teaching must be one that speaks to all people. — I replied to him: “Reverend, have you found that everyone goes to church with you?” — He could not say that. “You see,” I said, “it is to those who do not go to church with you that I wish to speak, for they, too, have a deep longing to understand Christianity. Yet the fact is that you do not speak to them. Therefore, you do not speak correctly to all people.” And we do not have the right to say: Something is right simply because we like it; we must observe the facts. You may think you are expressing your teaching in words that reach all people, but what we think is not always correct—rather, the facts must speak for themselves. We must also speak to those who do not go to church but who nonetheless have a longing to understand Christianity.

[ 48 ] Certainly, Christianity also speaks of love, but it is not merely a matter of speaking about the path to love; it is a matter of finding the path that is the right one for a particular time. One must not be so selfish as to say: “I want nothing to do with such a path to love, for the old one is good enough for me.”—That is selfishness that refuses to heed the longings and tendencies of souls who are touched by what will touch more and more souls as we move toward the future. But the spiritual-scientific worldview seeks to inspire those souls who need the new paths—and the number of such souls will continue to grow. It seeks to provide the kinds of life-giving gifts that have just been discussed.

[ 49 ] I could speak of many other blessings in life that can flow from spiritual science, but the fundamental point is how spiritual science creates these blessings, how spiritual science brings forth that which is immortal within us. Through this, however, that which awakens and stirs within us is brought to life—the realization: You are an independent being; within you is a source through which spiritual life can gush forth, a life that empowers you, that can give you strength, that can provide you with everything you need for your life.

[ 50 ] Spiritual science does indeed gradually transform into feelings and sensations. We do not merely experience immortality in a theoretical sense. From the overall structure of my lecture, you could see that the concepts of spiritual science bring to life within us—and allow to resonate—what the spiritual researcher investigates. This is particularly true of one of the most important questions of life: the question of immortality.

[ 51 ] If you delve deeper into spiritual science, you will encounter a spiritual scientific doctrine of immortality—a teaching about the core of the human being—that can be clothed in concepts and ideas, so that we not only know about immortality but also feel within ourselves that which is immortal. We become like a plant that can feel the seed growing within it into a new plant. We feel what passes through the gate of death; we learn to experience it. And the time will come when such principles, as set forth in my book *The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science*, will be applied to the education of the child—when the soul will be so inspired that it continues to live within us, and through the concepts we have absorbed, we will have developed a sense that enables us to know: As you live toward death, you increasingly develop that which is your eternal part. One will feel this oneself when, in the second half of life, one sees how wrinkles form on the skin, how the hair turns gray; one will feel how all this is like a withering flower, yet how there is something within us that develops ever more strongly, overcoming that which withers within us. And as one lives toward death, one will feel a new life. Old age will not merely be filled with empty hope, but with the experience within oneself of what is felt as a reality—that which is carried through death into the realms of the spiritual. And this will give us a sense of security in life. It will dispel all superficiality, all mental disjointedness, and all chaos in life. Thus, in addition to the other blessings of life, we will gain a particularly intimate blessing for our soul.

[ 52 ] Just as I have pointed out that, through the insights of spiritual science drawn from the depths of human inner and outer perception, one can indeed feel in harmony with all those who, throughout the course of human development, have intuitively grasped—in the true sense—the significance of human soul life and its relationship to the entire spiritual world, so I would like to conclude by speaking of a thinker who is largely forgotten today; a sincere, courageous thinker who, in a small booklet that truly is what its title page says—a “Dietetics of the Soul”—I would like to recall this dear connoisseur of the human soul, Feuchtersleben, who sought to delve so intimately into the requirements and needs of human life and the human soul; his *Dietetics of the Soul* was published more than 50 years ago. Hardly anyone with inner feeling will be able to read it without something within [them] being stirred—something that fills the soul with inner warmth; for Feuchtersleben was indeed one of those souls who, even though the science of the spirit did not yet exist for them, sensed and felt what the soul must yearn for. And there is a beautiful phrase into which I would like to condense, as into a single sensation, what I have spoken to you. He says:

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

[ 53 ] Yes, the soul’s true happiness lies in the expansion of its inner being and possessions, and—we might add—this is where the true treasures of the soul’s life lie. And if spiritual science is what I have attempted to describe yesterday and today, then it is indeed entirely that which, with all its impulses, strives toward the expansion of the soul’s inner being and possessions. And truly, with what spiritual science offers, one feels oneself standing within that which the finest minds of humanity have longed for and yearned for, because the soul needs it as its inner spiritual nourishment. Thus, one is in harmony with a soul as refined, delicate, and yet thinking and feeling on a grand scale as Feuchtersleben’s. And in conclusion, if one wishes to distill into a single sentiment, a general feeling, the very best that spiritual science can offer, one may say: Spiritual science provides the essentials of life; it fosters the genuine, true happiness of the soul. It is upheld in the sense intended by Feuchtersleben’s saying:

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

Question and Answer

Question: Is it okay to spank children?

[ 54 ] Rudolf Steiner: That’s not so easy to answer. Questions like this are taking on new meaning and importance in our time. There isn’t always a simple answer to a simple question. Simplicity may be convenient, but even a watch isn’t simple. The universe is certainly not so simple that it contains less power than a watch. Spiritual science does not make things more convenient, but through it one gains insight into areas that are indispensable for shaping one’s life. Then one discovers that simple things are actually complicated. Spiritual science accustoms one to taking all things a little more precisely, to taking all things a little more seriously. Farm children are given a good rap on the fingers—[with] sturdy tapper sticks adorned with an iron ring—yet they never became nervous. City children, who were never hit on the fingers, are often nervous. Life is simply complicated. What is brought about by one thing in one nature is not always brought about by the same thing in another nature.

[ 55 ] [Goethe rightly says]: “One thing does not suit everyone”; one must judge people according to their individuality and not according to abstractions. One cannot say that one thing or another is generally harmful or useful. Spiritual science will lead from the abstract to the concrete, to the direct perception of immediate, concrete life. Then one will find that the issue has little to do with nervousness; but far more important is the question of education from the standpoint of spiritual science. Then one can completely do without what is alluded to here. This education, however, requires much more the activity of the educator’s soul, which is able to find its way into every soul.

[ 56 ] Physical punishment is usually necessitated by the nature of the educator, not by that of the student. In general, it can be said that hitting—whether on the fingers or elsewhere—is not particularly recommended as a means of discipline.

Question: Is clairvoyance possible while awake? [...]

[ 57 ] Rudolf Steiner: As a rule, one cannot perceive both the physical-sensory world and the spiritual world at the same time. The physical world then seems to fade away, and the ability to perceive both simultaneously is usually brought about by bringing into spiritual vision something like an elevation of the soul. What matters is not the state itself, but rather that one is present in spiritual vision with one’s “I,” with one’s consciousness, in such a way that the experience is not like being in a trance, but is conscious. Only then can one seek the connection between the two worlds. It is said that matter does not appear to exist when this state occurs. Yes, it was said yesterday that one has an image before one’s eyes and must first learn to interpret these images. One cannot relate them to reality as in the physical world, but must first learn to interpret them.

Question: Is the concept of God actually set aside entirely in Theosophy, or at least not emphasized as much as it is in the Christian religion?

[ 58 ] Rudolf Steiner: The question is peculiar, because theosophy is named after the concept of “God” or “Theos.” It is as if one were speaking of Selters water from which the watery, liquid element has been completely removed. Such objections can only be raised as long as one has not engaged with the subject. We do not have the presumption to confine God within a limited concept; in Him we live, weave, and exist—as do our concepts. One can only become accustomed to the Divine very gradually. More often than not, such a question really means: “I want no other Christianity than the one I have always understood.” Question: Should infallibility be attained?

[ 59 ] Rudolf Steiner: That is an abstraction. Questions are often asked about the beginning of the world, the end of the world, and so on, but human beings can only gradually rise to an understanding of these things. The concepts that are usually brought up are, for the most part, as unsuitable as possible. Spiritual science places us within life itself and keeps us from abstract speculation. Through theosophy, moral issues are also brought into the concrete realm.

Question: Isn't there a danger that theosophists, through their focus on the “I,” might become detached from their fellow human beings?

[ 60 ] Rudolf Steiner: Where there is strong light, there is strong shadow. A transformation into the will to love must take place, so that the “I” is thereby sought much more externally than internally.

Question: Christ’s suffering and death are merely a model for us, since we still have to atone for our mistakes later on.

[ 61 ] Rudolf Steiner: I first need to get to the heart of this question. It stems from a misunderstanding of the concept of karma. People then ask: Why should I help someone who is in need and misery? It is precisely then that one should help them; that act is credited to their karmic account and continues to have an effect. Just as I can help one person, I can help two, three, five, fifty, a hundred, a thousand—and a powerful being like Christ can help all people in the realm of karma.

Question: How can I be freed from a sin of the mind that I cannot make amends for through repentance because the person involved has since passed away?

[ 62 ] Rudolf Steiner: This must be balanced out in the course of one’s life. One must not judge this from a merely earthly perspective. From a higher perspective, we are not dissatisfied with our fate. Between death and birth, we would be very dissatisfied if we did not have the suffering that flows from our actions; we do not perceive it as suffering at all, but rather as a blessing to be able to balance it out; we strive to balance it out. There is simply a completely different state between birth and death than between death and a new birth.

Question: How does anesthesia affect the subtle bodies?

[ 63 ] Rudolf Steiner: Whenever it is possible to avoid using anesthesia, one should do so. Normally, the spiritual-soul aspect leaves the body during sleep; under anesthesia, it is forced out—that is, coercion is applied. If it is necessary, one should, of course, resort to it. Question: Does a stillborn child have an “I”?

[ 64 ] Rudolf Steiner: Just as little as a corpse. An attempt may have been made to incarnate the “I” before it died in the mother’s womb.

Question: We’ve often heard about the effects of karma. What about compensation for the cruel punishments of the Middle Ages?

[ 65 ] Rudolf Steiner: It is like a ledger. The punishment is, so to speak, on the debit side and balances out with the other side. There does not have to be an immediate and unconditional balance when a punishment occurs. The soul would not even be satisfied with that after death, because it wants to achieve balance.

Question: Some of the female Theosophists have an unusual appearance in terms of hairstyle and clothing. A stranger might feel uncomfortable seeing them!?

[ 66 ] Rudolf Steiner: That is certainly not a result of the spiritual movement! One must be tolerant of others’ tastes; perhaps that is one of the treasures of Theosophy. If you yourself want to wear what you like, why shouldn’t you allow others to do the same? Hopefully, it is not all too common for female Theosophists to become just like male Theosophists simply because of their hairstyles and clothing. And, my dear friends here today, wearing what one likes is something other women do as well, and the female Theosophists don’t say anything about it either, even if they don’t always like it.

[ 67 ] Question: [Is there] self-awareness after death?

[ 68 ] Rudolf Steiner: Self-consciousness is rooted in what remains after death. It’s just that after death, one has different tools for perception. The eyes and ears fall away. The soul creates other tools for itself. [The] sense of self is certainly preserved—indeed, with a much more intense character. Are other theosophists said to have claimed that after death there is only consciousness, but no sense of self? That may be written in this or that book, but it has nothing to do with the spiritual science meant here.

Question: On the other hand, the visionary of Prevorst: The people she speaks of still show remorse.

[ 69 ] Rudolf Steiner: That does not rule out self-awareness.

[ 70 ] The remaining questions are not of a nature that would make them suitable for answering here.