The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. What is Immortal about Human Beings?

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! It is undoubtedly important for human beings at all times to engage in the necessary reflections on the great question of the spiritual nature of the human being and human destiny. And, fundamentally, it is these questions that are to form the basis of our reflections this evening. But it seems particularly natural for the human heart, in these fateful times—when death and fate itself stride so powerfully and tragically across the world—to turn its feelings, its ideas, and its reflections toward this enigma that cuts so deeply into the life of the human soul.

[ 2 ] Now, whenever I have been permitted to offer such reflections here from the field of spiritual science, it has often been pointed out that the nature and perspectives of spiritual science still stand in stark contrast to what is recognized and considered possible in our time through centuries-old habits of thought and feeling. Spiritual science still finds no support in what constitutes “external science” today, and especially not in what has developed from this science—like a kind of creed—in the widest circles; in all of this, spiritual science still finds no support. For all habits of thought, all [research practices] that have developed in the manner indicated, seem—and I say expressly, seem—to be in direct opposition to what spiritual science has to say about the great mysteries of human existence.

[ 3 ] However—and this, too, has been mentioned here frequently—relatively speaking, my esteemed audience, the shift that must take place in human thought from the current way of viewing things to that of spiritual science will not be any greater—relatively speaking —than the one that had to take place when the dawn of the scientific way of thinking broke; when, so to speak, all concepts, all ideas, and all notions people held about the structure of the world, the interrelationships of the world, the nature of the human soul, and the fabric of human destiny—when all these notions were subjected to transformation. Just as it certainly seemed to many people back then that the firm ground of their imaginative life upon which they stood was being shaken, so it may be for many today in relation to the concepts of spiritual science. But the human soul is malleable; the human soul is born for progress. And just as the natural-scientific perspective has become interwoven with human development, so too will the spiritual-scientific worldview become interwoven with it.

[ 4 ] Now, however, it must be said: Precisely when the question arises—What is immortal in the human being?—the habits of thought of the present day resist, in the most diverse ways, the recognition of those truths that spiritual science has to offer based on its foundations. Above all—as we shall see confirmed in the course of today’s lecture—the very nature of those truths that pertain to the immortal human being is entirely different from the nature of those truths that pertain to external, sensory things and to the scientific description of these sensory phenomena. Human beings have become so accustomed to attributing reality to that of which they can say: “The matter has been confirmed to me by something that lies outside my inner life.” But this is not how the truths of spiritual science can present themselves. It is impossible for them to refer, as the truths of natural science do, to something that provides external confirmation and to which we need only surrender, so that one can say: “The matter is true because it presents itself to us in such and such a way in observation, independently of our inner life.” That which appears as truths of spiritual science—especially truths about the immortal human soul—must be grasped from within. And for this grasping, there are no external points of reference; there is no appeal to anything that proves itself true independently of the human soul.

[ 5 ] Therefore, as was already stated yesterday, spiritual science must say, without any arrogance: It must be a kind of courageous science—a science that boldly dares to experience the impulses of truth not through observation but through inner experience. Therefore, spiritual science cannot passively devote itself to observing the world, but must arise as the soul actively develops the powers hidden within itself, bringing to the surface what lies hidden in its deepest depths—that which contains the power of truth within itself. This is one of the reasons why the truth of spiritual science stands in such stark contrast to current habits of thought.

[ 6 ] The other, highly esteemed person present here is even more closely related to the topic we are to consider today. We shall see that spiritual science reveals something in the human soul that is immortal—something that, in a certain sense, is so fundamentally different from everything our senses convey to us, from everything we think, feel, and will in everyday life, so fundamentally different from all of that that, in this everyday life, human beings actually pass by heedlessly precisely that which is eternal and immortal within them. And they pass it by all the more carelessly precisely because they are inclined to attribute reality not to what confronts them as the essence within their own inner being—which finds its way through the eternities and through births and deaths. In a sense, what is immortal within us is something so light and fleeting in everyday life that we are not at all inclined to attribute the most intense reality of life to this very lightness and fleetingness.

[ 7 ] I have spoken here many times about how this immortality is found in the human soul, yet this search for the immortality of the human being must be discussed again and again from different perspectives, for the simple reason that spiritual scientific investigations are complex and multifaceted. And only when they are characterized from the most diverse perspectives is it possible to gain a true understanding of them.

[ 8 ] If one says that what is immortal in the human being must be grasped through the unfolding of those soul forces that are initially hidden in the deepest innermost part of the human being and that must be brought forth through inner soul [experience]—if one says this, then modern people initially believe that, in essence, only something subjective, something of personal value, can be attained through this.

[ 9 ] The beginning of spiritual research is, in fact, something subjective; it is an inner experience and the inner development of powers otherwise hidden within the soul. It is a process of overcoming, an inner journey, a working one’s way up from darkness into light—a process that must therefore be lived through in the most diverse ways by the various souls of human beings; a process that is certainly subjective at first. But this belief can persist only because most people lack the patience to accompany the spiritual researcher far enough along the path. For even though every beginning of spiritual research is steeped in the subjective—so that it develops out of the most personal of the personal—it is precisely through this inner overcoming, through this inner struggle, that the soul is driven, so that it overcomes the inner self within itself. And by working out an objective element—lying within her—from within, she can gain entry into a new world that opens up to her just as if, for example, a new sense were to awaken within our physicality, forcing a whole new realm of the external sensory world to open up to us. But the impulse from the subjective toward the objective in spiritual struggle and spiritual inquiry—this impulse is an intimate one; it is one that necessitates the human being’s acquisition, within himself, of spiritual habits that do not otherwise occur in everyday life. I have also already emphasized that inner activity of the soul which reshapes and transforms it in such a way that it can enter the spiritual worlds that always surround us and that remain hidden only from the unprepared soul.

[ 10 ] The first thing the soul must practice in order to truly—and scientifically, not merely through faith—come to know its own nature is what might be called technically precise concentration of thought—a concentration that appeals not merely to the inner power of thought, but to the exertion of inner willpower in thinking and imagining. Those thoughts that arise because the external world makes an impression on us, and that become established within us because they penetrate us through the senses, because they trigger a sensory process in our body, and because this sensory process fills us from within, attest to reality—these thoughts, which are sustained as reality within our own bodies through the effects of the external sensory world, so that we believe in their reality—these thoughts cannot help us when we seek the immortal essence of the human soul.

[ 11 ] These must be other thoughts—thoughts that are, in essence, quite similar, or at least outwardly similar, to such mental constructs, such inner experiences—experiences, my esteemed audience, that all too easily succumb to a very particular inner fate: the fate of coming as quickly as dreams and passing away just as swiftly—experiences that easily succumb to the fate of being forgotten. We are, after all, familiar with this fate of being forgotten through a universal human experience: the experience of dreaming. We know that what flits through our soul as a dream experience is quickly forgotten. Why? Because the dream engages our entire physical being in a much less intense way, and thus creates far fewer conditions within that physicality through which we inwardly feel—feel, precisely in the embodiment of thoughts, the reality—and thereby permanently retain that reality. In a sense, the experience of thought does not translate into the physical to the same extent and therefore flits by.

[ 12 ] The same is true of thoughts that we, in a sense, allow to pass through our souls as thoughts formed independently of ourselves. We often observe them and call them daydreams; they are quickly forgotten and vanish just as quickly. And yet, the further one progresses, the more thoroughly one trains oneself to develop precisely those inner forces that can sustain formed thought experiences in the soul—just as phenomena based solely on external sensory impressions are otherwise sustained— the [further] one advances in this unfolding of inner soul activity that remains within the soul, the better one trains oneself for spiritual research. This is the basis of what, in the true sense of spiritual research, is called “concentration of thought.”

[ 13 ] The least suitable form of mental concentration is immersing oneself in thoughts that are mere reflections of external, sensory reality. The most suitable are the mental images we create—those that do not directly represent anything, but which we freely form in our minds and to which we then devote ourselves. I have described such [inner mental processes suitable for meditation] in the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds?*, [for example]. If one wishes to hold on to such thought-forms—which are freely created in the mind—one must apply a stronger, more powerful inner will to hold them than one usually has in everyday life.

[ 14 ] Externally, we have a firm foundation in our spiritual experience precisely because thoughts trigger a real material process, make an impression, [and bring about real changes in the body]. Supported by these changes, the experience is, as it were, so concrete that we need to muster little will—little inner spiritual will—to hold on to such thoughts. But when it comes to thoughts that we form freely—thoughts to which nothing compels us, which we engage with simply to strengthen our inner spiritual power—maintaining such thought-forms, feelings, or even impulses of will requires a strong concentration of the soul’s inner power and a far stronger will than that required for everyday thinking. But it is precisely on this that the spiritual training necessary for [exploring the spiritual worlds] is based—that inner strength and inner energy, which otherwise remain untapped in everyday thinking, are, as it were, set free.

[ 15 ] This is why people who need the aforementioned support for their thinking grow weary all too quickly in this concentrated thinking and all too quickly fall into a state not unlike falling asleep. But it is only by exerting the inner forces of the will—those that relate solely to the inner movement of thoughts—that we attain the greater powers we need in the soul to grasp not only the transitory, but also the imperishable, the immortal aspect of the human soul.

[ 16 ] And now it becomes apparent that when a person, over a longer period of time, one might say, thought and feeling—united with the will—are developed through faithful inner training, it becomes evident that the person is then able to have [a] truly inner experience of imagination, that they are completely absorbed in this inner experience of imagination, that all their powers are gathered within this experience of imagination, and that the rest of their soul life seems to sink into the background. To achieve this, the spiritual researcher must ensure that, so to speak, the world is diverted in all directions and the soul becomes entirely one with something that it has itself placed at the center of its inner life in the healthiest way possible, [as I would like to expressly emphasize]. All powers of the will must be directed toward that which stands thus in the depths of the soul’s life. Only then does the human being realize what the power of thought is and how thought, if it is to reign freely in the human soul’s life, must be supported by strong powers of the will.

[ 17 ] And then, [my esteemed audience], the spiritual researcher has a very specific experience—one that we must certainly take seriously. This experience occurs at a very specific point. The exercise I have just discussed must be practiced for many months, even years. Time and again, we must return to the task of evoking [thoughts and images] in our consciousness through the inner, spiritual power of the will alone. And time and again, we must develop this direct life of thought. Then, after some time, we have a specific experience arising entirely from this process. At first, the spiritual researcher succeeds, so to speak, in concentrating their thinking [ever more brightly and clearly], more and more intensely, and in being fully immersed in the experience of thought. And they notice that the experience of thought intensifies, becoming ever more powerful and more powerful. Indeed, he feels how his entire consciousness of being is increasingly shaken and shaken as it merges—in a general merging and becoming one—with the concentrated thinking.

[ 18 ] But then there comes a very specific critical point, which consists in the fact that just when we have arrived at the experience of the thought’s power, this thought shatters within itself in our soul, as if dissolving within our soul. One might say that the critical point occurs when the thought, as it is carried to its highest energy, darkens, grows dim, and ceases to be present to us. And we, who have, as it were, followed the thought, identified ourselves with it, feel how something—how our entire being—goes along with the thought. And that is a significant, an immensely significant experience.

[ 19 ] When put that way, it might seem simple; but the experience I am referring to is not simple. It is an experience that shakes up all the soul’s powers, one that, in a sense, calls into question everything one has felt up to that point, everything one has come to regard as valuable to the soul in one way or another. And what particularly resists drawing near to this experience—what stands in our way again and again like an obstacle, causing us to remain stuck in the past, to not go far enough for this experience to approach us, that which, as it were, does not allow us to draw near to this final experience—these are the forces of human egoism connected to the depths of the soul.

[ 20 ] This is what is meant, esteemed audience: that if we do not mobilize all our energies—all our inner forces of will—we will simply get stuck sooner, unable to reach the point where the thought, as it were, shatters. We do not accomplish this in our consciousness; rather, it takes place entirely through unconscious will. It prevents us from moving forward because we are afraid—an inner fear that does not rise to consciousness—that something far worse than even physical death could happen to us.

[ 21 ] When I speak of this fear, it is, of course, a trivial matter that someone who wants to cling to materialistic ideas might say: “Well, compared to physical death, the experience can’t be that bad.” But it is in fact an experience that does not enter ordinary consciousness at all, yet which seizes the life of the soul as a force, as an impulse—an impulse that acts like an unconscious fear: not only of the body’s destruction, but of dissolving, of the whole of one’s own being being poured out into the cosmos, into the entire surroundings. One does not want to pour oneself out in this way. [One has not consciously felt this in one’s soul, but one does not want to approach this experience.]

[ 22 ] If one overcomes all those indescribable sensations—which must nevertheless be called feelings of fear—if one overcomes all of that, then, esteemed audience, there comes a moment when one knows with absolute certainty, knows through inner experience: Now, through the powers you have developed in this way through concentration of thought, you draw something out of your body. But it is precisely this drawing out of a spiritual being that—as you now know—otherwise permeates the body; this drawing out always seems particularly perilous: For this extraction is precisely connected with the feeling that one must dissolve, and that something remains trapped within us—something we cannot extract in this way, yet which must be drawn out of us if it is not to fall into the dissolving nothingness that is to be drawn out in the manner described. We have a clear awareness: Well, something else must be drawn out of us [if we want to draw the entire inner human being out of ourselves]. Concentration of thought alone is not enough. It draws only a part of us out. We have this clear awareness.

[ 23 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, if one wants to understand why it is so difficult for a person to have experiences such as those I have described, one can start with quite ordinary experiences that are not even noticed at first. What has been described consists, after all, of a relationship of attraction into which a person must enter with themselves. It presupposes that a person has the inner strength to approach their own being, so to speak. But nothing is as questionable in ordinary life, ladies and gentlemen, as a person’s relationship to themselves. In ordinary self-knowledge, this relationship of a person to themselves is expressed only very, very inadequately, even in everyday life.

[ 24 ] I would like to cite an example that seems to come from a completely different source than the topics I have just discussed. A prominent contemporary philosopher has written a book on the “Analysis of Sensations.” Right on the third page, he describes a strange experience he had twice. He was a philosopher and a university professor. In his own way, he, too, struggled to develop a worldview: Dr. Ernst Mach.

[ 25 ] He says there:

When I was very young, I was walking down the street one day when I saw a person coming toward me with a face I found extremely unappealing—even repulsive. I was quite startled when I realized that it was my own face in profile, which I saw because I had walked past a row of mirrors that were positioned in such a way that I could see my own face.

[ 26 ] Not only do people, but even philosophers, know so little about their own nature! But he recounts a second, similar experience that happened to him not when he was very young, but in his later years. He says:

Not too long ago

[ 27 ] —in the 1990s —

After a very exhausting train ride, I got on a bus, feeling very tired, and noticed that a man was also getting on from the other side of the bus, and I thought to myself: What kind of shabby schoolteacher is getting on there? Only then did I notice that there was a large mirror on the back wall, reflecting my own image!

[ 28 ] He adds:

So I was more familiar with the social habitus than with my own personal habitus.

[ 29 ] He knew himself so little that he was extremely surprised by his own appearance. [In other words, he knew what a down-and-out schoolmaster looked like, but he didn’t know exactly what he himself looked like.]

[ 30 ] [Yes, my esteemed audience], it is, of course, very easy to laugh at such things, but they are deeply, deeply significant if one wishes to grasp just how questionable the relationship is that a person has with himself in everyday life. But what prevents us, dear friends, from entering into a relationship with ourselves in everyday life that leads to self-knowledge—all of that is at the same time a sum of forces that prevent human beings from directing their concentration of thought toward the kind of development described above, to the point of bringing forth a second human being located within the inner self. One can see that the very forces that prevent a person from detaching themselves from their inner life—from that with which this inner life is connected from birth to death—are stored within the human being. But this detachment is achieved through the process described. However, this is such that, due to this obstacle, we are not yet at the point where we can bring our entire being out of ourselves. Something else must be added to the concentration of thought. We must not only develop a more energetic relationship to our thoughts than is the case in everyday life, but we must also develop a completely different relationship to what constitutes our destiny—the destiny in which we live—than we do in everyday life.

[ 31 ] How do we actually relate to our fate in everyday life? What we call our experiences of fate—we see them approaching us, some pleasant, some unpleasant. They befall us as “coincidences of life,” as we say. In a sense, we regard what befalls us as fate as something external, as something outside our very being, and we grow up and develop from birth to death with this notion that fate befalls us in such a way that it is something external to us. But even a simple reflection extending merely over the span of life between birth and death can teach us that what must be called fate is by no means something so external to human beings.

[ 32 ] When we look back on ourselves at some point in life—at, let’s say, a later, more mature age—and take stock of who we are, what we can do, and what we are capable of in life, then—if we do not wish to shut ourselves off from a true understanding of human nature—we will come to realize, my esteemed audience, that we must say to ourselves: Yes, I would not be able to do this or that now if this or that had not happened in my life eighteen, twenty, thirty, or thirty-five years ago, [if] experiencing this or that had not led me to these and those endeavors. I am the result of what entered my life back then as a fateful experience, and had it not happened, I would not be the “I” that I am today.

[ 33 ] And if we take this whole bundle of what we possess in terms of talents, strengths, habits, and our inner life, we can already see how it develops between birth and death out of the experiences of fate that have befallen us—how we would be a completely different person if fate had not made us what we are. Even in ordinary life, we are our own coiled-up, intertwined destiny. One does not view oneself abstractly, but concretely in all that one has become as a fifty-year-old person; and one asks oneself what one is capable of, what one is—woven together from the experiences of fate—and whether one cannot trace the entire tangle [that is wound together there] back to those experiences of fate.

[ 34 ] [But what happens when one takes such a line of thought seriously—that kind of seriousness which is truly not all too common in everyday life, but which, when cultivated, becomes a second means of spiritual research. If one takes such a line of thought seriously], then one comes to say to oneself: Yes, fate is not at all something external to me; I am right in the midst of fate. The experience that has come to me has now become part of my self. And when I survey my entire fate, my self is right there within it. I step, as it were, out of myself with my consciousness and pour myself into the entire stream of my destiny. But this must be considered with deep seriousness; it must, in a sense, become methodical. Then, through such a spiritual activity, the opposite of what has occurred through concentration of thought comes about, so to speak. With our thinking, we are otherwise within ourselves. After all, we usually have thoughts that are based on external impressions and therefore derive their foundation and power from complex inner circumstances. But when we engage in concentration of thought, we project our thoughts outward so strongly that our inner being follows, and we feel as though we are losing ourselves in the process. When we immerse ourselves in our destiny, we undergo the reverse process. Then we step out of ourselves, but into something we [otherwise] believe to be external—something we believe flows to us from the outer stream of life. We step out of ourselves and into something of which we now realize: [This is what creates and shapes us; we grow together with something we believed to be external].

[ 35 ] If we [pursue this] with intense seriousness—that is, if we step outside ourselves through our will and are able to say to ourselves: “What I have experienced as fate, I am already immersed in; I have brought it about myself, for I am connected to it through my ‘I.’ [If we make this a habitual inner practice], then we step out of ourselves once more, but in such a way that we draw in the other part of our inner being—the part that has, as it were, been torn away, the part that has not been brought forth through concentration of thought—so that this part is now drawn in and unites with what was first brought forth, and now a whole, previously hidden inner human being is drawn out of us—an inner human being in whom we then know ourselves to be alive, in whom we know ourselves to be so alive that we now look at this outer, this physical human being just as we otherwise look at our external surroundings, tables, and chairs.

[ 36 ] I have thus indicated two methods to you that are just as much technical means of genuine spiritual research as the procedures carried out in the laboratory, the physics laboratory, or the clinic are—methods that must be strictly distinguished from those used in the study of external nature. The difference is that when one wishes to investigate the spiritual realm, one cannot conduct external [experiments], but rather must engage in inner soul experiences that bring about a transformation, so that the soul, in its very essence, withdraws from its body.

[ 37 ] Today, spiritual science need not even speak in abstract terms about the fact that the human spiritual being is something real that separates from the body; rather, one might say that spiritual science now knows, through spiritual experimentation, how to separate the physical and the psychological just as one separates oxygen from hydrogen, in order to show that the oxygen is contained within [water]. And the spiritual-psychic is contained within it and can be extracted through procedures that must be strictly observed. However, while we are experimenting in the laboratory, we approach these things from the outside with a certain indifference.

[ 38 ] The trials that the spiritual researcher must undergo are those that represent, as it were, inner spiritual tragedies, represent acts of overcoming, and represent an inner struggle—inner joy, inner disappointment, standing on solid ground, and, in turn, the feeling of facing the abyss; all of this in the often eerie, often also blissful concreteness of inner psychological experience. But then, when the spiritual researcher has managed to separate this true inner self from his physical body, he knows that the physical body—which he now regards, together with the being that is now outside the body, that it contains all the forces which begin with birth—or, let us say, with conception—and are surrendered to the earthly element at death; and he tells himself that what he has thus drawn out is at work in this earthly, physical body, that in this drawn-out part of the human being he has grasped the eternal core of the soul, and has grasped it together with its destiny. Now he knows that what separates itself every night upon falling asleep from the physical body that remains in bed is at the same time this eternal core of being, which, from the moment of falling asleep until [until] waking is in [the] spiritual world, and can therefore not be perceived simply because, in ordinary life, the human being lacks the inner strength to bring about the permeation and interweaving necessary for this soul-being—which lies outside the body—to make it shine and sound—in a spiritual sense—[so that] one perceives it for oneself and once again [has] the strength [to] look back down [at the outer, physical body].

[ 39 ] [But then, by investigating what lives within the body, one has at the same time grasped that which passes through births and deaths.] And by comprehending the soul as united with its destiny, one has grasped that which existed in the spiritual world before a human being was born or conceived, which represents the sum of the forces that first descend into what is given by the father and mother as the physical body, and work their way into it, [in order] to use the body as an instrument, [to] [be an inner creative force throughout life], to work in the sensory world and also to wear out the body in the course of life, and [to] grow ever stronger inwardly, so as to then pass through the gate of death back into the spiritual world, in order to prepare there for a new physical life.

[ 40 ] Something else becomes vividly real to the spiritual researcher: that he is able to understand why, in ordinary life, this eternal, immortal core of being cannot be perceived, why nothing is known about it. While living between birth and death, however, one works all of life’s experiences—[all sensations, feelings, and thoughts]—everything that life offers—into this immortal core of being. But since in everyday life one is accustomed to perceiving and working only with the two physical eyes, the active forces of the physical body continually obscure these inner formative forces, which submerge into the body and, while working within it, cannot become objects of knowledge; instead, [that] they might become a power of cognition, they are eternal formative forces of the body, are consumed for something else, similar to what constitutes the working out of external physical existence. But we come to know this force, so that the present body, which we bear between birth and death, is not its cause, as materialism believes, but on the contrary is its effect: [Just as it presents itself in life, it is the effect of that which has descended from the spiritual world—indeed, that which bears within itself the fruit of earlier earthly lives.] That which emerges from it, that which has descended from the spiritual world—indeed, that which bears within itself the characteristics of earlier earthly lives. For as soon as one comes to observe that which lives within the body and can be extracted from the body in the manner described, one knows that what lives there is as it is now precisely because it is not living in the body for the first time; one sees spiritually that it bears within itself the fruits it has earned in previous earthly lives. And in direct perception, the entire life appears before the spiritual researcher in such a way that it is composed of what has been attained in the spirit; [this] is transformed so that it can in turn form a new life.

[ 41 ] Thus, my esteemed audience, spiritual research does not proceed through fantasy, nor by engaging in vague, philosophically abstract reflections [are undertaken], but through a spiritual experimental method modeled entirely on the natural sciences, to trace the eternal, undisturbed essence of the human being as it passes from one earthly life to the next and shapes destiny, so that one can say: That which you are now experiencing, that which is now making an impression on you, becomes a force within your immortal being; it passes through the gate of death, it is transformed, so that in your next life it enriches your self—the self that works within your destiny. It is you yourself who, within your destiny, have brought this over from a previous life and carry it into the present; it is you yourself in the core of your immortal being.

[ 42 ] Certainly, esteemed audience, it will take a long, long time in the development of human spiritual culture before a larger number of people will participate in spiritual science, which has been described here as something positive. But this spiritual science will become, just like chemistry or physics—or indeed any branch of the external natural sciences—a truly integral part of humanity’s spiritual culture. And just as the external natural sciences have brought progress to humanity in the external, material realm—in a sense, radically transforming life on Earth as far as human beings and their circumstances are concerned—so too will spiritual research intervene in human life. And that which consists of moral impulses, human consciousness of one’s own being, and life in its very essence—spiritual science will transform all of this, once and for all, provided that the prejudices that still quite understandably stand in the way of this spiritual science today are overcome. These prejudices will be overcome just as the prejudices against the natural sciences were once overcome.

[ 43 ] Anyone who believes that spiritual science—as described here in just a small part—is something entirely imaginary and fantastical—anyone who is able to grasp the inner essence of this spiritual science knows that such a person is living in the same error as those who, back then, said that this fool, Copernicus, imagined that the Earth revolves around the Sun, when yet anyone with sound five senses could see that the Earth stood still and the Sun moved around it!” Just as people said back then: Anyone with sound senses cannot possibly believe the fool Copernicus, since both aspects of the outer cosmic world contradict the appearance perceived by the sound five senses. So, of course, people today must also say: Anyone in their right mind truly cannot believe that one can elevate one’s thinking to such an extent that one first draws it out of oneself—as if it were a part of one’s inner self—and then draws the rest along by immersing oneself in destiny. But human history marches right past such prejudices. And just as humanity has learned to no longer trust the appearance of the senses regarding the course of the heavenly bodies, so too will it have to learn to no longer trust the appearance of the senses regarding what passes through the human soul through births and deaths—and which withdraws from the appearance of the senses once more when it passes through the gate of death and leaves the realm of the senses.

[ 44 ] Ladies and gentlemen, there is a power of belief that is stronger than the one to which many still rightly appeal today—especially when one considers contemporary history and current circumstances—and stronger than the one invoked by those who rely on the so-called five healthy senses and on research recognized as valid today. There is a stronger force. But this force is connected to the deepest impulse of all human progress toward truth. And one must cultivate this within oneself to some extent if one wishes to commit to spiritual science today: this trust in humanity’s progress toward truth. But this trust is also something that instills a strong moral force within our souls. And there lies a gain in life in the very fact that a person is able to put themselves in a position to appeal to the powers of knowledge within themselves—powers that they must courageously bring forth through the strength of their own soul, and which carry the truth on their own wings through the world, rather than merely borrowing it from what presents itself to the external senses. Yet it is powerful inner experiences of destiny that the human soul must undergo if it wishes to engage with what—one might say—naturally goes unnoticed in everyday life, if it wishes to engage with the immortal core of being. Thus, one may say that we have now reached a point in human development where what could not previously be science must now become science.

[ 45 ] Certainly, esteemed audience, what the spiritual researcher, so to speak, [distills] from the human being in order to present it to our understanding is, after all, always within the human being; it is, in fact, the immortal aspect of the human being. The spiritual researcher does not grasp it; the spiritual researcher merely brings it into the realm of knowledge.

[ 46 ] And certainly one can raise an objection here—an obvious objection—which is particularly obvious precisely because it is closely tied to what is so deeply intertwined with our inner spiritual life: it is closely tied to the inner spiritual comfort of human beings. One might ask: Why bother with this eternal core of our being? We will come to it anyway in eternal life, once we have shed our bodies. Why make the effort? [After all, it is eternal—we’ll see after death!] We can calmly surrender ourselves to life and, for the rest, leave it to the spirits of the world to do whatever they wish with our immortal core! Two things must be said in response to such a flimsy objection.

[ 47 ] First, it is a matter of what humans must do—not merely that they know this or that, or that they perceive this or that—but that they must be concerned with ensuring that the general process of evolution and development of humanity on Earth continues. Just as the laws and ideas of natural science were once unknown and were brought forth from the [unknown] darkness into the realm of knowledge, so too are most truths initially unknown and must be brought forth from the unknown into the known. All of humanity’s progress is based precisely on this bringing forth of what was previously unknown. And anyone who does not wish to participate in this progress of humanity—so that spiritual truths may be incorporated into this progress in the future, just as natural science had to be incorporated in the past—should simply admit that, deep down, they are indifferent to all human progress, even though they are part of it. This is the more abstract approach, even if it is [significant].

[ 48 ] The other point, however, is that it is not merely such abstract progress that takes place in the process of human development, but rather a very, very concrete progress. It is merely a superficial view of human development on Earth to believe that, as long as humans have existed on Earth, they have essentially remained the same. In fact, they were not essentially the same at all. Today we presume to judge a Greek, a Roman, or a soul from ancient Persian history, because we have no idea how very different the souls of people in ancient times were from those of people today. When we look back to ancient times, we find [everywhere at the core of the souls] an inner, clairvoyant consciousness dating back to primeval times and originating from ancient regions, through which the souls maintained their inner connection with the divine-spiritual forces of the world. But it is precisely in this that all independence of the human being lies: that in the course of evolutionary history, he withdraws from this original, dreamlike clairvoyance, freeing himself from it at first. This is also the basis for the possibility of today’s purely external knowledge; and now—after humanity has attained the stage of detachment from spiritual life—it must once again be embraced by spiritual life, and the substantial spiritual life must once again be [infused into the soul] through spiritual science.

[ 49 ] Today, however, most of us as human beings are still at a stage where we can say: We still possess so many inherited powers that our soul is not darkened or [diminished] when it passes through the gate of death. But as human beings progress from one life to the next, they undergo a process of development. The inner spiritual powers are diminished and subdued. And as human beings move from their present lives into future ones, they must consciously and out of inner freedom develop within themselves that which fills them with a conscious connection to the astral world—with powers that can be unleashed only within the soul itself— so that he may experience the life between death and rebirth not in dullness, but in bright inner feeling and experience.

[ 50 ] The fact that spiritual science is now entering the course of human development is connected with the entire meaning of Earth’s evolution; it is connected with the fact that human beings could only become free by, in a certain sense, severing the thread that bound them to the spiritual worlds. But now, out of freedom and out of free consciousness, human beings must once again reestablish this bond that connects them to the spiritual worlds. It is impossible that, little by little, beginning with the present time, more and more people will not come to recognize the necessity of incorporating into their consciousness insights from the spiritual world—insights into the eternal essence of the human being.

[ 51 ] Therefore, wherever spiritual life has become more intense in recent times—where it has felt a greater need to draw certainty about life and destiny from within—there the idea of repeated earthly lives arises. We encounter it, for example, in the eighteenth century in one of the leading figures of German intellectual life, Lessing. As I have already mentioned here, Lessing left behind his most mature work, *The Education of the Human Race*, as a testament to humanity. And the fundamental idea of this, Lessing’s most mature work—this testament of Lessing’s—is the idea of repeated earthly lives and the purely spiritual lives in between. As I have already mentioned, very intelligent people who still approach spiritual science today in such a way that they say: A person with their five healthy senses cannot understand any of this; such people say, for example: “Well, Lessing was a great man; throughout his entire life he wrote in a truly rational or brilliant manner; in his old age, he simply became a bit weaker, and then he came up with the convoluted idea of repeated earthly lives.”

[ 52 ] It may well be that these very intelligent people still feel justified today in rebelling against a seeker such as Lessing, who sensed the need for a time that requires a stronger spiritual force than the merely passive one of external natural science. That which has thus been established in German intellectual history by a mind like Lessing, in turn, forms a kind of foundation that must be developed; and it must be felt, in particular, in all that lies within the realm of the German national soul—[it will be felt]—and which will lead to the fact that, specifically from the realm of the German national soul, [not] from any Central European culture, that which is also developed by such a clear mind as Lessing will be cultivated, so that it may gradually flow into the stream of spiritual scientific research that sheds light on the nature—the true nature—of the immortal human soul, as has been indicated today.

[ 53 ] This disposition, however, was deeply, deeply rooted in what was mentioned yesterday—that which Johann Gottlieb Fichte perceived as the true source of German identity. Today, let us once again draw attention to something that Fichte repeatedly and concisely emphasized time and again. Regarding a wonderfully beautiful thought of Fichte’s—a thought that, in essence, goes something like this [not verbatim]—Fichte says: It is not only after we have passed through death that we become immortal beings in the spiritual world. No, even here in the body we can become aware of that which is immortal within us—that which, as the immortal element of our mortal body, creates and acts within it, and which then passes through death. And I—says Fichte—for my part must say that it is solely in grasping this immortality, which triumphs over all that is mortal in human beings, that I recognize the true meaning of life, that which is the sole reason why one might actually choose to live in this mortal body.

[ 54 ] Here, in Fichte, it becomes clear to us—as a predisposition prior to cognition—what is to be further elaborated today by the science of the spirit, and what must be elaborated more and more in the future. What, then, is Fichte speaking of? Fichte speaks of the fact that in this mortal human body, which [grows] and develops precisely through the immortal soul between birth and death, that in this mortal human body—if only the right, the suitable inner power were released from the soul— the immortal can already be grasped; that human beings, even in their mortality, can already become aware of the immortal; and that they need not wait until death to recognize immortality, but can find within themselves—with the appropriate powers of cognition—that which passes through births and deaths, through eternities.

[ 55 ] This spiritual science is particularly suited to those individuals engaged in spiritual striving whose era first had to be characterized to some extent, and it is so—and this is the essential point, for naturally, things in this direction come to meet us in the most diverse places— but it is so predisposed that we can, as it were, draw a straight line between what is beginning there, starting to bear spiritual fruit, and what must now develop. And one might say, esteemed audience, that never again in the very current of German, of Central European, spiritual life has this awareness—in the scientific grasping of this immortal human core—been lost. It has always been there, time and again. I could list many, many things that have emerged in the course of the nineteenth century right up to the present day. I would like to draw attention to just one thing, which is intended to show how, in fact, an awareness—albeit a delicate one, or rather, one that sought only to emerge delicately—was present of precisely what has been developed here today.

[ 56 ] One of the leading figures of the second half of the nineteenth century—who also stood on the foundation of the Goethe-Schiller-Fichte worldview and who, throughout his life, continuously developed this worldview—was the distinguished art historian Herman Grimm, who died in 1901 and whom I have already mentioned here on several occasions.

[ 57 ] This art historian, Herman Grimm, also wrote short stories. In his collection of short stories, one of the first is this one, titled “The Singer.” In it, he describes how a certain relationship develops between two people—a singer and a man; I’ll just outline the gist very briefly. He describes how the two are then driven apart in life by their characters and circumstances. And he describes how the man commits suicide out of grief, how the singer learns of this, and how it affects her. And now, in the 1860s, Herman Grimm vividly depicts in his novella *The Singer* how the disembodied ethereal form—a part of what, when a person has passed through the gate of death, enters the spiritual world—appears before the singer, so that after the death of the man she had spurned in life, one might say, the very embodiment of his immortal being. If I could describe this to you in detail, I would also be able to justify why I am drawing on this particular novella. Of course, one might counter that a poet is capable of exaggerating and shaping everything. That is not the point; rather, the spiritual researcher has the immediate impression: Here, a poet is accurately [depicting]—just as we know the matter unfolds—[he is] giving an account of life after death.

[ 58 ] Herman Grimm also wrote a novel that deserves to be read thoroughly for other reasons as well: *Unüberwindliche Mächte* (Insurmountable Forces). The novel is set during the war of 1866. The interplay between European and American cultural conditions is depicted in this novel with the same masterful skill. And against this backdrop, the fates of various characters unfold; toward the end comes the depiction of the heroine’s death. Toward the end of the novel, so to speak, we find that the poet Herman Grimm once again describes something very remarkable to us. He depicts death very vividly, and he depicts it in such a way that what I have described today stands out—I would say—through the experimental art of spiritual research emerging from the body in death. [Gap in the text]. The time had not yet come in the 1860s to pursue spiritual science, but those people who, through the special structure of their inner life, were connected to the spiritual realm, were indeed immersed in this spiritual realm and felt the need—even when describing forces—not merely to show the outer sensory world, but that which is the eternal part of this sensory world.

[ 59 ] Human beings evolved from those early spiritual beginnings—those who knew that if one wishes to describe true reality, there is more to describe than the physical, outward appearance to the senses; those who knew that anyone who denies this speaks like someone who, looking at a strongly magnetic horseshoe in front of him, says: “You are a fanciful fool. ‘It contains no invisible forces.’ Just as this is roughly the case here, so it is with the entire sensory world in its spiritual aspect /gap in the text]. But this was known to those who, particularly through the deepening of German idealism, had learned to perceive spiritual reality. This is the path of human development, esteemed audience: to develop, out of mere idealism—which constitutes the greatness of a bygone and specifically German epoch—a genuine, spiritually grounded worldview. This is—and one can truly sense it precisely through an objective, unbiased contemplation of German spiritual life— this is truly a mission of German idealism: to take concrete form, to fulfill itself inwardly, so that it may [advance] from the ideal recognition of spiritual life—as we find it in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel—to the actual perception of spiritual experience with spiritual eyes and spiritual ears, of which Goethe spoke.

[ 60 ] And yet again, distinguished guests, it is very curious that the enlightened minds of the nineteenth century—precisely when they turn their gaze to German intellectual life— [especially Goethe]—they come to the conclusion that a certain hope for humanity is connected with the development of precisely this intellectual life. One might say that, especially today in these fateful times of ours, perhaps it is precisely in what unfolds between the lines of life—forgive me for this foolish, but perhaps nonetheless incisive expression—if one examines it [with heightened spiritual powers], one senses something of how, precisely through the further development of spiritual life from the roots of German idealism, the world can come to grasp the spiritual. One senses this without needing to be filled with any particular arrogance regarding one’s own German spiritual life. One need not be filled with arrogance; today one can truly sense in certain phenomena how that which emerged as something great into the world during the Goethe-Schiller-Fichte era was the beginning of a great spiritual development that must be defended [in Central Europe].

[ 61 ] I would like—out of what I might call a “tragic” feeling—to present two images that have personally come to the forefront of my mind; I truly do not wish to present these two images out of any kind of national subjectivity, but rather because they are connected to certain feelings characteristic of our fateful times.

[ 62 ] We experienced the first days of August of [last] year—the year 1914—and we experienced them in such a way that we received reports on how they were lived through in the various countries of Europe. I would like to present just two images. The first image: We stand on the threshold of a great event, the magnitude of which we cannot even begin to fathom! The German Reichstag is convening. I do not wish to go into detail, for—in accordance with Bismarck’s famous saying—I do not wish to mix that which is meant to remain in words with that which is to be decided by deeds; I do not wish to delve into immediate day-to-day politics, nor into what in this day-to-day politics is connected to political events. But one image stands vividly before the mind: There they stand, the representatives of the various political factions, and they are silent—silent! And this silence makes a powerful impression—an impression, ladies and gentlemen, as if it were the herald of what is to follow. And in this silence lies the word of a great truth murmuring through world history.

[ 63 ] One can look away, but really I should be turning my gaze toward that other place, further east. I would like to say—no, really, I must say this with a kind of inner weeping—the scene that unfolded around the same time in the session of the State Duma. There was no silence; everyone was speaking. People from the various party factions. And they spoke in such a way that these speeches seemed—that they created the impression—that one was witnessing a staged, world-historical theatrical performance—forgive the expression where one might be reluctant to forgive it, for, as I said, one could only look upon it with an inner weeping. The intoxicating frenzy of false enthusiasm fueled all that was said—and said at great length—in the State Duma, in stark contrast to the silence that reigned further west.

[ 64 ] If one wishes to explore history—no longer merely from an external perspective, but by immersing oneself in the inner moods of world history—and, as it were, to grasp spiritually what the development of humanity is whispering, one must look to such moods. There is something in this silence that restores our confidence in an inner strength, something that lets us sense that spiritual truth and spiritual power are in good hands within the bosom of Central European culture, and that, as they rest there, they must be defended.

[ 65 ] This is what still lifts one’s spirit above the [pain-filled] sight of death and grim fate that takes hold of us when we survey Europe and the world of the present. And then one realizes that what still lives today in the German spirit is precisely what struck a non-German mind—Emerson, the great American—when he sought to describe Goethe and, taking Goethe as his starting point, to point out the mission that Goethe’s culture in particular holds for the future of humanity.

[ 66 ] The American Emerson says this about his time—the nineteenth century—a time that is also our own:

The world is young; great men [of times past] call out to us with friendly voices.

[ 67 ] And these are Emerson's own words:

We must write [sacred] scriptures,

[ 68 ] — who proclaim the message of the Eternal One —,

to reunite heaven and the earthly world. The secret of genius is not to allow a lie to persist for us

[ 69 ] — Emerson is referring to the lie that there is nothing spiritual beyond the sensory world —,

to make everything of which we are aware a truth; to inspire faith, certainty, and trust in the sophistication of modern life, in art and science, in books, and in people; and, at the beginning as well as at the end, in the middle of the journey, and for [endless] ages, to honor every truth not only by recognizing it, but by making it a guiding principle for our actions.

[ 70 ] When the humanities set out to examine what is immortal in human beings, they believe they are doing nothing other than bringing to life what those geniuses who have guided humanity have felt to be the very task of our time and of the times to come.

[ 71 ] And in these fateful days of ours, do we not sense it—from the voices of death and fate that draw so close to us every day—do we not feel that from the twilight of the events of our time that surround us, a bright sun must emerge, must develop; that from this terrible war, a peace for the good of humanity must emerge? But do we not also sense that all that is endured by those who must stake their very lives for the great destiny of our time—that these individuals, by making the ultimate sacrifice, serve as a reminder of life for those who will live afterward? Can we not perhaps feel today, more than ever before, the profound significance that encompasses both earthly and spiritual life when we look upon the immortal core of the human being, when we witness, as it were, a spiritual detachment—how, in death, the soul detaches itself from the physical body? Then we say to ourselves: There, there they go—many of those human beings who still carry unspent human powers within them, who could still have acted, lived, worked, recognized, and perceived here on earth for many decades of their lives. As they pass through the gate of death, they go forth unspent [into the spiritual world]. Humanity will come to realize that in the spiritual world, just as in the physical world, the law of conservation—the imperishability of forces—prevails.

[ 72 ] Humanity will come to know that what appears to be unspent does not disappear, even as so many people, in the prime of their lives, must pass through the gates of death. In the future, people will not merely believe—they will know. This world is interconnected with a spiritual world; and within that spiritual world lie, in reality, all the forces that have now had to leave the physical body while still unspent. In times to come, they will radiate down upon the horizon of earthly activity; they will be real forces for those people who will be conscious of the connection between the physical and the spiritual worlds. Gone will be the gulf that causes us to forget, in reality, that which is only seemingly lost. In physical life, we will know ourselves to be permeated by those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of humanity’s goals and human progress.

[ 73 ] Widows, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters—and all those connected to their dear departed—will know that they are truly and tangibly connected; and in the future, there will be one world in which a person’s mortal body lives, and also one in which a person’s immortal core of being lives. And truly, man will not become weak when he turns his gaze from the physical world to the spiritual one. Just as we only discover the powers that dwell in iron when we know that it is magnetic, so too will we only find true human strength, elevation, growth, and enrichment of life when we carry within us the other part of true reality—the spiritual part of reality.

[ 74 ] Spiritual science seeks to gradually introduce this understanding of the immortal core of the human being into human culture. In this way, it aims to have a concrete impact on life. So that we may now, in closing, summarize what has been developed. I would like to summarize it by slightly adapting a line from a German poet who sought to express his hope for the future human worldview in these very words: Spiritual science [seeks] to fathom a knowledge of the human being that does not merely extend to the brief present between birth and death, but takes into account that which passes from life to life through eternities, and lifts that which has thus been explored from spiritual eternity onto the throne of truth, where it is to reign for the true liberation of human beings—of the souls within them.