The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. The Fate of Humanity in Light of the Knowledge of Spiritual Worlds

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! As a continuation of the humanities-based reflections presented here the day before yesterday, I would like today, in a certain sense, to build upon what was discussed—a continuation that aims to apply the perspectives gained to the significant question of human destiny.

[ 2 ] In the lecture given the day before yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, it was pointed out that spiritual science is based entirely on the inner work of the human soul, and I would like to begin by briefly revisiting a few thoughts from that lecture. Research in spiritual science is never—as is the case in other sciences that extend to external life and the external world of facts—about engaging in activities that are externally perceptible to the senses, nor is it ever about carrying out external activities of any kind; rather, the path into the spiritual world is an intimate path of the human soul. And one link in this path of the human soul—through which the soul prepares itself to enter the spiritual world—as was already indicated the day before yesterday—is a special way of dealing with what we call human imagination and human thought.

[ 3 ] I said: By allowing the researcher of the spirit to provide a glimpse, as it were, into his inner spiritual laboratory, he must draw attention to the fact that the imagination and thinking of the human soul must be treated in a completely different way than they are in everyday life or in external science. In external science, we regard the thought, the idea, the concept that we have formed—whether based on sensory observation, experimentation, or any other means—as something we have attained, as a representation of the external world. And because this concept reflects—whether it be processes in the external world, laws, laws of nature, or the like in the external world—we are satisfied once we have, so to speak, arrived at the thought, once we have reached the point of forming a concept of what is happening outside or how external processes are connected according to laws.

[ 4 ] Spiritual scientific research begins only where the work of thought—the thought life of everyday existence or of external science—ends. Spiritual scientific research is not about having not a single thought, or having thoughts merely as reflections of the external world; rather, it is about living with thought and imagination within the soul. So that, as I have already mentioned, in this inner exercise, in this inner working out of the spiritual world, it does not matter at all whether, in the thoughts and images through which we train the soul, through which we advance the soul, as it were, in a higher form of self-education—whether we represent something external in these thoughts and images, or whether, in the ordinary sense of external science or external life, these thoughts and images are representations of anything in the external world; they may be symbolic images, as I mentioned. What matters is that we immerse a thought within the soul, that we become completely one with this thought, that we divert all our attention from what otherwise occupies us in the world, and, so to speak, fix our attention solely on this one thought, concentrating all the soul forces within us upon it.

[ 5 ] And now, in doing this, we must immediately realize that we are thereby performing an act entirely different from the acts of ordinary science. In the activities of ordinary, external science, we can stop once we have the thought; we can be satisfied once we have the thought. And in ordinary science, we are convinced that if the thought satisfies us logically, if the thought corresponds to our sense of truth, then we can provisionally stop our research work. This is not the case with the way research is conducted in the spiritual sciences. It is never a matter of stopping simply because one has a thought—a thought that one has placed at the center of one’s consciousness through a deliberate act of will, through an inner initiative of the will—; in essence, one has nothing at all once one has placed the thought at the center of one’s consciousness and directed the attention of all the forces concentrated in the soul toward it. Just as one has nothing once one has planted a plant seed in the earth, so too does one have nothing once one has fixed a thought in the soul. One must wait until the forces from the air, the forces from the soil, the forces from the sun, and so on, work together to develop the plant seed into a plant—one must wait and see what is not done by us, but is done by the cosmos, by the external world.

[ 6 ] As researchers of the spirit, we must treat a thought in exactly the same way. We must, as it were, sink it into the depths of our entire soul life and then wait to see what becomes of it there. We have no other choice but to repeat this same process of looking a thought in the eye every day. It doesn’t take long—a few minutes each day are enough—but it must be repeated every day; and this takes a long, long time. And all we can do is wait and see what becomes of this thought, by directing all the powers of the soul toward it and looking at nothing else, feeling nothing else, sensing nothing else but this thought—what becomes of this thought. Observing something that is growing within ourselves—that is what matters in spiritual scientific research. Whereas in other forms of research it is a matter of performing a certain task and investigating the lawful connections through thought—that is, whereas it is a matter of performing something that, I might say, has a beginning and an end determined by our own will—in spiritual research we must observe what becomes of the growing, sprouting, and budding thought within us.

[ 7 ] And then the time comes—earlier for some, later for others, depending on how their destiny predisposes them—the time comes when powers that are otherwise hidden in the soul become active and increasingly so, and through the application of that inner energy, which we otherwise do not muster in everyday life and in ordinary science, we truly achieve what can be described as our soul-spirit being truly torn away from the physical-bodily, leaving the physical-bodily behind. By describing this entire process—which, I might say, represents the most elementary aspect—all that follows, which must be pursued further, can be read in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* —by articulating this idea and drawing attention to what the spiritual-scientific method entails, one immediately touches upon something in this method that is entirely at odds with the habits of thought of the present age. These habits of thought of the present age cannot conceive that it is truly possible for a human being to find such inner strength in their soul that their spiritual-soul aspect is torn away from the physical-bodily aspect in the same way that hydrogen is extracted from water through the procedures performed by a chemist. But everything depends on the human being, by carrying out further and further what has just been described in its most elementary form, truly comes to perceive another human being living within him—another human being who underlies our entire existence and who does not need to make use of the external senses to have a world around him, who does not need to make use of the intellect—which is bound to the brain or the nervous system—to have an external world around him.

[ 8 ] The worldview, ladies and gentlemen, that corresponds to today’s ways of thinking—and which often emphasizes precisely that it stands on the firm ground of the most admirable natural science—this worldview frequently speaks of the limits of human knowledge; it speaks of them, for example, by saying: Yes, there may be a spiritual world, a supersensible world that underlies sensory facts and everything that can be known through the intellect—the intellect that is bound to the brain—but human beings are simply not equipped to penetrate this world. And we know, of course, that there have been philosophies time and again throughout the course of human development—philosophies that have sought to determine the limits of human knowledge.

[ 9 ] Essentially, these limits of knowledge are merely the limits of those insights that are bound to the physical-material realm. And the reason for this becomes clear even to the spiritual researcher when he truly applies the methods described—and characterized in a few strokes—to his own inner life. For a very peculiar phenomenon occurs when one endeavors, through ever more vigorous concentration of the soul’s power in the sense described, to become, as it were, completely one with that which one has placed at the center of one’s imagination, one’s thinking, and one’s entire consciousness: one thing becomes apparent: After some time, one notices how something truly grows within, how something within contracts—namely, our spiritual-soul aspect, which is dependent on the body. But after some time, one realizes that one is heading straight toward the opposite extreme. Not only do all sorts of other thoughts constantly enter one’s attentive consciousness along the path one is pursuing with one’s soul life, distracting one — which is something that can be overcome relatively quickly — but what the spiritual researcher encounters when he attempts to develop his soul is this: as he first experiences an increase in the powers that otherwise underlie thinking — [at a certain point, there occurs] what one might call “a darkening, a numbing” of this inner soul force—and what the soul experiences there is, in essence, quite shattering. For what one experiences is nothing less than the sensation of something approaching the soul like a loss of strength—a loss of strength that says to itself: “Ah, these powers of the soul are not sufficient, after all, to penetrate the full extent of the spiritual world!” It descends upon consciousness like a terribly paralyzing sleep. And that, dear audience, is what those philosophers who speak of the limits of knowledge do not allow themselves to confront, but what the soul—I would say—unconsciously feels when it philosophizes.

[ 10 ] For it is not only that of which the soul is conscious in ordinary life that dwells in the depths of the soul; rather, down there in the depths of the soul, in its hidden recesses, there dwells much that is not part of everyday consciousness. And the fact that we know nothing of it does not mean that what lies there in the depths of consciousness is not active. There, in the depths of consciousness, is something that the spiritual researcher experiences at the very moment when he has that feeling of powerlessness I just spoke of. The spiritual researcher realizes: There is an unconscious fear down there in the soul—a fear of losing the ability to know and perceive the world. And once this fear becomes conscious, the only way to overcome it is by intensifying, more and more, the efforts to concentrate the life of the soul that I have already described. Then—I would say into the empty space of consciousness, where the power that normally underlies thinking and feeling had already been numbed—there enters what can enter through the heightened strength and inner energy of the soul life.

[ 11 ] It was, in fact, a hidden fear—one that had not yet come to consciousness—when Kant spoke of the limits of human knowledge. He sensed that the kind of knowledge in which the physical aids us cannot go beyond the realm of sensory life and the laws of sensory life. He was unwilling to accommodate the method of the humanities. Although he sensed that there was such a thing as the soul’s development toward independence from the physical body, he called this “an adventure of reason.” And Goethe gave the great—one might even say the powerful—response that one must dare to undertake this adventure of reason.

[ 12 ] Powerlessness—that is what one truly has at the very depths of one’s soul, what always lies at the very depths of one’s soul. And one might say, esteemed audience, that it is entirely justified that this powerlessness lies at the very depths of the human soul. For if this powerlessness were not there, the human urge to constantly use one’s soul-spiritual powers for that which leads beyond the sensory world would be invincible. But the fact that we feel, perceive, and recognize the sensory world is based on the fact that we—I would say—become accustomed to our physical body, to the physical-bodily realm, and that we regard it as a necessity to live in this physical-bodily realm in relation to the world. Just as one conducts a chemical experiment in such a way that it leads to abnormalities in the external natural world and thereby unravels nature, so too must one develop something abnormal—something abnormal for everyday life—in the soul in order to, I would say, truly look into the spiritual world through inner chemistry.

[ 13 ] And by immersing oneself in the spiritual world, one does indeed gain a different conception of this newly acquired knowledge than one previously had of all knowledge. Yes, “knowledge” is a term so many people associate with the idea that one actually “knows” best when one relies solely on the intellect and the external senses—which, after all, leave us feeling sober and cold, and which engage only a part of our soul life—when one limits oneself to these. At the very moment when the spiritual researcher truly enters the spiritual world in the manner described—at the very moment when he has detached his spiritual-soul aspect from the physical-bodily aspect—he is surrounded by a spiritual world just as he is surrounded by a sensory world within the body. At the very moment the spiritual researcher truly enters this world of the spiritual, at that very moment he feels, as it were, as if he has awakened within this spiritual realm. But at the same time, he feels that he can no longer relate to the world with just a part of his soul life, as in external cognition, but that he must immerse his entire being into what appears before him as the spiritual world.

[ 14 ] Just as abstract, just as—I would say—sober and dry [as] the world is—which, as the ordinary world of knowledge, animates and engages only a part of our soul—so too is our connection to the spiritual world intensely effective within our soul. One might say: An intellectual understanding of the external world, in the ordinary sense of the word, cannot cause us pain or suffering. The moment we enter the spiritual world in the manner described, we must immerse ourselves with our whole soul in the beings that belong to the world into which we are entering. Everything we perceive there simultaneously exerts the deepest, most intense impression either on our sense of pleasure or pain, on our sense of sublimity, or on our sense of despondency. Our entire being is immersed. With our whole being, we must live—whether in sorrow or joy—with the world into which we are immersing ourselves. And yet again, it is fear—but a fear felt secretly, one that does not rise to consciousness—that prevents ordinary consciousness from immersing itself in this world. Truly, one does not become poorer in terms of the world’s content when one approaches this spiritual world. On the contrary, esteemed audience, one becomes richer in terms of the world’s content, for one realizes what this fear of a subconscious powerlessness is actually based on. It is based on the fact that the world is far richer—infinitely richer—in its splendor, in its grandeur, and in its inner order than what we are capable of conceiving when we rely solely on the powers bound to our physical bodies.

[ 15 ] And the wealth of the world is that which appears before the soul in an overwhelming, almost numbing way the moment it confronts the spiritual world through its inner strength. But the soul, whose consciousness is bound to the physical-bodily realm, feels—even though it knows nothing of it—that it is powerless, and out of fear it seeks to avoid this powerlessness, the powerlessness it experiences in the face of the spiritual world. Thus we see how, on the one hand, people recoil and delude themselves about the limits of knowledge, so that they say knowledge cannot penetrate the spiritual world at all; or how, on the other hand, when they have a deep longing for the spiritual world, they satisfy this longing in a completely different way than that described. The method described is that of genuine, true spiritual research. However, the method described presupposes that one takes seriously the process of freeing oneself from the physical-bodily realm. This can only be achieved through heightened inner soul activity; it can only be achieved through the application of an energy that is never necessary to us as inner energy in everyday life or in everyday science.

[ 16 ] But people want to apply precisely what they are accustomed to in their everyday lives when they approach the higher worlds. Human consciousness does indeed feel the helplessness described above, and—I would say, in a way that is entirely understandable—this consciousness feels this helplessness precisely when it seeks to confront the more intense, richer, and more sublime world of the spirit. Therefore, rather than exerting what dwells within his body to a greater degree in order to perceive the spiritual world, a person would prefer to shut it out. This sense of hidden powerlessness leads him to feel that, precisely because he is powerless in the face of spiritual life, he must shut down the very faculty with which he perceives in ordinary life; instead of developing it, he wants to shut it down. Then he does not set out to perceive the spiritual world to develop his inner self; rather, he approaches it and seeks—either through some external events or by making use, as they say, of a medium in whom the spiritual aspect, instead of being developed, has been lulled to sleep—to gain knowledge of the spiritual world through the automatic processes of the medium’s physical life, without any inner contribution of his own. It is merely a fearful recoiling from having to live through the experience of powerlessness. For this feeling of powerlessness must be lived through; only by overcoming it and consciously experiencing it does a person advance in knowledge. But it is in the secret feeling of this powerlessness that a person seeks to eliminate precisely that which leads them to spiritual knowledge. That is why so many seek, through mediumship and spiritualism, that which is supposed to speak to them from the spiritual world. It is easy to see that this seeking through spiritualism and mediumship is precisely the extreme, the utmost manifestation of the feeling of powerlessness in the face of the spiritual world.

[ 17 ] But our time, esteemed audience, needs strength, needs power; for as external life becomes increasingly complex—particularly in its social ramifications—due to the marvelous advancements in the natural sciences, human beings, in their quest to penetrate the spiritual world, will have to develop ever greater and greater powers. That which appeals to weakness, that which calls for the suppression of the spiritual and soul aspects, can never be the future; it can lull people into complacency and numb them to what is precisely meant to be brought forth from the hidden depths of the soul.

[ 18 ] Now one can get an idea of just how strongly what has been said is rejected—let it be said once again—as a spiritual laboratory process by the habits of thought of our present age, just how strongly it is rejected, one can get an idea of this when one sees that the exact opposite extreme of what has been described has become the ideal for a large portion of today’s educated and cultured people. For where is the spiritual researcher led when he enters the spiritual world through the method described? He is led to say to himself: Not only does the sensory world exist in your surroundings—a spiritual world also exists in your surroundings! And he recognizes: This spiritual world contains the causes, the foundations of sensory existence. But this is the ideal of very many people who truly believe, as educated and cultured individuals, that they stand on the firm ground of natural science—which, as I mentioned the day before yesterday, is in fact entirely in harmony with spiritual science. But most of those people, whose character has been described—who believe they see the ideal in eliminating precisely everything found along the path characterized above—believe they see the ideal of knowledge of nature in perceiving everywhere only causes and facts that interact, as it were, mechanically, and in eliminating everything spiritual from external natural processes. This is the ideal of very many people who have precisely the thinking habits of the present day.

[ 19 ] And it is essentially regarded as a remnant of old superstition to see anything in the natural world—or to perceive something spiritual behind the natural world—[but rather, one seeks] to explain the natural world as much as possible solely through facts structured according to the pattern of what is observed by the senses. This is how one seeks to understand—in external physics, in biology, in physiology, and so on—even the processes of the soul. I alluded to this the day before yesterday.

[ 20 ] The ideal, then, of a form of knowledge that excludes precisely all that the researcher of the spiritual world discovers when applying spiritual-scientific methods—this is the very ideal of the most highly educated, of many of the most highly educated people of our time. One might say, then: a mechanical order of nature is what is assumed to underlie nature. And as a counterpart to this, ladies and gentlemen, comes the consideration of human life. Once one has become accustomed to seeing nothing but mechanical order in nature, and once one has become accustomed to rejecting precisely what the spiritual researcher must arrive at, then what takes place in life is, in essence, a sum of coincidences. And a series of coincidences is, after all, essentially what people see in what befalls them in life between birth and death, in their physical bodily experience.

[ 21 ] For how does a person relate to what befalls them in this life between birth and death? When something befalls a person—something they regard as a stroke of fate, whether good or bad—they respond to this stroke of fate by first processing it through what might be called the sympathy and antipathy of the mind. Just as a person searches for causes and effects in the natural world outside, so too does he essentially regard what comes into play in his own fate as a mere series, a mere sequence of coincidences.

[ 22 ] Since we can now say, esteemed audience, that what the spiritual researcher awakens within himself in terms of the spiritual and soul aspects actually lies dormant in human beings in ordinary life, we must say: Even in full wakefulness, when a person is in the midst of action—when a person acts in such a way that they make use of their outer physicality and the outer sensory world to carry out actions—even then, something lies dormant within them. And what lies dormant there prevents them from seeing a connection within the process unfolding in the events of life. Essentially, what takes place within a person in the context of life is the same as what has taken place throughout history—and still takes place today for many people—in relation to the facts of nature. A person who does not engage in the external natural sciences sees the sun rise and set; he observes the sun’s various positions; for him, there are external facts that unfold in time and space. Then, through his thinking, his science, and his methods, this person approaches what are otherwise external facts and introduces coherence into this external world of facts by replacing the mere staring at the facts with the coherence expressed in the laws of nature. Human beings do not initially bring such coherence to what they call the external contingencies of life, because the powers within them that are necessary for ordinary life—which are to this realm what the powers of cognition are to the facts of external nature—lie dormant. We must apply our knowledge to the facts of external nature so that we may perceive laws in external nature. According to ordinary habits of thought, human beings are not inclined to apply to what unfolds as their destiny between birth and death the same inner processes that they apply to the external facts of nature. And I wish to indicate the path that now opens up once again for spiritual research, in order to introduce into the sequence of fateful events a regularity similar to that which external thinking introduces into the series of natural facts.

[ 23 ] What we call fate, I would like to say—let’s just consider it, not to make any particular point right now, but simply to illustrate what I intend to say later—let’s consider what we call fate, first of all in relation to life between birth and death, to the external life that always surrounds us, into which we are woven, and which fate imposes upon us.

[ 24 ] So when we look back on any phase of our lives, we might ask: What are we, really, during this phase of our lives? Yes, we say: We are a self, we are an “I”; we have a certain inner spiritual life. But certain aspects of this inner life of the soul—those that lie on the surface—we come to understand and view quite differently when we look back on earlier stages of our lives. For example, once we have reached—let’s say—fifty, forty-five, or forty years of age, if we allow ourselves to look back—say, to the time we spent between the ages of ten and eighteen or twenty—if we look back on what entered our lives at that time as so-called twists of fate, yes, if we make it perfectly clear to ourselves what lies in these twists of fate, then we will very soon be able to say to ourselves: You are now capable of something. You are capable of thinking in this or that way, of acting in this or that way. Fundamentally, you are nothing other than this ability—this ability to understand, this ability to act. Whether you understand something with more or less insight, whether you act in one way or another—that is, in essence, who you are. Why are you that way? Just think for a moment how different you would be—how you would truly be a completely different inner self—if the events you can look back on between the ages of ten and twenty had not occurred. They have forged you into what you have become; what you have become is concentrated within your self. These events now act through you in many ways. They have, in essence, shaped you; they have formed your self. And when we examine our self at a particular moment in our lives, we find it—I would say, just as the sum of a mathematical addition is composed of its addends—composed of the experiences of fate. One can now survey one’s life in this way. It does not matter what all sorts of interesting things one finds in one’s life; what is commonly called self-reflection in everyday life does not actually lead the soul very far beyond itself. But there is a special approach that one develops in one’s inner life when one truly comes to no longer view the experiences of fate one has with sympathy or antipathy, but rather when one views them as the foundation of what one actually is.

[ 25 ] It is not this insight that matters in spiritual research, but rather the feeling: You have found yourself as the result, as the outcome of your destiny! This feeling—one can now awaken it within oneself more and more. And now two things can come together: what one has previously awakened as a spiritual researcher through the concentration of thought and feeling, as has been described—what one has experienced as the emergence of the spiritual-soul aspect from the physical-bodily aspect—and the development of this feeling. They can meet within the soul—this feeling that, even in ordinary life between birth and death, one is in fact the result of destiny.

[ 26 ] And when one meditates in this way, when one cultivates precisely this coloring of feeling, this nuance of feeling in the soul, when one concentrates more and more on how, as it were, the inner self of the human being flows out completely and merges into the current of our destiny, when one brings these ideas fully to life within oneself, when one comes to actually behold: Yes, what you are within yourself as the self, you see flowing into your destiny. When this becomes fully alive, when it is repeated again and again until it becomes a habitual inner experience, then indeed we experience once more a transformation, a reshaping of our soul life. We experience such a reshaping, such a transformation of our soul life that what can be called the spirit-soul—that which is free from the body—is now experienced inwardly as a fulfilled, complete whole.

[ 27 ] And this spirit-soul aspect, free from the body, reveals itself to us, esteemed audience, when we continue to apply the methods of spiritual science as described; it reveals itself to us as that which underlies our life between birth and death. It does not reveal itself through logical deduction, but rather as the soul develops an inner life such as has been described; a spiritual eye opens within it, so to speak, to use Goethe’s expression—as if the eye were not yet developed and only developed over the course of life, and our sight were then awakened; so it is when we cultivate our inner life: a new human being dawns within us, a human being who now stands before us not merely as the result of fate, as has been trivially described for the period between birth and death, but as one who truly grows together with his or her destiny.

[ 28 ] And now something new arises; thus, once one has developed the soul, something else arises that can be called the perception of a secret fear otherwise hidden within the soul. So when one allows the soul—as it were, by beholding it in the stream of destiny—to tear itself away from the body, then, then one discovers—not what one is as a physical human being—but rather, within the spiritual world that one has already conquered in the manner described, one now discovers oneself. Now one discovers what one has never before known of oneself; now one discovers the true human being. Now one discovers the human being who underlies the ordinary human being who lives between birth and death—or, if you will, between conception and death. Now one discovers the human being who descends from a spiritual world as the true cause of physical human existence, who is drawn to what can be given to him through the ancestral line, through parents and forebears, who brings down the forces from the spiritual world that themselves first shape what can be given to him materially through parents and forebears. And now, esteemed audience, what the great modern thinker Lessing pointed to—I would say through a deep inner energy of truth—is becoming a fact; the realization that what works within our body is the result of previous earthly lives is now becoming a truth. And that what works hidden within our body, without our being able to suspect it in ordinary life, is like a seed that, after death, first enters a spiritual world and, after developing in that spiritual world just as a plant seed must develop, in a sense gathers itself up again for a new earthly life. The realization that the entire human life unfolds in such a way that there are repeated earthly lives for the human being—this realization must be attained by the soul lifting itself out of the physical body.

[ 29 ] In ordinary experience, dear friends, we essentially have only a single indication of what lives within us as a human core—one that passes from life to life and always dwells in a spiritual world between death and a new birth. In spiritual insight, one immerses oneself in this life core, in this core of the human being’s essence. In ordinary life, one has only a certain indication of this when a person falls asleep in the evening. Falling asleep—as spiritual scientific observation specifically shows—is brought about by the fact that what is truly the spiritual-soul core of the human being lifts itself out of the physical body. But because the forces—the development of which has been discussed today—are not developed, this spiritual-soul core remains unconscious from the moment one falls asleep until one wakes up. Yet very often—as everyone knows—those chaotic, but often also very interesting, forms of the dream emerge from this unconsciousness of ordinary sleep.

[ 30 ] What presents itself to a person in a dream is very often misinterpreted. Among the various dream images—I cannot, of course, go into great detail about what a dream presents, although it would be very interesting to explore what one can experience there—the most interesting dreams are probably those in which a person, later in life, sees in a dreamlike state, as a reflection of their dream life and dream consciousness, some scene in which people appear with whom they may not have been in contact for a long time in real life—many of whom may have already died—people with whom they now enter into relationships within their dream consciousness. Entire stories can unfold there. If one regards such a dream as merely an ordinary act of memory, one is very much mistaken. It would take us too far afield to elaborate on this very statement, although it can indeed be elaborated upon.

[ 31 ] If one wants to properly assess these dream events—which can unfold before the dream consciousness—one must not focus at all on what is happening in terms of content. These images—everything that unfolds in this way—are, in essence, just as meaningful to the nature of the dream as if someone were to say: “Here I have a sheet of paper; on it I find a vertical line, a line slanting from right to left, one slanting from left to right, and so on.” In this way, he would describe all the letters that are on the paper. However, it is not the person who describes the letters on the sheet in this way who relates to the paper in the correct manner; rather, the only one who relates to it correctly is the person who, so to speak, does not even bring the appearance of the letters into his consciousness, but who—because he has learned to read—deciphers the meaning of what the letters, when combined into words, express. What the dream presents is, in relation to its very nature, really nothing but letters—though these are not as precise as the letters of our ordinary writing, but change with every dream. And it is a deeper understanding that can look at the dream and decipher it, just as unconsciously as we remain unaware when we read the forms of individual letters and words; that is what is actually contained within the processes of the dream—it is more the character of the core of the human soul that conjures up these images.

[ 32 ] For example, we dream that a person who has long since died says this or that to us, or does this or that with us; we do not dream this because the image in the dream is trying to tell us something specific, but rather because the core of our soul-being possesses an inner quality, an inner power, that can best be visualized in this way, can best be visualized by entering into a relationship—a symbolic, allegorical relationship—with a person, with this particular person whom we encountered in life. That which is not at all expressed in the dream, that which lies at the very foundation of the soul as its inner power, as its character—that is the essential. And when one engages—precisely through what has been described as the method of spiritual research, as it is perfected in this way—not in interpretations but in the scientific understanding of the dream experience, then one finds even in dream experiences that, albeit in a disordered, chaotic manner, something that lies within the human being—due to particular circumstances —which could also be described, but which the brevity of time today does not allow us to describe—is imprinted in such images. And spiritual research shows us that what a person has acquired in the life between death and rebirth has matured within them into a core of life, a seed of life.

[ 33 ] We act and think in the life between birth and death, but what we think and the way we act always express—I would say—only a part of what we are, namely the part that manifests itself through our existence within a physical body. Just as that which the other human being is—the being that has been described and is discovered through spiritual science—is generally hidden within the human being of everyday life, so too is this core of being hidden within the human being. Only through those special circumstances of life—in the dream life, for example—does it become apparent to us when the body-free human-soul core, upon falling asleep or waking up, comes into contact with bodily life but is not yet fully united with it; there, reflected in the bodily life with which it is still imperfectly united, it reveals what has passed through the human being in every action but has been preserved—what has remained, what we have not fully lived out, what we have incorporated into our inner self. In dreams, then, that which passes through the gate of death—that which passes through a spiritual world in order to reappear in a new earthly life—reveals itself. However, one can only recognize this through dreams if spiritual research has preceded all of this, esteemed audience!

[ 34 ] Thus we see how, in the course of spiritual research, human beings must not only experience the powerlessness that has been discussed, and how, in overcoming this powerlessness, they must find their way into the spiritual world; but we also see how human beings must first discover their true selves.

[ 35 ] Yet human beings harbor a secret fear of this very discovery. For the process is—the process is precisely as if we were losing ourselves as human beings in what we are in the body, by discovering ourselves as true human beings who pass from life to life. As a spiritual researcher, one must first get used to looking at oneself from outside oneself in the world; one must first get used to discovering oneself, as it were, in one’s fateful work, and by summoning the courage to overcome the fear and shyness one feels toward oneself, one discovers oneself in one’s true self. And one now discovers that this true self is the forger of that which otherwise appears to us as the result of life’s coincidences. One now discovers oneself in one’s destiny. And a wholly new feeling, a wholly new experience, permeates and surges through the soul.

[ 36 ] Then a severe blow of fate befalls us—a blow that we would otherwise only face in such a way that it causes us bitterness and suffering, that it shakes our spirit, and that we feel unhappy under its influence. If, as a spiritual seeker, one has discovered one’s higher self in the manner described, one says to oneself: You have gone through many earthly lives with this higher self of yours. In these earthly lives, you have lived, thought, and acted in such a way that you have brought with you a certain quality in your soul from past lives. This quality of the soul clings to you, just as the magnetic force is contained within a magnet. This quality, this force, exerts a secret attraction on the event that has entered your life as a misfortune, just as a magnet attracts iron filings. You have brought this misfortune upon yourself!

[ 37 ] Do we not see in life what is possible once we have gained this perspective, esteemed audience? We go through life. Much, so much passes us by—by our eyes, ears, mind, feelings, and will. We encounter many people. Among these many, many people, there is one whom we feel drawn to—as it were, through mysterious forces within our being—and with whom we enter into a partnership in life, whether through friendship or in some other way. Why did we do that? Because the forces within us—which we brought with us from past lives—were at work, and because these forces were drawn precisely to what lives in this person’s soul, just as a magnet attracts iron filings. This force passed by the other people. Through this, however, we imprint upon ourselves everything that we now experience together with this person as our destiny.

[ 38 ] In the same way, however, we are already shaping our destiny by descending from the spiritual world—where we live between death and rebirth—to our new birth. It is in our physical earthly existence that the forces our ancestors can pass on to us through heredity are at work. We are drawn to those forces that we particularly need according to the qualities of our soul, and with them we connect. One senses the secret bond of attraction that exists between us—long before birth, before conception—and that which can be given to us through the forces inheritable from our ancestors. Indeed, more precise spiritual research even shows us, esteemed audience, that this bond of attraction forms long, long before there can be any question of our birth or our conception.

[ 39 ] Here, once logic takes the place of what we today believe to be logic—but where, in reality, sheer illogic prevails—a completely different way of thinking will take hold. Today, many people say: It is evident that a person who exhibits certain characteristics in life must have inherited these characteristics from their ancestors or parents. Spiritual science seeks to address this and demonstrate that the human being, as a core, so to speak, envelops itself with the inherited characteristics it has chosen for itself. “Let us be glad,” people say according to today’s habits of thought, “let us be glad that external science has come to recognize how the characteristics of ancestors are revived in their descendants, as ordinary physiology can indeed explain.”

[ 40 ] And people especially want to play on the core of this logic when they say: You can see this in a genius. If you observe a genius, you see that the traits concentrated in the genius can be found in the parents, grandparents, and so on and so forth. Genius usually appears at the end of a line of descent. What a fine line of reasoning that is! For it is quite similar, ladies and gentlemen, to when someone finds it particularly wonderful as an explanation to say that one is wet after having fallen into water and been pulled out. Of course, when one stands at the end of a line of inheritance, one must possess the traits that, through that line of inheritance, surrounded one in the womb—just as water surrounds one when one has fallen into a stream. But there would be true logic in the matter if one could show that what lived on as genius in the ancestors would live on in the descendants. Not by looking up from the genius toward the ancestors, but by looking down from the genius toward the descendants—that would be true logic. One doesn’t even realize how one is slapping logic in the face when proceeding in this way, when judging as is currently done. For one will certainly continue to seek the genius’s traits exclusively in the descendants. One need only point to great geniuses and then show what their descendants sometimes look like! Here one will soon discover that what a person has developed within themselves—what they are inwardly—is the attractive force behind the events, behind all the processes of outer life that converge in their destiny.

[ 41 ] Thus we will be able to say: From birth to death, we bring order to the succession of our other accidents of fate—that is, when we come to know ourselves, when we overcome our fear of ourselves, and when we recognize our true humanity. For then we also recognize that we have brought misfortune upon ourselves because we want to steel ourselves against this misfortune, because we lacked a certain strength, and the absence of this strength within us gives rise to a quality that acts as a magnet specifically for this misfortune.

[ 42 ] Added to such a worldview—which thus discovers the true human being in destiny—is the insight that the reason human beings do not wish to discover themselves in their destiny is simply because they fear arriving at this perspective. This is a difficult concept, esteemed audience, but once the truths of spiritual research have been explored, one need not be a spiritual researcher—although, as I explained the day before yesterday, to a certain extent anyone today can become a spiritual researcher by observing the rules set forth in the book *How to Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* — to a certain extent, as I said — but one need not be one. Once the truths of spiritual research have been articulated, they can be understood and acknowledged through that which prevails in the human being as a sense of truth, as an unbiased sense of truth.

[ 43 ] Just as one need not be a chemist in order for everything the chemist presents to be of use to oneself—here one need not speak of understanding, but only of utility—so one need not be a researcher in the spiritual sciences to find the truth, for to find the truth here, to use the trivial term, is to recognize the utility of discoveries in the spiritual sciences. Just as one can apply chemical products in life, so too can one apply what spiritual research brings, because, simply by its existence—and provided one does not oppose it with the prejudices arising from ordinary habits of thought, which have been sufficiently described—provided one does not oppose it with those prejudices, it has an effect on the natural human being.

[ 44 ] The spiritual researcher relies on nothing else, on no authority; he relies on nothing other than the fact that he discovers and explores nothing other than what lives within every soul. His insights add nothing to reality; what he discovers lives within every soul. Therefore, it need only be spoken; therefore, what lives in the depths of every human soul must affirm what the spiritual researcher has to say.

[ 45 ] Even if that is not yet the case today—indeed, even if, as I said the day before yesterday, it must seem understandable that today there is far more opposition, disregard, scorn, and ridicule directed at what the spiritual researcher has to say— it is nevertheless true that developments in the near future will proceed in such a way that people will just about bring themselves to acknowledge that human life in truth continues through many earthly lives, and that destiny becomes understandable to us when we see the higher human being acting in the manner described, within that very destiny. Thus, people will come to acknowledge this, just as they have come to acknowledge that what was once said to “contradict the five healthy senses”—namely, that it is true not that the Earth stands still while the Sun and the stars move around it, but that the opposite is true—that the Earth moves around the Sun.

[ 46 ] Anyone who comes today and says: ‘What the spiritual researcher has to say contradicts the five healthy senses!’—is standing on the same ground as those people who, in Copernicus’s time, came and said: ‘Well, the idea that the sun stands still—that certainly contradicts the five healthy senses!’ No sane, thinking person can accept that. Just as back then—I’ve already spoken of this here in previous years—just as back then, when Giordano Bruno took up Copernicus’s new teaching and said: “Our five healthy senses have taught us that up there is the blue firmament, and beneath that firmament the stars revolve.” But the truth presents itself to us in this way: there is no blue firmament up there, but rather it is only the limitations of human perception that place the firmament there—that make you imagine the firmament—while outer space extends into infinity and the innumerable stars are embedded within it. Just as Giordano Bruno had to expose the spatial firmament as a mere illusion caused by the limitations of human perception, so spiritual science must, I would say, expose the temporal firmament of human soul life, which is bounded by birth—or, let us say, conception—and death. Just as there is no firmament “up there,” so too is there no boundary where birth—or, let us say, conception—and death occur; rather, it is only human perception and human thought in ordinary life that are limited there; and this one life is embedded in the entire flow of time.

[ 47 ] Today, esteemed audience, we stand at exactly the same turning point with regard to spiritual knowledge as the world did with regard to the knowledge of nature when Giordano Bruno had to step forward and emphasize the illusion of the outer firmament of space, just as we must today emphasize the illusion created by the firmament of time—by birth and death. But then, when people come to understand—even without becoming spiritual researchers—for just as there are individual chemists and individual astronomers, so there will always be individual spiritual researchers in the future—when people have cast aside all prejudices against spiritual research, just as they have cast aside those against the scientific worldview, then, just as the scientific worldview has permeated the activities of outer life—just as it has, I might say, built up everything we have around us in our outer lives in the modern world—so, with regard to the soul life into which we as human beings are living as we move toward the future, the concepts of spiritual science will become an integral part of that life.

[ 48 ] And above all, it must be noted that these spiritual-scientific concepts take root in our perceptions and in our feelings. And how different these feelings and sensations become when they are permeated, rippled through, and surging with spiritual-scientific ideas—such as those that arise in connection with the question of destiny. We will find destiny intimately linked to what the Higher within ourselves—the truly spiritual-soul aspect that passes from birth to birth—accomplishes. Just as we perceive the laws of nature in the external world as the interconnection of external natural facts, so too will we perceive our higher self, reigning over our destiny.

[ 49 ] Of course, the question can always be raised—and I just want to mention this in passing, distinguished audience—as to whether earthly lives will continue this way for all eternity. Well, earthly lives will continue this way only as long as the Earth remains under the same conditions as it is now, more or less. Spiritual science leads us back—you can read more about this in my *The Secret Science*—to entirely different states of the Earth. There, too, human beings have evolved from entirely different states into the life that guides them through repeated earthly lives. And when the Earth has taken on entirely different forms—as physics already teaches us—there will also be entirely different conditions on Earth, and then human beings, too, will take on entirely different forms. This earthly life is an intermediate state, from one birth to the next. But just as we now stand within this earthly life, spiritual science is what brings coherence to all the twists and turns of our fate, what allows us to grow together with our own destiny. And it is precisely in our time—I would say it would not be felt out of place—when it is said that the difficult times we are going through in these days, weeks, and months must direct our souls in a very special way toward such an understanding of human destiny. We see—as I mentioned the day before yesterday—how, in countless sufferings, but also in countless acts of courageous bravery and admirable self-sacrifice, that which must be lived out in the course of history is being lived out precisely through the events of today.

[ 50 ] And the person who finds himself caught up in these events, how can they feel a sense of belonging to these events, how can they feel a sense of belonging even to these fateful events of our day, if they can sense how the secret bond of attraction—which is said to emanate from their very being and shape their destiny—has placed them precisely in this time of such fateful significance? How does one feel a growing unity even with such a difficult time when one senses the growing unity between being human in the higher sense and destiny in the sense of spiritual science? And how does that trust grow—the trust we must have in events—when one thus perceives the connection between the human being and his destiny? On the one hand, we see how we have, as it were, chosen this time with our higher self as the period of life that is now appropriate for us—the period that best corresponds to the qualities we hold hidden within the core of our being—and how we have placed ourselves precisely within this time. This is also how we gain that trust: we will have the strength to truly meet the demands that this time must place upon us. We do not want spiritual science to urge us toward trust through mere exhortations, mere persuasion, or in any sentimental way, but rather by telling ourselves: one thing always leads to the other. The qualities in our souls that have brought us into this era are connected—they could not otherwise be developed—to other qualities that, in turn, will enable us to direct the experiences of our time toward the goals described in the lecture the day before yesterday as arising directly from the demands of our time.

[ 51 ] We do not rely on exhortations or sentimental persuasion, but on the knowledge we can gain of the forces that exist to help us overcome, just as the forces existed that brought us into this era. For what a person gains, esteemed attendees, when he truly immerses his soul in spiritual science, is a full awareness that: Yes, down there in your depths, there are soul forces of which you know nothing, but which can rise up from these depths! Above all, trust in oneself, trust in the forces that lie within, in the depths of one’s soul—this is what a person gains. This is precisely what lies within spiritual science itself as a strengthening force of the soul. And if we return to the topic I took the liberty of addressing the day before yesterday—Central European culture, which, one might say, is enclosed by its enemies as if within a great fortress—then we can say: This trust is further strengthened in us in yet another way.

[ 52 ] Just the day before yesterday, I pointed out how this Central European culture is truly destined to develop a very special inner life, and how this inner life can be characterized by saying: Members of other nationalities are born into their nationality; by being born, so to speak, people stand within their nation, and when one observes [how other nations emphasize the national principle], one always finds it traced back to the fact that a person is born into that nation. This is precisely what is distinctive about Central European people: that they are in the process of becoming. To use this quote from Goethe: “Whoever strives with all their might, we can redeem them”—this is like a motto for the Central European. Discovering who one is—that is the essence. Only in the course of one’s life does one truly discover who one is as a person of Central European culture; that is the distinctive trait of this Central European—the seeker, the striver.

[ 53 ] And so, when we—I would say—truly look closely at the national spirits of the Central European peoples, we find that everywhere, absolutely everywhere, lies a rich potential for what spiritual science seeks to portray as its very innermost lifeblood—and which it hopes will become increasingly incorporated into culture. And there we see that it is precisely in the cultural soul of Central Europe that these seeds appear everywhere; just as it is true that these seeds, if nurtured properly, must develop into blossoms and fruits, just as it is true that we may trust that what is present in embryonic form in Central European spiritual life will bear blossoms and fruit, and that nothing will prevent this Central European spiritual life from bearing these blossoms and fruit, no matter how many enemies rise up against it in the east, west, north, and south. For the forces lie within it; the forces do not lie in anything that comes to this Central European spiritual life from without.

[ 54 ] Thus we see—to cite just a few examples—how, within Central European intellectual life, there are people who are deeply immersed in that very intellectual life with all their spiritual powers and who, I would say, intuitively point toward what spiritual science seeks to present to humanity in full light. Here I would like to draw attention to a spirit who, precisely under current circumstances, has had even less of an impact on Central European intellectual life, but who is truly deeply immersed in it and, in the deepest sense, characteristic of this Central European intellectual life—the one whom one might call “Goethe’s deputy,” Herman Grimm, the great art historian of the second half of the nineteenth century. I do not wish to go into the peculiarities of Herman Grimm’s art research today, which is so misunderstood by many. But I would like to mention that Herman Grimm wrote wonderful novellas and, in particular, an extraordinarily significant novel—the title is *Unüberwindliche Mächte* (Insurmountable Forces).

[ 55 ] I would like to briefly draw attention to something in this work of art—something that has not been recognized, something contained within this work of art, and something we recognize as characteristic of Central European intellectual life. I would like to highlight a few characteristic features. Herman Grimm attempts to portray the fate of human beings, but throughout his work he feels the need, as an artist, to contribute to what spiritual science is meant to bring to the living scientific life of humanity—namely, to link human destiny not merely to what can be presented externally as events traceable by the intellect, but to what lies behind these events.

[ 56 ] He wrote a novella, “The Singer,” a very peculiar novella. I do not mention this novella because I wish to use a work of art to prove something about spiritual science, but for the opposite reason: because I want to show how someone who has become familiar with spiritual science may find that here, for once, an artist depicts things in such a way that the spiritual scientist feels: he does not depict certain spiritual processes in an amateurish way, but rather portrays them in a way that corresponds to what the spiritual researcher must gradually discover. In this “Singer,” we see portrayed how a somewhat coquettish yet spiritually elevated woman exerts a powerful attraction on a man who must encounter her in life. But the lady draws him in—the one who loves her so deeply—and then pushes him away again. And now the novella is structured in such a way that the one who writes it—the one who recounts this story about himself—is not the lover, but someone else who is an observer, yet he tells it in the first person. He says that he became acquainted with the lady’s lover, that he saw how the lover was drawn to and then repelled by the lady, and how the lover—after the lady had finally rejected him—eventually came to hit rock bottom in life, losing all comfort, all hope, and all sense of security. Now we see how the other man—who is his friend—meets him later on a journey, after he has already lost all confidence in life; how he brings him to his home; how he learns from him that he is utterly heartbroken and truly no longer wants to go on living. So this friend goes to fetch the singer himself; she is to come to the house so that the two of them can meet one last time. In the meantime, however, the lover has arranged things so that, just as the two—the friend and the singer—are approaching the friend’s home, a shot rings out and the lover takes his own life upon their arrival. And now we see, as Herman Grimm describes it in a marvelous way, how this lady spends the following nights at her friend’s house and how she experiences—after her lover has taken his own life—how she experiences the spirit form of her lover appearing to her, having passed through the gate of death. And Herman Grimm allows us to sense that what has actually passed beyond into death is the true determining factor of fate. Indeed, it is precisely through the effect emanating from the apparition of the dead man—I might say, the ghostly apparition—that the woman herself wastes away and finally dies.

[ 57 ] Again, just as with a dream, I do not wish to place particular emphasis on the content that is presented here, but rather on the fact that we have here an artist who does not stop at the merely one-sided reality of the external sensory world and at the mere summarization of external twists of fate, as they say, but who attempts to perceive the interconnections of human destiny in their relationship to what passes through the gate of death, and to depict this artistically as well.

[ 58 ] Herman Grimm demonstrates that he does this more than once in his great novel *Unüberwindliche Mächte* (*Invincible Forces*). He does so by having the novel’s heroine, the young Emmy, witness the murder of the person who has become the most precious to her in the world. He does not die by suicide; he is murdered. The heroine is already ill, but the death of her lover now causes her to waste away. And now Herman Grimm vividly describes how peculiar death is, how what has passed through the gate of death from the man who was shot—he was shot, he did not die by suicide —, how this is still connected to the soul of the living, how it affects the living, how it forms a mysterious bond of attraction, and how it actually brings about Emmy’s wasting away. And now Herman Grimm even describes what, in its full significance, only the spiritual researcher can comprehend; he describes how the spiritual form, passing into the spiritual world through death, truly ascends. Herman Grimm wonderfully depicts how, emerging from the physical body—still, I might say, mimicking the head, hands, and the entire form—the spirit rises and passes into the spiritual world, only to unite there as a spirit, as Emmy’s spirit, with the spirit of her beloved friend. Here, too, Herman Grimm shows that he seeks in the spiritual world the forces that actually shape human destiny. Thus, in this artist, we see how the seed for a deeper understanding of spiritual science is present precisely within Central European spiritual culture.

[ 59 ] Sometimes this seed manifests itself in Central European intellectual culture in a most peculiar way. To cite just one example out of hundreds and hundreds that could be mentioned, I would like to highlight that of a German schoolteacher who once wrote a treatise on the immortality of the soul. He intended to publish a second edition of this treatise. A friend of his published it as part of his posthumous writings. Curiously, this friend of the school principal, Johann Heinrich Deinhardt, offers a very interesting interpretation in a footnote. He says that this school principal had written to him before his death, stating that if he were to publish a second edition of this treatise himself, he would have to describe what the principal had come to realize—namely, that in the life between birth and death, through what a person achieves, a spirit-soul being is formed that passes through the gate of death into the spiritual world.

[ 60 ] When one sees how Central European intellectual life shapes thoughts and feelings, how it points the way, how it points everywhere toward what spiritual science seeks—just as a seed points toward the blossoms and the fruits—all of this points toward spiritual science.

[ 61 ] And once again I would like to say: This, too, becomes quite clear to us—especially when we look, I would say, at the Austrian aspect of Central European intellectual life and draw on a few examples from it— this, too, will become quite clear to us—as was touched upon the day before yesterday—that at the core of the soul there is pain, suffering, and struggle, and that only by overcoming pain, suffering, and struggle—and, as we have seen today, by overcoming fear and powerlessness—is it possible for a person to develop the essence of their life. We also encounter this in external life, in the entire nature of human striving, and this is particularly evident—I would say—in the Austrian segment of Central European intellectual life.

[ 62 ] There is a spirit, a wonderfully captivating spirit of Austria: Bartholomäus Carneri. When Darwinism entered modern intellectual life—well, other thinkers shaped it in such a way that they drew the logical conclusions, forming from it a one-sided worldview, the one-sided worldview of materialism. Bartholomäus Carneri wrote books such as the wonderful *Morality and Darwinism*. Even if one does not agree with the content—because, of course, Carneri had only just begun and was unfamiliar with spiritual science—if one engages with a book such as the one he wrote toward the end of his life, the book *The Modern Man*—then one sees how this man, who was so deeply rooted in Austrian and Central European spiritual life, could not help but grasp Darwinism not only with his intellect, but also with what human beings carry within their souls as a moral force. And so Bartholomäus Carneri drew emotional and moral conclusions from Darwinism and, in a marvelous way, established an idealism grounded in Darwinism. One may regard this as wrong, but this peculiar idealism of Bartholomäus Carneri is characteristic of Central European intellectual life.

[ 63 ] And we can look to another spirit who is truly characteristic—I would say, specifically, of a certain stage of development in Central European intellectual life—namely, the Austrian poet Robert Hamerling, who, as his book *Die Atomistik des Willens* shows, was also a great philosopher who, even in the final years of his life, prophetically depicted the mechanization of human life in his *Homunkulus* and pointed out the necessity of overcoming this mechanization of life.

[ 64 ] However, ladies and gentlemen, we have not yet found the inner energy to fully appreciate all that had such a vital, spiritual impact on minds like those of the individuals mentioned—Herman Grimm, Bartholomäus Carneri, Robert Hamerling. Those who frequently dominate literature today have had quite different concerns. But it is precisely our great, fateful era that will reveal where the vital nerves of Central European cultural life lie.

[ 65 ] There were people who could not fully appreciate the greatness inherent in the characters described, but who nevertheless admired the greatness of a mind said to be particularly outstanding—a mind that has been especially admired in recent years and which caused astonishment when, as a Frenchman, he spoke out so viciously against Central European intellectual culture. I am referring to Romain Rolland, the author of the novel *Jean-Christophe*. One can truly make the case, esteemed audience, that just as a profound sense of reality lived in minds such as those of Robert Hamerling and Herman Grimm—who knew that they must seek reality in its fullness even where the senses fall short—so too does there live in Romain Rolland, in his *Jean-Christophe*, a— one might almost say a hatred of reality—a tendency to grotesquely distort reality everywhere, precisely because it demands to be viewed only superficially. And the much-admired novel, which in the eyes of many is supposed to be one of the greatest, *Jean-Christophe*, appears—to those who can perceive this, who can sense the wholeness and essential perfection of a being in general—as a chaotic hodgepodge even in its portrayal of the hero, Jean-Christophe, a jumble of traits drawn from Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler.

[ 66 ] Just as the elements of these four great figures could never have been brought together by nature in a single person, so too can this chaos never come together in the mind of a healthy artist. Anyone who understood the true nature of Romain Rolland and his art was not at all surprised that, after the war broke out, this same Romain Rolland misjudged Central European intellectual life in such a grotesque manner. If only one could truly get to the heart of things, then much would become clear, especially in the present.

[ 67 ] Yet all this cannot make us lose heart. It was said the day before yesterday and alluded to again in today’s lecture: What is built upon a foundation on the surface of human life—above the struggle and war of opposing forces, [which] contain fear and powerlessness—is nevertheless surmounted by something that must be courage to face life and the development of life; and so it is in the external world as well. And perhaps it is truly no coincidence that the distinctive quality which strikes us with such wonderful sympathy in Bartholomäus Carneri’s philosophical writings arose in a life that was physically and bodily borne with great hardship in a paralyzed body; in a body that was paralyzed for a long time, Carneri struggled his way up to the insights of his noble idealism. There we see how treasures of the spirit are wrested from the body. And Robert Hamerling—he lay stricken by severe illness for decades. Born of suffering is that which uplifts people once it has come into being! That which arises from suffering can be precisely what permeates life with the highest delight and the highest joy.

[ 68 ] When one looks into the mysteries of life in this way and when such peculiarities—the latter, of course, has only been I would say, have been particularly emphasized because it does not seem to be a coincidence—when one discovers such peculiarities, then one will find all the more, precisely in this Central European spiritual life, the characteristic that it tends everywhere toward such a deepening of the spirit, just as the future must demand of human beings. Everywhere, minds are striving to find what Goethe did not immediately write into his *Faust* in his youth, but only later, after Goethe himself had matured, incorporated into his *Faust*.

Sublime Spirit, you gave me, [gave me] everything,
That I asked for. You did not in vain
Turn your face toward me in the fire.
You gave me the magnificent natural world as my kingdom,
The power to feel it, to enjoy it. You do not
do you merely permit me to be a cold, marveling visitor,
but grant me to gaze into her deep bosom,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the procession of the living
past me, and teach me to know my brothers
in the quiet thicket, in air and water.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce, toppling, sweeps down, crushing
Neighboring branches and trunks,
And the hill thunders with a dull, hollow roar at their fall,
Then you lead me to the safe cave, show me
Myself, and within my own breast
Secret, profound wonders unfold.

[ 69 ] There we see—I would say—the entire spectrum of human experience; we already sense, as it were, a hint of the entire spectrum of human experience, as it is to be revealed through what spiritual science is to explore for the people of the future. But precisely because this Central European spiritual life has the character of striving, the character of becoming, it will increasingly strive to see kinship everywhere, to see something akin to itself everywhere, [to strive] to attune itself to something akin to itself even in the external natural world. The spirit within the human being will find the spirit outside, truly recognizing brothers in the woods and meadows and in all living things. That is to say, the human self will expand and immerse itself, sinking into the entire universe. And the human being will be led to the safe cave, and the mysterious wonders of the spirit’s becoming and being [will] unfold—if, through spiritual science, he overcomes the fear of finding his true self only within the great current of destiny.

[ 70 ] Oh, there are also opposing forces at work within this Central European spiritual life—forces that resist this Central European spiritual life from perceiving itself as a single, great spiritual organism. If I may once again draw attention to something personal—not to bring up a personal matter, but simply to clarify a point—I would like to say: Central Europeans find it difficult to truly achieve what is predestined for them—to grow together into a unified whole—because they must first achieve this through life—not through what they do not themselves strive for, such as physical birth, but through the life they choose for themselves in their destiny. That is why it made a significant impression on me—and I am certainly permitted to mention this personal aspect, since I have indeed spent roughly half my life in my Austrian homeland and the other half in the German Empire, and thus, by weighing both equally, have truly been able to make a good comparison; I may mention this because I have been able to acquire not only an intellectual but also an emotional judgment over the course of my life— it made a profound impression on me when I was once sitting with Herman Grimm in a hotel in Weimar and the conversation—which Herman Grimm had at the time steered toward various truly fascinating topics—then turned to the Austrian poet Grillparzer, this quintessentially Austrian poet. Herman Grimm said to me at the time: “Grillparzer—I can’t understand him; I’ve been told that Grillparzer is also supposed to be a great German poet.” So I traveled through Munich once, stayed there for a few days, and had a few volumes of Grillparzer’s plays sent to me from the library. “So I tried,” says Herman Grimm, “to see if I could feel what people say—that Grillparzer is also a great poet. But it seemed to me as if Grillparzer were not a German poet at all, but rather as if what is in his plays were translations from a completely foreign language.” Such was the judgment of this esteemed gentleman, whom I myself had to describe today as a distinctive spirit, as one of the deepest and most significant minds of Central European intellectual life. For this reason, he may be cited as evidence of just how strong the sense of individuality is among the individual members of this Central European cultural community.

[ 71 ] Even if these individuals—who are part of Central European cultural life—do not belong to different nationalities, even if they all belong to the same nation, such as Grillparzer and Herman Grimm, they are so distinct in character that they can only find common ground after great difficulty. This is related to the conflicting forces at play. But the greater these conflicting forces are, the greater must also be the forces expended to shape the whole into a whole—into a unified, organic whole. Then it will be the one in which, as in a cultural riverbed, that depth for spiritual life will be found—and must be found—which can truly be found only within Central Europe, because this Central European spiritual life tends toward the spiritual depth that I have taken the liberty of outline today—albeit with a few very inadequate, yet still some, strokes—as the goals to which spiritual science should aspire. This Central European spiritual life cannot rest until it has developed into the blossoms and fruits of what lies within it as a seed.

[ 72 ] And whoever has learned to build upon the impulse and sustaining power of inner spiritual forces knows, based on this inner insight, that this Central European spiritual life—no matter how much it may be oppressed, threatened, opposed, and waged war against by its enemies—will not disappear from history until it has incorporated into world culture everything it has to offer to that culture.

[ 73 ] And this, esteemed audience, is a great and mighty thing indeed, for this spiritual life of Central Europe is not yet recognized as blossoms and fruits, but as a seed that must develop. And it is on the driving force of this seed that those who today seek courage and vitality for our fateful days from spiritual insight itself rely. This Central European spiritual life will not abandon what has been instilled in it by spirits such as Goethe and all the others. Goethe himself has spoken a great, a powerful word regarding the unified understanding of the world as spirit and as outward physicality—for those who timidly shrink back in fear of self-knowledge and of their own powerlessness to comprehend the world. For them, Goethe—by always finding the right words from his, I might say, instinctive spiritual insight—also spoke the truth when he said, echoing a statement made by another, namely one of the timid: “No created spirit penetrates into the innermost depths of nature!”

[ 74 ] No, says Goethe; that which is within human beings is capable, if only it is properly developed, of penetrating into the very heart of nature and reaching the inner nerve of the world. That is why Goethe, in his forceful language, rejects Haller’s statement that “No created spirit penetrates into the heart of nature”:

I’ve been hearing that repeated for about sixty years now.
And I curse it, but secretly;

[ 75 ] Haller goes on to say:

Blessed is the one whom she merely
points to the outer shell!

[ 76 ] —namely, nature—and Goethe responds:

Nature has neither core
Nor shell,
She is all at once.
Examine yourself above all else,
To see whether you yourself are core or shell.

[ 77 ] But Central European intellectual life must develop the core within its soul to form a shell that extends everywhere. And so let me now summarize in a few words, based on my own feelings, what I sought to illustrate through the remarks in today’s lecture and also in the one from the day before—namely, that human beings are truly created not only to penetrate into the innermost depths of nature, into the spirituality that permeates nature, but are also created to recognize himself within the current of his destiny, so that he may be reconciled with this destiny and understand why he has become one with the destiny of his time.

[ 78 ] Goethe expresses the same sentiment in meaningful, though simple, words. He points out that, while what a person seeks in spiritual development is indeed a mystery, it is a mystery that can be fathomed. Goethe knew that the world is overwhelming—so much so that it can justify the powerlessness of cognition—but he also knew that this powerlessness can be overcome, that human beings can pierce the veil of nature. That is why Goethe utters the words with which we wish to conclude this reflection, for they truly and authentically capture, in a way that resonates with feeling, what constitutes the spirit of spiritual science and what spiritual science seeks to illustrate:

When observing nature
You must always regard everything as one;
Nothing is inside, nothing is outside:

[ 79 ] Goethe believes that what is hidden deep within we perceive as something external, and that what we recognize as external—including the external courses of fate, as spiritual science teaches—we recognize as the destinies of the higher human being.

For what is within is also without.
So seize without delay
The sacred public secret.

[ 80 ] This, esteemed audience, is Goethe’s attitude; this, when fully developed, will be the attitude of spiritual science and will be able to serve as the foundation for that state of mind, that strengthening of the soul, which can arise from spiritual science—in difficult times, but also in times of such fateful significance as we are experiencing today, as we are experiencing once again in our present.