The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Eternal Forces of the Human Soul in the Light of Spiritual Science

Ladies and gentlemen!

[ 1 ] Although the mystery inherent in the question of the eternal forces of the human soul must always be close at hand for every thinking, feeling human soul as one of life’s most important questions, it is nevertheless the case that in our time, in our immediate present — in which the mystery of death and, with it, that of transience—from which, however, something significant is to emerge in our time out of historical necessity—in such a time, in which the mystery of death approaches human beings in so many ways, this question regarding the eternal powers of the human soul must be particularly close to their hearts. Now, over the years that I have had the opportunity to speak here from this very place on questions of spiritual science from various perspectives—particularly regarding these eternal forces of the human soul—much of what I have said today will, in one way or another, sound familiar to the esteemed listeners who have been present here on many previous occasions. Nevertheless, I would like to speak today from a particular perspective—that of spiritual scientific insights—about that which, at the very core of the soul, transcends a person’s birth—or, let us say, conception—and death, and reveals itself to genuine spiritual research as the human being’s eternal essence.

[ 2 ] When people speak of these eternal forces of the human soul, then today—and this must be emphasized again and again—objections arise against the arguments that one person or another advances regarding the eternal powers of the human soul based on this or that school of psychology; against these arguments, legitimate reservations are raised by those whose worldview believes it stands on the firm ground of scientific research. And a large part of the misunderstandings directed against spiritual science, as it is understood here, probably stems from the fact that the very relationship between spiritual science and the contemporary scientific worldview is not properly understood. I have also emphasized this here on several occasions: that spiritual science, as it is understood here, in no way seeks to be at odds with the legitimate research of the natural sciences; on the contrary, in its exploration of human spiritual life, spiritual science seeks to incorporate into spiritual culture precisely those elements that the scientific mindset of the modern era has contributed to external material culture and to the perception of the external sensory world and external nature. Spiritual science seeks to stand not in discord, but in full harmony with precisely what the natural sciences rightly present to us. [Therefore, it looks to what this or that school of psychology has to say to spiritual science regarding the eternal forces of the human soul].

[ 3 ] The humanities do not view the various points of view that the natural sciences have to offer with hostility, but rather, on the contrary, with great understanding. Indeed, based on judgments, considerations, various concepts, and observations of spiritual life as it presents itself in everyday life or even in science, certain conclusions are drawn within conventional psychology to the effect that what manifests itself in the human soul during the period between birth and death is based on a spiritual element that passes through the gate of death and enters a spiritual world; reasons are put forward from this conventional psychology of the soul to the effect that human soul life is something independent of external physical life, which in its arising and passing away cannot be dependent on the laws of physical life.

[ 4 ] In contrast, the objections raised by the current scientific worldview will always be valid. I have often alluded to the significance of these objections and can therefore touch on them briefly today. It can rightly be said: One need only observe the course of this inner life, see how it develops from its dim beginnings in early childhood all the way to maturity, see how it progresses from maturity through the stages of old age, and you will see how this so-called spiritual development runs entirely parallel to physical development; how, alongside the formation of the nervous system and the rest of the human organism from childhood onward, the spiritual faculties also gradually develop, and how they in turn decline with physical decay. One can truly point out that, to anyone who views this today with a proper scientific mindset, this spiritual life—as it manifests itself in everyday life and also in science—really does appear like a flame that cannot exist without the candle, that is dependent on the candle, and that must vanish along with the candle itself. One can certainly draw such a parallel between spiritual life—which seems to burst forth from the activities of the physical body—and the physical body itself. And especially when one looks at those clinical studies that show how mental faculties are shut down with the disease of the human nervous system, how certain mental manifestations are no longer present when this or that organ is diseased—when one considers this, one cannot help but say: Certainly, no matter how much one might wish to give credence to the conclusions of certain psychologists, the scientific perspective is so compelling that one can hardly avoid giving full agreement to what is put forward by the aforementioned side.

[ 5 ] And so it must be emphasized that much of the opposition on the part of those with a scientific mindset in our time by no means stems from aversion or antipathy toward any spiritual assumptions, but rather, on the contrary, arises from an inner, conscientious pursuit of what new research has to say to humanity about humanity itself. And in a certain sense, it is even correct to say: Certainly, today not all physical bodily processes can yet be fully understood, but the natural sciences are on the path to making this understanding ever more complete, and one can hold to the ideal scientific view that the time will come when a complete parallelism can be found between physical bodily processes and the spiritual expressions of the human soul in this life.

[ 6 ] It must be said, then, that in the face of the dominance of the scientific mindset, some—those who stand on the ground of speaking of the eternal forces of the human soul—have a difficult time. Yet spiritual science fully takes into account the scientific mindset and the scientific advances of the recent past and present. Indeed], when it comes to the course of human soul life between birth and death, it stands—precisely on the basis of its own research—entirely on the justified ground of the scientific worldview. It stands on this ground for reasons whose validity will become evident from various points that will be addressed today. For with regard to what develops in the soul between birth and death as thinking, imagining, sensing, feeling, and willing—what we observe manifesting within ourselves in our everyday mental life—it must be said that it is intimately linked to the instrument provided by our body, our physical being; but spiritual science, as it is understood here, does not rest on the premise that one can discover the deeper aspects and forces of the human soul simply by directing one’s gaze toward what takes place within this soul life during the period between birth and death. Just as spiritual science is based on the premise that what is immediately perceptible to the senses in nature, and what can be deduced by the intellect on the basis of sensory perceptions—that this is, so to speak, only the outer manifestation of the spirit of nature— so spiritual science is also grounded in the principle that the depths of soul life are hidden even from this everyday, and in the ordinary sense, scientific understanding of soul life. Spiritual science, as understood here, is based on the premise that those manifestations of soul life which are immediately apparent to the human being—as he is situated in his existence in the physical world—are not what can be described as eternal; rather, one must look just as far beyond the veil of the soul phenomena that present themselves directly in order to arrive at the true nature of the human soul, just as one must look beyond the veil of natural phenomena to arrive at the true nature of the spirit in nature.

[ 7 ] Thus, the task of spiritual science is to find, within the soul, the path to the sources of its true being. And it must be said: In the knowledge of spiritual science, a certain principle presents itself to the soul in a comprehensive way—a principle that also applies in the external natural sciences, but which, although generally recognized today in the external natural sciences, is not usually accepted in a more general sense for the comprehensive life of the world, to which the spiritual also belongs. It is said: The forces of nature operate in such a way that no force disappears completely, but rather the forces are transformed. And the transformation of natural forces, in which their power is revealed, does indeed constitute a fundamental feature of the current scientific worldview. The transformation of work into heat, of heat into work, and so on—this is what is often discussed. This principle of the transformation of forces holds true, and today we will see a specific application of it to spiritual life.

[ 8 ] In particular, what manifests itself within a person’s birth and death—what reveals itself as our soul life in everyday existence—is a transformation of the eternal forces within the human soul; and because the eternal forces are transformed into temporal ones, because they take shape as what presents itself to us in ordinary thinking, feeling, and willing, these three cannot represent the form in which the eternal must appear when considered as the foundation of human soul life. It is not by applying the ordinary powers of the soul as they are that one reaches the eternal in the human soul, but by seeking, from the soul’s activity in ordinary life, a path to a completely different kind of activity, by developing, out of the ordinary soul processes, dormant powers that are not present in ordinary life precisely because they have been transformed into these ordinary powers of the soul.

[ 9 ] There are two kinds of activities of the soul in our everyday life: one kind is that which manifests itself more in accordance with imagination and sensation, in accordance with the imaginative and feeling nature of the human being; and the other is that which manifests itself more in accordance with the volitional nature of the human being. Feeling, after all, lies between thinking and willing. Today we will attempt to consider how, on the one hand, the imaginative nature of the human being can be developed, and on the other, the volitional nature, so that through this development the human being may attain a science of the eternal forces of the human soul. The one fundamental force that first appears in its outer form in ordinary soul life is thinking. Just as thinking reveals itself in this ordinary soul life, it leads only to a kind of overview of what is given to us through the senses. Spiritual science now seeks—and in doing so acts entirely in the spirit of the true scientific worldview—spiritual science now seeks, just as natural science attempts to uncover nature’s secrets through external experimentation, to find the path through intimate soul experiments into those spheres where the life of the soul is capable of revealing its secrets. Ordinary thinking, as it occurs in everyday life, is not sufficient for this; but this thinking is capable of development, capable of being strengthened—and this inner strengthening of thinking has already been referred to here on several occasions. What the soul has to do here is described—I would say—with the technical term “meditation,” which refers to particularly intense thought processes evoked internally; these do not occur in ordinary life in this deliberate manner, but rather in a different way. In everyday life, we use thinking to form mental images of our sensory surroundings and of what takes place within human life that is perceptible from the outside—what we can take in as representations. This is important for everyday life. Now, spiritual science—by looking inward intently at the life of the soul, by making it its task to observe the life of the soul in the same way that the natural scientist observes nature through experimentation—discovers that this thinking has yet another side entirely. Perhaps I can make this other aspect of human intellectual life understandable by drawing a comparison: When a person works with their hands, they perform this or that task; the result of the hand’s work is then there, visible from the outside. When a person works continuously with their hands, they do not merely perform what takes place externally; rather, as we know, when they work in this way, they alter the inner strengthening of the hand itself; the hand becomes stronger and more dexterous, and is directed toward a certain mode of activity. Something is accomplished within the hand itself. This occurs—I would say—alongside the activity that is outwardly visible: a refinement of dexterity alongside the results achieved through the work! So it is also with human thinking. As human thinking unfolds, it forms thoughts about what is happening in the surroundings or elsewhere in the course of the world. These thoughts are initially the main thing, just as the external results are for manual labor; but as it is carried out, it gains strength internally; it is something that undergoes a certain development within itself. Certainly, with the hand we observe the development; but that intimate inner development which thinking experiences within itself—this, in reality, goes unnoticed.

[ 10 ] The researcher of the spirit, however, grasps precisely what underlies this and systematically develops it by, as it were, setting out on an inner experimental journey into what constitutes the inner invigoration of thought. In this way, he introduces into the sphere of thought a completely different way of engaging with it than is usually the case. And this is precisely what happens in meditation. One repeatedly introduces certain images into the activity of thinking, but does so in such a way that the goal is not to arrive at any particular content regarding this or that, but rather to ensure that thinking, as it were, remains within itself—in the very act of holding onto certain images that have been arbitrarily introduced into thought. One effectively brings thinking into a certain stationary state; one remains focused on a particular thought, concentrating one’s entire inner life upon that thought. In doing so, it is not important to introduce into one’s inner life any ideas that signify this or that in the external world; rather, it is best to use ideas derived from the guidance of spiritual science—ideas that one can fully grasp; for if one uses concepts otherwise absorbed from life, one cannot know—because one was connected to them—whether remnants of feeling or all manner of remnants of volitional impulses might be clinging to these concepts and being brought to the surface. One is, so to speak, not in a position to grasp such ideas—taken in this way—in their complete purity, so that one knows: nothing from the depths of the soul life clings to them that could deceive one.

[ 11 ] What matters is clarity—that is, forming such concepts from a few elements. The best concepts are symbolic ones that do not refer to any external reality at all, so that one can remain solely in the effort required to hold onto such concepts. What matters is not that such thinking is true in this or that sense, but that one finds peace within the soul to hold all the soul’s powers together for a time, to concentrate them on this one point, so that through this very effort this power is strengthened immeasurably and becomes what it can be through this strengthening. Thus, what matters in this inner experiment is inner peace, the application of inner strength, and detachment from the rest of life. One must first and foremost recognize that this spiritual science, unlike ordinary philosophy, does not aim to fathom this or that through thinking. This approach is justified in ordinary science, in everyday life, and everywhere else; but it does not lead to the understanding of what spiritual science seeks to understand. This kind of thinking, which leads to results in the ordinary sense, is by no means challenged in any way by spiritual science—for it is grounded in life— but for its own purposes, spiritual science requires that what is otherwise used as knowledge about the world—namely, thinking—be applied purely to the development of the soul, so that it advances from its ordinary standpoint to a different perspective. What matters is that thinking is not taken as it usually is in life—to investigate something—but is used solely to cultivate something in the human soul, as a means of education.

[ 12 ] So this different use of thinking within the life of the human soul—that is what matters. One must completely set aside what one is accustomed to thinking about thinking in ordinary science. In ordinary science, it serves to convey some kind of knowledge. Everything else that thinking is capable of is irrelevant to spiritual science; what matters is what thinking brings about in the human soul itself.

[ 13 ] Well, I can only outline in general terms what must take effect as meditation within the human soul for the sake of spiritual research. You will find more detailed information in the books, for example in my work *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. For what I am briefly outlining here is, after all, only a general explanation of what constitutes a long spiritual journey—one that must be supported by the most diverse inner, intimate processes, and which necessitates that the individual—for some it takes less time, for others more — engage in inner work in such a way, returning to it again and again, so as to strengthen their thinking from within.

[ 14 ] But then comes the moment in the life of the human soul that shows that thinking in this way can, so to speak, lead the soul beyond itself, and this is because what is still often regarded today as the sole legitimate philosophical worldview generally cannot keep pace when we speak of the paths of soul life just described; and what is criticized is precisely what spiritual science aims for and is capable of—from a perspective entirely different from the one that can only be gained by undertaking the inner experiment just alluded to. If one does so—because spiritual science presupposes certain processes in the human soul that truly lead down into the depths of the soul’s life and up to its heights—one arrives, in a certain sense, at deeply moving experiences of the soul’s life. These experiences one arrives at arise as necessary accompaniments; they are, so to speak, signs—milestones—indicating that one has reached a certain point along the path, but they are not what really matters. What matters is that this inwardly strengthened thinking leads one beyond oneself. And the point that leads there has long been designated by a single word—a word, however, that can be fully understood only by those who, through such inner spiritual endeavors, have at least gained a glimpse of the paths of the human soul. Spiritual science, as it is meant here, has validity only within our present human culture; it has the potential to arise only within it. Just as external science has advanced—bringing forth, as it were, from the twilight of ignorance what constitutes the scope of our knowledge of nature today, whereas this knowledge did not exist in the past—so it is with what human beings can draw forth from the depths of the soul as spiritual science. But throughout all ages—even if this had to occur by different means than in the present and future—people have sought the paths of spiritual research, and they have described what can only be characterized in the manner just indicated—that which the human soul experiences when it reaches the point where, through the temporal course of soul life, it arrives at its eternal powers— —this has been described with the words: “Man approaches the gate of death.” —And this phrase has a certain profound validity. For an inner state of the soul, an inner mood of the soul, sets in at a certain point in the soul’s development.

[ 15 ] So when the strengthening of thought has taken place, as has been described—where, in a sense, the human being is drawn away—but now not through mere willfulness or abstract thought, but through forces that seize his soul, whose spiritual reality he can now, for the first time, perceive and experience— through which he is drawn away from the entire external world and led toward the human being, toward himself, toward what he is as a human being within the world—one learns, through the fact that thinking, as it were, presses its power into his own being, strengthening itself inwardly, one comes to know this thinking as a kind of self-forming essence, through which, in an inner sense of power, one feels as if doubled, sensing a new inner human being within the ordinary human being.

[ 16 ] If I were to describe the matter in more detail, I would have to say: In ordinary life, a person not only sees his surroundings, but also feels that his physical being extends into the space bounded by his skin. In everyday life, however, they feel this inner being only very dimly. They feel it less dimly when this physical being is permeated by pain. What a person thus experiences vaguely as a sensation of his physical being, he experiences in a new way. He feels as if he were filled—and, I might say, permeated—by inner forces that are organizing themselves spiritually; he feels a second human being within the human being. And what he now experiences can only be represented through direct perception. Indeed, just as even someone who merely wishes to speculate can never determine, when faced with water, that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen without conducting an experiment, so too, without carrying out this inner, intimate experiment that takes place within the soul’s processes, one cannot have before oneself, as it were side by side, what one as a human being has already felt and experienced within oneself, and what now stands before one in the soul, through the strengthened thinking, like a new, second human being who fills out the first.

[ 17 ] But in experiencing this second human being within oneself, one experiences him as bound to that which in human beings is not a constructive force, but rather, on the contrary, a destructive one. One now comes to know—and this is a knowledge that can only be acquired through the experience described—one now comes to know that as long as a human being lives here within the physical body between birth and death, forces are at work within him that develop internally, that continually consume his body, and that ultimately represent what actually leads this body to death. And one comes to recognize that this second human being, whom one has now discovered—into whom the thinking that has gained strength within has crystallized—that this human being is the highest development of what manifests itself in the human being as the activity, as the force that leads to physical death. Within us are life forces—as we now realize—that bring about our growth and our restoration, always in relation to what we consume in life; but within us, ever since we entered the physical world, there have also always been the forces of destruction that wear down the body. And one comes to recognize that—if one could not wear out the body, if [therefore] there were not within us that which wears out the body—we could not at all attain to thinking in the sense in which we, as human beings, possess this thinking; [one comes to realize] that, in a sense, the highest flowering of the forces of death appears before our soul’s eye when we behold thinking—organizing itself inwardly and spiritually in its power—as a second human being within the human being.

[ 18 ] This is the shattering experience; we come to realize that we must have within us not only constructive forces but also forces that consume us, and that it is precisely the noblest of these consuming forces that are connected to our thinking. The fact that we are capable not only of developing life forces but also of wearing life away is connected to many things; but what emerges as the highest flowering of this is our ability to think. Thus we find an ancient mystery teaching: that the human being must enter the gate of death if he wishes to reach the soul sources of existence—a teaching that is justified. We must observe what within us brings about death in order to explore the true nature of thinking within us. And when we bring thinking to its highest peak, it, as it were, transcends its own essence and reveals itself to us as that which exists within us as a second human being, yet which represents the highest flowering of life-diminishing forces.

[ 19 ] And now—I said: One learns to recognize only what one finds there by contemplating it spiritually. From it one also comes to recognize that what asserts itself through condensed—things are always meant in a spiritual sense—thinking as a second human being within the human being is, in fact, not connected to what is within us through our birth or through hereditary forces, but rather that it approaches this physical body from the spiritual world. Through the way it relates to the physical body, the way it takes hold of it—when one observes this—one knows that the physical body does not produce these forces from within itself, and one can trace these forces all the way into the spiritual world, and one now comes to know, through direct spiritual perception, the spiritual fact that the human being descends from a spiritual world in which his being existed before birth or—let us say—conception, and that a spiritual being unites with what the hereditary forces can give to the human being. I would like to say: Just as the masculine and the feminine unite, so a third entity—coming from the spiritual world—unites with them; and by incorporating itself into the body, it transforms itself in such a way that it takes hold of the body and organizes it throughout. And as it acts in such a way as to consume this body, temporal thinking—as it unfolds between birth and death—arises from the transformation of what is spiritual. External knowledge derived from the physical world leaves us relatively indifferent to the innermost feelings of our soul life; spiritual insight, which thus brings us close to the sources of soul life, cannot pass without an inner tragedy seizing the soul. One truly comes into contact with what was alive in the spiritual realm, but which had to become a force of death as the human being becomes physically alive. One comes to recognize that what develops gradually in the physical human being from childhood into maturity is the transformation of forces, and that these forces must remain hidden from the ordinary gaze precisely because they have been transformed from the spiritual into—we might even call it—physical thinking. But we see emerging what lives and breathes within the human being inside the physical body; we see it emerging from its spiritual foundation, and there we see it become dead, after having been spiritually alive, so that the human being can become physically alive and develop. That which is spiritually alive—which constitutes the human being before birth—transformed itself into something physically life-extinguishing so that the physical could exist in living development between birth and death.

[ 20 ] I said, my esteemed audience, that what is still widely regarded today as the only legitimate philosophical worldview cannot quite keep up and must, understandably, turn against this spiritual science, because that conventional philosophical worldview lacks the means to address these intimate soul processes, which must be carried out with faithful devotion if one truly wishes to gain knowledge of the soul.

[ 21 ] We have seen that thinking must be developed in such a way that it progresses to a certain point and, having transcended itself there, takes shape. This path of the soul actually has very little to do with what is often called “mysticism” in everyday life; but the conventional philosophical worldview knows only what is commonly referred to as such. This so-called “mysticism” bears only a very superficial resemblance to the true paths leading into the spiritual world. Namely, the ordinary mystic—the one who has a sense that thinking must be used in a different way than in ordinary life—wishes to suppress this thinking, to suppress it within an indefinite inner, intuitive life, so that it becomes clouded, allowing something dark and nebulous to reign in the soul. On the contrary, the true spiritual path does not seek to extinguish this thinking, but rather seeks to strengthen it within itself, to bring it to its highest energy. Therefore, what spiritualizes the soul is not the dull, nebulous, mystical mood that fears thinking—as if because it believes that in the clarity of thinking—and in the case of ordinary thinking it is right—the soul cannot appear in its true form—but rather, thinking is precisely what is sought [on the true spiritual path]. Supreme clarity spreads ever more and more as the soul’s path is thus pursued to the point where thinking, as it were, transcends itself. Thus, by following this path of the soul, one comes to recognize what from the spiritual world has united with our physical organism through birth—or, shall we say, conception; one learns, as it were, to look back upon the soul’s earlier spiritual experience, which has descended into physical life. But the experience of death is precisely linked to this experience. One learns to grasp that, if one can look upon spiritual life in this way, one does indeed come to understand death, but nothing more than death; one comes to recognize that it is, as it were, willed from within the spiritual realm that a spiritual being incarnate physically, that the forces that were formerly in the spiritual realm are physically expended, that this being is led to death, and that it is precisely in this process of decay that the goal of its development lies.

[ 22 ] But one does not learn any more than that. One would come to understand death, but one would not yet be able to grasp the eternal powers of the human soul. These can only be grasped if one carries out the inner, intimate soul experiment in yet another direction—toward the realm of feeling and willing. Just as what thinking leads to does not lie within everyday thinking, so too does not everything one arrives at lie within everyday volition—through which one carries out one’s actions—if one now strengthens this will inwardly in such a way that one directs one’s attention to precisely that aspect of this will to which it is not usually directed. We will, we carry out our actions in ordinary life. Precisely because we are absorbed in our actions, we do not look at what develops quite mysteriously within the will—as it evolves from our childhood onward, while we will. We can say: We experience the will, but in ordinary life we do not look at it; we do not turn our attention to it. Yes, one must first train oneself; one must once again conduct the inner psychological experiment to develop the ability to direct one’s attention so intensely toward the will that one can recognize what lies within it. One achieves this especially by creating moments in life when one directs one’s attention to that aspect of the will to which it is not usually directed. Let’s say: You review your day; you intended to do this or that; now you look back on the way you behaved. You visualize yourself; you step outside yourself, observe yourself, recall how the intention for this or that arose, and thus examine yourself in your willing.

[ 23 ] Even such an inner experiment cannot be effective if one simply does it a few times. Of course, it depends on the individual’s disposition—but this must be emphasized again and again. That said, it is not a matter of spending a great deal of time on it; what matters is not the length of time but the intensity with which one engages in it—the truly precise, attentive observation of these processes of the will. It is particularly important to try to examine one’s own will by living intimately with it inwardly—for example, by mentally asking oneself: If you were to resolve to do this or that, how would your entire being within you align with it? When one experiences this inner intention—this feeling of connection with what a human being can strive for—when one experiences this as an inner process, then one becomes increasingly familiar with the will, and then one makes a discovery that is, in turn, profound. For one now discovers yet another inner human being, one that is, however, of an entirely different nature than the one described earlier—yes, human nature is truly multifaceted! By observing the will, one now discovers, within the very essence of the willing human being, as it were, a constantly hidden inner observer; one discovers a new inner consciousness which—like the seed in the fruit—lies within our willing. In ordinary life, we have no inkling of this. We have our “I”-consciousness! This extends over our observations in life; but as we survey our willing as described, we discover an inner observer—something that spiritually gazes upon the inner workings of our willing just as we gaze upon the events in our surroundings. There we discover a new, conscious being. And just as the first experience is so profound because it brings us, as it were, to the threshold of death, this second experience is profound because it can only be fully lived through in its depth by learning to recognize the nature of suffering within the world. One learns to recognize what suffering is actually based on; one learns to recognize it by truly learning to direct one’s attention toward this observer within oneself. For this observer has the peculiarity of always looking at us. He is another person within us; from his consciousness, he observes the unfolding of our will. I am speaking of a reality, of something that truly exists within the human being, and which grows ever more powerful as the human being moves through life with his or her will. So we learn to recognize something that lies behind human volition; we learn to recognize this as a full-fledged reality in its own right—but in such a way that it actually has just as little to do with the human being who lives in the physical realm between birth and death as the other has to do with what we have come to know as the end result of thinking. Although this force contains destructive elements—and is thus involved in every activity of our physical being—this observer, who is always watching us, as it were, from behind, is never in a position to truly intervene in what is taking place within us. He constantly has the most intense desire to be just as the human being is, to permeate the human being from within just as that second human being does; but he cannot, from his consciousness, intervene in our organism. He wants this organism, but he finds no point of entry within our body.

[ 24 ] And so one truly comes to know—just as a chemist comes to know hydrogen and oxygen in water—these two people within oneself as realities, these two people who are realities in the same way that physical substances can only be realities in a certain sense. You come to know them as opposing poles, but you come to know the second human being in such a way that you know: He is on the path to becoming a human being shaped just as you are. Within this body alone, however, he cannot do so. If you will good, he comes to know the inner goodness of your will and is enriched by beholding this inner goodness. If you will evil, he learns to connect it with his own being and learns to recognize how it can be overcome; but he cannot intervene in your present constitution. — In this second human being, who is nothing but consciousness, one learns to recognize what begins to live within us as a seed, [just as a seed emerges from a growing plant].

[ 25 ] One learns to recognize that which passes through the gate of death, that which enters the spiritual world when the physical body decays. But just as one sees this second inner human being before one’s soul’s eye, so one learns to recognize: When the second seizes the first—when the second—which is prevented by the body from being more within us than a mere human of consciousness—is no longer hindered by the presence of the body, it seizes what constitutes the organization of the decomposing forces, unites with it, and forms the seed that steps out into the spiritual world. One comes to know what extends beyond death. If one looks, through the first path, at the way our physical life appears to emerge from the spiritual world, as it were, as an immediate flowering of our pre-birth spiritual life, and at how thoughts and spiritual forces have been transformed into that which consumes the body in order to produce physical experiences, then through the second path one sees what is in turn preparing itself in seed-like form to pass through the gateway of death, to then unite with what was there before birth.

[ 26 ] These are intimate inner processes, but they lead just as surely to a true grasp of the eternal forces of the human soul as external scientific experiments lead to the unveiling of nature’s secrets. And, fundamentally, the entire intellectual attitude is the same as that which underlies the observation of nature.

[ 27 ] How, then, do we observe the plant? We observe it by tracing its development from the seed upward—through the roots, leaves, and flowers—until a new seed develops, and in this seed we see the repetition of the old plant and the starting point of the new one. In the same way, in spiritual science we trace in the human being what enters through birth from the spiritual world; we trace what develops as a spiritual seed; we connect the end with the beginning, just as we do with the plant. Just as we connect the fruit, the flower, and the seed of a plant with that from which the plant sprouts, and thus view the earlier with the later, so the spiritual researcher observes by developing within himself the processes mentioned as inner occurrences; he sees how human lives are linked one to another. Human life develops through repeated earthly lives. Thus, for the spiritual researcher, the full human life unfolds as a life between birth and death, as a life between death and new birth, as a re-entry into earthly life, and so on.

[ 28 ] And the doctrine of repeated earthly lives, which was so magnificently presented to humanity by Lessing during a significant epoch of spiritual life—it is time for this doctrine to be given a scientific foundation today, through humanity transforming its inner self just as it transforms nature, in order to uncover its secrets through experimentation. Through this, however, human beings become acquainted with the eternal within the temporal; through this, human beings—just as they connect themselves through the natural sciences to the natural processes around them—connect themselves to spiritual processes. By studying the physical nature of human beings, we find the convergence of what we discover in our studies of minerals, plants, and animals, and in our observation of nature, we find it concentrated in the human being. The human being is embedded in the bosom of nature, but is also embedded in the spiritual life of the cosmos through the forces he discovers within himself on the paths of the soul. And once the spiritual eyes and ears are opened, the human being looks into the spiritual world.

[ 29 ] Of course, it must be emphasized that resting within the spiritual world is of a completely different nature than resting within the physical world. When we face the physical world: its light shines into us, as do its sounds; its thermal effects act upon us; and the effects of the external world continue within the body. We experience what nature does to us because we are spiritual beings enveloped in a physical body. When we stand within the spiritual world, it is necessary that we not simply surrender ourselves passively; rather, standing within the spiritual world demands constant activity. We have seen that one finds this spiritual world by developing a strengthening of thought and an increased focus on the will. These activities, which we begin within ordinary soul life, lead us into the eternal forces of soul life. But once you are there, you must be effective, you must be active. Otherwise, if we are unable—while feeling ourselves within our Eternal Self—to actively experience being, it will slip away from us, even if we have already caught a glimpse of it, just as easily as a dream slips away. For this dream life is, in essence, no other life than that within the core of the being, which passes through birth and death when this core withdraws from the physical body; but this dream life is a delicate fabric that evokes images. The soul cannot muster the inner strength to fully comprehend what it is experiencing there in the dream. The way in which the soul is connected to the spiritual realm—in a manner similar to how the body is connected to the physical world—can, once the inner, soul-related faculties have been opened up at all, be developed into a spiritual science that portrays the world as a spiritual organism, just as physical science portrays it as a physical organism. In this regard, reference can be made to my *Secret Science* or my *Theosophy*. Or if you would like a shorter booklet, I refer you to Ludwig Deinhardt’s highly commendable work, *Who Is Mephistopheles?*, where you will find a brief excerpt explaining what spiritual science is.

[ 30 ] I have tried to show how human beings come to understand the eternal forces of the human soul. It is clear from this that spiritual science, as understood here, does not conflict in any way with natural science, for it does not claim that what develops in the human soul in everyday life or through scientific observation has eternal significance. One must step outside this ordinary life of the soul if one wishes to find the forces that, as eternal entities, lead beyond death and birth.

[ 31 ] Of course, one does not actually develop the eternal forces; one merely develops knowledge of them. That which perceives this knowledge is always present in human nature. Just as little as a person creates nature in the natural sciences, so little does a person create the eternal forces in the spiritual sciences. He merely directs the soul’s insight toward what is always present in human nature. In this sense, too, spiritual research speaks from the same spirit as the natural sciences.

[ 32 ] One sees [however] that this spiritual science, through its findings, is capable of infusing into our lives something of immense significance for life itself. When a person is aware of their eternal powers, they know themselves to be in harmony with the spiritual that weaves through and surges through the world; they know themselves, as it were, to be resting in what flows through the world as the spiritual. The spiritual is sought in direct experience, because the path to this spiritual lies within one’s own soul life. Therefore, spiritual science does not speak of the spiritual world as abstract philosophy does, but speaks in concrete terms, describing the spiritual world just as the external sciences describe the physical world. It approaches the mysteries of this world. And just as natural science does not speak generally only of nature but examines individual natural objects—individual plants, animals, and minerals—so spiritual science seeks to get to the bottom of the mysteries of human life to the fullest extent possible.

[ 33 ] Today, one of these many mysteries confronts us right here in our immediate present. And because it confronts us, let us discuss it briefly at the end of this lecture as an appendix. I speak of this enigma knowing full well that, of course, there may be many among the esteemed audience who, if one were to go into such details, might regard the matter—which is already generally considered quite fantastical—as the pinnacle of fantasy; yet the researcher of the spirit cannot allow himself to be deterred by such things. Just as humanity—even great minds—regarded it as the pinnacle of fantasy when the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun first entered the world; and just as the people who regarded this as wild fantasy eventually grew accustomed to taking it seriously, so it is with all truth. Today it will still have to be regarded as fantasy that something similar to what happened with that—namely, the firmament—is now to happen with the spiritual universe of the human being. At the forefront of more recent worldviews, it was the task of those who were to provide the new impulse to point out, for example: It has been said that up there the firmament limits outer space; but there is nothing at all up there. You create that limitation yourselves. It is the limited nature of perception. Beyond that non-existent boundary, the space that is filled continues. Just as the spatial firmament was once dispelled, so too is the temporal firmament dispelled by spiritual science, by showing that it is only the human limitations of perception that lead to this temporal firmament. There is nothing there at all. The spiritual firmament extends into temporal infinity. The human being progresses through repeated earthly lives. One must look closely at the path that truth takes through human evolution if one wishes to find the strength to uphold what contradicts habitual ways of thinking. But anyone familiar with the course of recent developments in the natural sciences will be able to find such strength and will be convinced that it is, of course, foolishness, daydreaming, and wild fantasy when such claims are made, as they are here today. But this was also the fate of the findings of the natural sciences, and it will be the fate of the findings of the spiritual sciences as well. They, too, will become a matter of course. Just as people speak of many worlds today, they will speak of the human being’s repeated lives as a truth founded on spiritual observation, which can be attained in the manner described.

[ 34 ] Well, the fact that touches us particularly deeply today—and which I would like to examine—is that so many deaths are coming to us in an abnormal way right now. We speak of a natural death that a person undergoes. We speak of a death caused by internal illnesses. But what is close to us today is to look upon the death that is violently imposed from the outside—let us say—by a [gun] bullet or the like, in the prime of a person’s life. And I do not wish to shy away from—even if it is not advisable to venture so far—sharing what spiritual science can reveal about the peculiar nature of precisely such deaths, which confront us so frequently and violently in the present, and what spiritual science has to say about these deaths experienced on the battlefield. There we see how, without being compelled by the inner human organization, the second of the people described—the conscious human being—becomes connected through the violent removal of the physical organism from the spiritual human being; how he becomes connected with that which lives within the human being as the forces of death. In this death, the seed of the will seizes the thinking human organism—this spiritual organism that emerges as the second human being. Precisely when, through a violent external shock, the physical organism is torn away from the soul-spiritual, the seed of the will and the decaying part of the body of thought, the body of imagination within the human being, could have continued to act side by side for a long time. They have been forcibly brought together. The seed of the will seizes the thinking human being before its time and leads him through the gate of death.

[ 35 ] That which could have revealed a long-term development of its forces on Earth is cut short. Where does this lead? It should be noted here that a transformation of forces is taking place. What human beings could have possessed for a long time must have been transformed. Just as the pressure I exert when I run my finger over something is transformed into heat, so a force that thus appears to disappear is transformed into another. And this is where the spiritual researcher must seek: Where in the world is that which—in this way, unspent for individual human beings—is communicated to the world; where in the world does it exist? The spiritual researcher observes the processes of the world, once he has trained his soul as has been explained, and he searches for that into which might be transformed what is communicated to the world in this way and is—to use an expression without any negative connotation—taken from the individual human being. And now the spiritual researcher finds—this is a finding of spiritual research just as certain as it is in the natural sciences, where what is revealed cannot be anticipated at all, yet emerges as a certainty when it presents itself to the eye, and so it is here with spiritual observation carried out in the appropriate manner— the spiritual researcher finds that forces are entering the world within the course of human development, gushing forth from the human soul, so that one knows: Human beings have [not] acquired these themselves.

[ 36 ] We educate people; we structure our education in such a way that what lies within the soul is shaped into abilities through effort; but we find other powers in human nature that emerge in such a way that, in the sense described above, we cannot help but acknowledge the powers we call the genius-like powers of human nature—powers through which great achievements are attained in the fields of art, science, and so on. Yet it is not merely great achievements that are brought about by these genius-like powers; even the simplest person needs inventive power; the genius-like powers differ only in degree from what is present in the simplest person—what everyone possesses, perhaps to a lesser degree—that inventive power which emerges, as if by magic, from the depths of the soul, which is, as they say, instilled in the person by divine grace and flows forth from within, and which cannot be systematically brought forth through education as a matter of course. But in the course of human history, as it unfolds in such a way that all human souls are encompassed within it, these various powers emerge. The powers of genius appear—one might say—as messengers from the spiritual world within the human soul, as something that does not seem directly connected to normal human nature, but rather as something that is added to it. To the researcher of the spiritual world—by taking many, many detours, just as one must do in scientific experimentation—it becomes clear how what emerges here is the transformed form of that which arises when, in a time earlier than the normal one, the seed forces of the will unite with the destructive forces. For when the physical body is violently torn away from the soul—as we now experience a thousandfold—what remains unlived is passed on to later generations and reappears in the creative powers of the human being. A mysterious connection within the course of human development, one that shakes the human soul to its core, is revealed here.

[ 37 ] And just as nature—one might say—reveals itself in a wondrous way, with unknown aspects coming to the surface of phenomena whose connections one had not previously suspected, so too do the connections within the entirety of human life emerge through spiritual research. Gradually, the interconnectedness of life is revealed. If one keeps one’s spiritual gaze fixed on the eternal forces of the human soul and their forms of transformation in life, one can say: It is not the ordinary life of the soul—which is confined to the period between birth and death and cannot pass through the gate of death—but a higher consciousness, which is the observer within us and can only be explored through other forces; it is this that passes through the gate of death; it is precisely this consciousness—not an indefinite soul life, but consciousness itself—that passes through the gate of death, and as we enter the spiritual world, we enter with our conscious self. Just as here in physical life we progress from the imperfect form of the physical to an ever more perfect one, and then back to its decay, so in the spiritual world, between death and a new birth, we proceed from the consciousness that incorporates the forces through which it is once again able to descend and live out its life in a new earthly existence. Thus, it is not through the ordinary powers of soul life, but rather through clairvoyant powers, so to speak—through the powers of the spiritual eyes and spiritual ears—that one attains the eternal powers of the human soul.

[ 38 ] But anyone who delves deeper into the nature of spiritual science will see that what is commonly called clairvoyance—and with which people are so content—is, in turn, rightly viewed with suspicion by conventional science. Those who do not wish to delve into truly spiritual scientific methods will, of course, easily say: Well, one is not satisfied with what conventional science can discover, but rather special abilities must be acquired. After all, one sees these in abnormal human souls; and why should what is acquired artificially be anything higher than what one sees in abnormal human souls! — Anyone who delves deeper will find that spiritual science, particularly with regard to what is often called clairvoyance, is in fact firmly grounded in the scientific worldview and in full harmony with it; for what natural science can only intuit is precisely what true observation reveals—an observation attained, as has been described, [namely] that what is termed hallucinations and the like—what is often called clairvoyance—is the dark shadow of true clairvoyance, and that through the manifestation of such a pathological soul life, one does not arrive at eternal human powers, nor at supersensible powers, but rather at subsensible powers—at what is a caricature of clairvoyance. What is often described as a “vision”—where one experiences dreamlike hallucinations or deludes oneself with illusions—does not reveal the eternal powers of the human soul, but rather powers that are far more temporal than those produced by ordinary thinking and willing.

[ 39 ] This ordinary thinking dominates us; it lives within us, both building us up and breaking us down; but that which lives in hallucinations—in what is trivially called “clairvoyance”—is a sub-sensory force; [it] presses the human being deeper into physicality. While true clairvoyance elevates one to supersensible perception, what is hallucinatory clairvoyance presses one deeper into physicality and reveals what is far more temporal than ordinary temporality, what is far more transitory than what can be attained through ordinary thinking. Once one realizes that, particularly with regard to pathological psychological phenomena, spiritual science is not directed against the scientific mindset, but rather reinforces it—even leading it down into a deeper region of what is commonly called clairvoyance— precisely to show that true clairvoyance is attained through powers acquired in the manner described—then one will not equate spiritual science with just any form of superstition, but will regard it as something that is not only healthy, like ordinary health, but represents a higher form of health—namely, living in harmony with the spiritual forces.

[ 40 ] Humanity, however, will first have to break free from its habitual ways of thinking in order to become acquainted with the inner meaning of the path into the spiritual worlds. And much of the misunderstanding that exists stems solely from the fact that pathological aberrations of the soul’s life are simply labeled as clairvoyance, and people have no idea how what spiritual science reveals as the true path into the spiritual world transcends both these pathological aberrations of the soul’s life and mysticism—thereby demonstrating that within the human being there is an eternal core of being that belongs to the spiritual world just as the physical body belongs to the physical world.

[ 41 ] The truth is what the great minds have intuitively conceived: that it is humanity itself that carries forward, from one epoch to the next, what is alive in a given epoch as the soul passes from birth to birth; that humanity carries forward what is expressed in the development of humankind. Thus, in today’s reflection, I have attempted—from a certain perspective—to demonstrate the possibility of humanity’s connection—a scientifically precise connection—with the eternal forces of its soul. I would ask you to allow me to draw a conclusion that does not, so to speak, follow an intellectual logic in connection with what I have attempted to present before your souls, but rather because in our present time—with what is happening out there in the world, what is developing out of countless blood sacrifices, what in turn spreads as such a blissful atmosphere in hopes for the future—because this is so close to our souls — allow me, as it were, to draw the conclusion with a logic of feeling.

[ 42 ] Yesterday I attempted to explain how, within the German people during their great idealistic era—when the realm of thought was drawn forth from the deepest strata of human nature—the greatest German figures of that time emerged—not merely by bringing their individuality to full expression, but by truly creating themselves out of the very substance of the people— pointed the way for the people into the spiritual realms. I pointed out that what matters is not to take the conclusions reached by these idealistic thinkers and poets dogmatically, but to look at how they sought to bring forth the forces lying within the people. Then the path that we were able to characterize yesterday—the one that presented itself to us as the path the German people themselves have taken toward the realm of thought—appears to us as an inner spiritual path, along which the people strive to emerge from what can be experienced in everyday life in order to rise above themselves to forces connected with the eternal! Spiritual science calls this intimate inner path of the soul “meditation,” which is traversed in two ways through concentration on the inner self. Do we not, when we understand Fichte as we did yesterday, direct all our attention in Fichte toward the unfolding of the will, just as we spoke of it today? And when one reads Fichte’s late lectures, which he gave before his death, one finds that he truly speaks of such a higher consciousness, of a higher meaning that opens up, of a consciousness that accompanies the ordinary person. There we have one aspect of meditation. We find the other aspect of meditation, for example, in Hegel. There we have the effort to grasp the world through thought. Hegel made the effort to guide thought to the point where, by overcoming itself, it reveals to human beings the forces that break them down. Thus, in Hegel, external life also appears in its unfolding as a series of thought-images linked one to another. Thus, the true eternal forces of human nature do not emerge within these German philosophers; but we see the path toward them. Thus we see how the German people themselves meditated during this period—in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The German people, meditating before the forum of world history—this is how they stand before us.

[ 43 ] And perhaps I may confess that one can have genuine, true hope for the future of spiritual science within the development of humanity when one considers the connection between what this spiritual science aspires to be and the best of what has been sought within German Idealism—there where the entire people has undergone its meditation and has [just] set out on the path that is to lead into the eternal. Viewed in this light, the science of the spirit can appear as that for which a seed—but a seed springing from the national character itself—lies in German Idealism on the stage of thought. And from this inner necessity—that a seed has been planted in the German people through their meditation on world history, a seed that must develop—one can gain a firm belief, a firm confidence in the inner power of growth of this German people. And one can stand within this people, precisely at a time when it is so surrounded by enemies, with this faith that tells one: What has sprouted in this way will bear fruit in the most distant times—unhindered by all hostile prejudices and all hostile forces that rise up against such national development.

[ 44 ] Such an unshakable faith in the triumph of the German people’s strength also arises from the spiritual realm, and it is precisely the true self-knowledge of the essence of the German people in connection with the spiritual development of humanity that gives rise to this confidence, this unshakable confidence with which the German may stand firm, no matter how his enemies rise up all around him, and no matter how they seek to slander, denounce, and in every way impose the consequences of their hatred upon this very nature of his—which he thus understands, as was described yesterday. He need not renounce this; he can stand differently and look differently upon what is to come from the great historical events of the present, even if he must make such great sacrifices. By looking back precisely to the time when the entire German people meditated in this way—when, under foreign rule, it had virtually disappeared as the outward form of the Reich—and by looking at the vitality of the spiritual path within his people, the German may, in a manner entirely unlike the slanderous and sophistical methods of his opponents, point to the one thing that emerges from such contemplation, namely: Regarding everything that is advanced or spoken against the German essence, the German, by looking directly at the connection between his essence and the spiritual world, may say: If one attempts—with a spiritual intuition, yet a well-founded one, arising from an observation of the German people’s course of development—to open the book of world history’s destiny; if one attempts, with such intuition, to explore in spirit those pages that follow the one currently open, then the German can hold up to all his opponents, to all his enemies, a single word that inspires him—unlike the hatred they so often express—the word that begins the chapter which speaks to the German soul from a place of insight, the chapter in which the German believes and of whose fruitful content the German is firmly convinced, and which is called: The German Future.