The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Super-Sensory Human Being and the Questions of Free Will and Immortality According to the Findings of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! There is no doubt that, among the questions concerning the life of the human soul—questions that must arise again and again in the soul of every individual—the questions of free will and the immortality of the soul are among the most significant. I have structured today’s reflection so that these two questions may be discussed in context.

[ 2 ] I have not arbitrarily linked these two fundamental mysteries of human spiritual life; rather, I believe that this evening’s reflections will lead us to understand just how intimately these two mysteries are connected and how, in essence, one can hardly fully grasp one without the other.

[ 3 ] As soon as one begins to examine these two questions—even just a little—in light of what is known from the history of human thought, two facts immediately become apparent. Setting aside all matters of faith—which are not to be discussed here today, either positively or negatively—attempts have indeed been made to engage with these two mysteries of the soul purely through thought, from a scientific and philosophical perspective. And it can be said that the most astute, penetrating, and profound efforts have been made to arrive at answers to these two questions through pure thought.

[ 4 ] However, anyone who approaches these questions in the way I just mentioned will notice how individual researchers have debated and dealt with the topics of free will and immortality in the most contradictory ways. There must be something underlying this that makes it difficult for humanity to penetrate precisely that which, according to the deepest needs of the soul, lies so infinitely close to the aspirations of the human soul. That there is something hidden within this human being that transcends birth and death—this, too, ought to be scientifically investigable, the human soul told itself incessantly. And the human soul also tells itself that human action must be based on something such as free decision-making, such as a freedom from the natural necessity to which a falling stone is bound. But when it then attempts to investigate intellectually what lies so close to it—it may believe it has arrived at one conclusion or another; yet other considerations soon show that just as many objections can be raised against what has been put forward as in favor of the position that has been advanced.

[ 5 ] The worldview, ladies and gentlemen, that I have been advocating for many years now in these lectures seeks to shed light on these questions from its own perspective, and it believes it recognizes not only the path one must take to arrive at a humanly satisfying understanding of these mysteries of the soul; but it also believes it understands why such contradictory and inadequate findings emerge in this field when other approaches are taken. I shall, however—as has usually been the case with these lectures on spiritual science—be compelled to take a different path than the one followed by conventional science when it deals with this or that fact. Conventional science has the facts before it; it expresses itself regarding the results it has obtained and then builds its conclusions upon these results. The spiritual researcher, as a rule, must proceed differently, especially with regard to the questions to be addressed today.

[ 6 ] The spiritual researcher must first provide some indication of the manner in which he arrived at his findings. He must repeatedly point out the path by which the vision of his findings revealed itself to him. For he deals with matters that cannot be apprehended by the ordinary senses. He deals with things that lie beyond the reach of ordinary cognitive faculties. He must therefore first indicate the path by which he arrives at the point where his findings present themselves to his inner eye in a vivid manner.

[ 7 ] The very questions we are addressing today, ladies and gentlemen, actually concern human beings themselves more than almost anything else. And they are—in the most eminent sense—questions of human self-knowledge. One can certainly say—as I have mentioned here on several occasions—that the humanities are indeed in awe of the magnificent, tremendous progress that has been achieved for humanity through the scientific discoveries of recent times. But precisely because it, from its own perspective, acknowledges these scientific achievements—to the extent that they deserve recognition—it also recognizes where these scientific methods fall short, where they cannot provide insight.

[ 8 ] It must be said: For questions such as those we must address today—questions that are, in the truest sense, questions of human self-knowledge—the magnificent, admirable achievements of scientific thought, and specifically the very nature of scientific thought itself, are more of an obstacle than something that could truly lead us down the right path. Let me begin by giving you an example. Serious, conscientious natural scientists have, after all, time and again directed their attention—through their particular way of thinking—to what takes place within human beings themselves, to what surges and ebbs there as the life of the human soul. But let us consider an example that will immediately show us how the natural scientist—not because of any fault of his own, but precisely because of this mode of observation—must pass right by what leads to the actual solution of the mystery.

[ 9 ] Waldstein, a distinguished natural scientist, has published an essay on the subconscious self in a series of treatises—some of which are highly significant—published in Wiesbaden that address the boundary issues of nervous and mental life. He discusses all sorts of things that take place in the human soul—things that are significant for human psychological life but that are not grasped by ordinary consciousness. As an example—and everyone can conjure up hundreds or thousands of similar examples in their mind—he says: I am standing in front of a bookstore window, looking into it. My gaze falls on a wide variety of books. It is a scientific bookstore. There are nothing but serious books there. Because of my profession, I am particularly drawn to a book standing there in the window, a book about mollusks. And the moment my gaze falls on this book about mollusks, I can’t help but start to chuckle softly. After all, I am a naturalist—and it is certainly not my nature to find myself laughing inwardly at such a serious topic as this book’s title, On Mollusks, suggests. What is it that makes me laugh when I look at the title of a book on mollusks? I close my eyes—so the naturalist continues—to figure out what is actually causing me to laugh. And lo and behold: since my eye is no longer drawn to the mollusk title, I hear—in the very distance, amid all sorts of other street noise surrounding me, barely audible because it’s so far away—the sounds of a barrel organ; and this barrel organ is playing precisely the melody of a song to which I danced for the first time decades ago, as a very young man. Back then, to the tune of this melody, I tried to learn the quadrille steps. I didn’t pay much attention to the melody at the time, because I was very busy—first, learning the steps, and second, treating my partner with the proper deference. So even back then, the melody just drifted past me in a half-dreamlike way. And lo and behold, it never occurred to me recently to dwell on this melody; now, right in front of the mollusk book, I close my eyes, and in the distance this melody begins to play; I have to chuckle softly. Had I not closed my eyes—for when I was looking at the book on mollusks, I had no idea that an organ was playing; it just happened to reach my ear—I would never have figured out why I had to laugh right before reading the book on mollusks. And this incident shows me how strangely things play out within a person, what is stirring and at work in the subconscious; how this subconscious entity plays its games with us.

[ 10 ] The scholar then cites many, many more examples like these. And others cite similar examples as well. But one can say: When one delves into such scholarly treatises, one soon realizes: Although people know that this concerns something that belongs to human self-knowledge, something that works and lives within the human being, scientific thinking is simply not sufficient to uncover such matters or to gain any insight into them that would lead to a true understanding of what lives within a person as their true essence. We must turn to something else. And that, my esteemed audience, is what I must address first: the path by which one actually arrives at self-knowledge. But I would first like to present these two questions to your souls as they must be addressed if they are to be perceived with complete clarity—the two questions that play a role in human soul life, from which the scholar of the spiritual sciences finds it necessary to choose a path when he turns his attention specifically to the two main questions we are considering today.

[ 11 ] One must not choose as a starting point that part of the human self which comes into play here, just as those very faint, almost dreamlike memories of the barrel organ do; for then one arrives only at what, so to speak, is playing its own game; but one cannot get beyond the game that is being played with the human self. One must frame the question in such a way that, in the face of what surges up and down—playing into all manner of possibilities, following the example of our barrel organ—one starts from that and turns toward something that has an entirely different relationship to human life than that which is playing out there. We live with our soul in such a way that ideas we gain through external perceptions—feelings, impulses of the will—rise and fall within it; all of this plays a part when something like the barrel organ comes to the fore. But fundamentally, the entire interplay of our soul life in everyday life is more or less similar to this phenomenon with the barrel organ.

[ 12 ] Certainly, we are clearly and distinctly aware of part of what is present in our ordinary consciousness; but countless other things are constantly coming in, and we do not know where they come from. Natural science is right to seek, in the human body as such—in this human body that perishes with death—the foundations for what enters into the human soul life in this form. We are at the mercy of this interplay of ideas. But something arises of which we must say to ourselves: It is of an entirely different nature than this interplay of ideas. If we simply surrender to this interplay of ideas, we go through life with this everyday consciousness—ideas, feelings, sensations, all manner of things rise up and ebb away; we are at its mercy.

[ 13 ] But there is one thing: we tell ourselves that, with a certain power of judgment, the realization enters our consciousness that we cannot simply let ideas come and go as they please, but that we must commit ourselves to this in order to say to ourselves: certain ideas are correct, others are incorrect; we begin to develop logic in our thinking—logic that is also meant to bring us into the right kind of relationship with reality. Can it be the ordinary play of ideas that intervenes in our inner life when we tell ourselves: something is right or wrong? No, that cannot be the ordinary play of ideas. For both false and true ideas arise, and what matters is precisely that we are able to orient ourselves toward something that rejects false ideas—which arise just as much from physical necessities as true ideas do—and accepts true ideas. Something enters our inner life that is of a completely different nature than anything else one might otherwise find in mere scientific self-observation. That is why, my esteemed audience, that is why philosophical views of the world have always intervened at precisely this point. In seeking, so to speak, to save humanity from the notion that it is merely the product of its physical functions, they have pointed out how something enters into the life of the soul that cannot come from the body. Sometimes the true comes, sometimes the false; both come in the same way. But it is precisely at this point that it also always becomes clear how such a worldview cannot reach a conclusion; how it is impossible to find anything in this way. For one gets no further than merely stating such things; but with such purely philosophical means of world interpretation, one searches in vain for the reasons, for the essence of the matter. That is one thing.

[ 14 ] On the other hand, the ebb and flow of our inner life is influenced by the clear awareness that we can decide, with a “yes” or a “no,” whether to perform this or that action—that we can either perform an action or refrain from doing so. But this is actually contradicted by every scientific perspective. For an action cannot take place except by arising in some way from our physicality, from our human nature. It must be rooted in it.

[ 15 ] And one must indeed set oneself the task of seeking this foundation in human nature according to the laws of a certain necessity. One cannot approach that which is human freedom. That is the other boundary. One must proceed from these two boundary points. Twenty-five years ago, in my Philosophy of Freedom, I attempted to proceed precisely from these two points and, at that time, through mere observation of what lives in the human soul, to determine what is actually there inside the soul when an action takes place in which the human being is conscious of freedom.

[ 16 ] At that time, I approached the matter in such a way that I remained within the realm of pure philosophy. Today I try to present things in such a way that they find their solution through spiritual science, to the extent that this is possible for human beings. To do this, however, it is necessary to approach precisely these two points—which I have now described as the boundary points of true self-knowledge—in the way that only spiritual science, as understood here, can approach them.

[ 17 ] This spiritual research, my dear friends, is characterized by the fact that one does not leave the soul to explore as it is; that is what ordinary consciousness does; and ordinary science does the same; rather, one develops the soul beyond the point at which it encounters itself when it simply follows its natural course of development. The human soul must take its destiny into its own hands. It must transform itself into something else. For it must come to see something else, to perceive something else, than what can be perceived with ordinary cognitive faculties. It must—if I may hint at this from the outset—be enabled to truly grasp the spirit that lives within the human being with the spiritual eye.

[ 18 ] Most people claim, out of a certain desire for comfort in life—for that is all it is—that when it comes to such matters as the perception of the spirit in human beings, one can have nothing more than mere belief. But the actual practice, the actual method employed by the spiritual researcher, proves that it is possible to attain not merely belief, but knowledge regarding these matters that is just as certain as the knowledge we have regarding external natural phenomena and natural beings.

[ 19 ] One must, however, be clear that the soul—whether one calls them exercises or whatever one wishes—must, through certain activities it undertakes, bring itself into a state of being quite different from that which it experiences in ordinary life and in ordinary science, into a different kind of perception. In my writings—which, of course, contain more detailed information on these matters—I have called the first stage of the soul’s life, to which the soul brings itself in order to explore the spiritual world, “imaginative cognition.”

[ 20 ] How does one arrive at this imaginative insight? By, above all, giving one’s thinking and imagination a direction quite different from that found in everyday life. One must try to bring into one’s thinking something that is otherwise as far removed as possible from, say, the barrel organ—the example I just mentioned. For with the barrel organ, the result would be that something would arise in the life of the soul—one doesn’t quite know what; it might not even be noticed at all. The exact opposite must be the case if one wishes to prepare for spiritual research through soul exercises. One must not allow anything—absolutely nothing—into the soul that has not been brought into it by the soul itself.

[ 21 ] This can only be achieved by truly succeeding in—for research purposes, of course—setting aside, for a moment, one’s entire past and one’s entire desired future, and living entirely with one’s soul in the present, within a concept that is as clear and manageable as possible; in a mental image that one has constructed oneself, so that one knows exactly what is contained within it. And this must be done again and again. The defining feature is that one engages in something that is as far removed as possible from any dreamy inner life. No one who loves to abandon themselves to the pleasure of daydreaming can ever become a spiritual researcher in the proper sense. No one who loves to indulge, in a falsely mystical way, in something indefinite can ever become a spiritual researcher. This is not a preparation for spiritual research; spiritual research can only be attained when one experiences something within the soul that one has brought into that soul oneself with every possible degree of consciousness, and then surrenders oneself completely—and again and again—to this comprehensible reality that one has brought in oneself. I have called this “meditation” in my writings, and by this I mean meditation in the true sense. Through this, one is made aware of one’s own consciousness, of one’s own soul activity.

[ 22 ] And there is one more thing I would like to mention: Just as this form of meditation must be as far removed as possible from all that is dreamlike and from all that is falsely mystical, so too must it be removed from anything that induces a hypnotic or suggestible state in the human soul. Staring at shiny objects, for example—which is how hypnotists induce a hypnotic state—is the very opposite of what is required first and foremost for training in spiritual science. The opposite of spiritual scientific training is any kind of exercise that clouds consciousness. What is required is to place, with full consciousness, clear and comprehensible ideas, feelings, and impulses of the will at the center of one’s soul life, so that there is complete clarity, such as is otherwise found only in clear thinking. In general, this clear thinking—this thinking carried out with full consciousness—must serve as a model. One must not stop there, for that leads nowhere; but it must serve as a model for all the exercises performed within the soul in order to find the path into the spiritual world.

[ 23 ] Then, my esteemed audience, if one has perhaps spent years—the passing years are of great benefit here, for growing older is a great help in such exercises, as it enables one to achieve something special through practice— then, if one has repeatedly tried in this way to condense one’s inner life through meditation into such manageable mental images, one eventually arrives at the point of developing an imaginative life. That is to say, one reaches a point where one no longer merely needs to assemble images and mental pictures, but where such images and imaginings arise in the soul as something objective, so that one lives—or can live—within these imaginings. Only when one has prepared oneself for this, as I have described, do these imaginations no longer arise from the body, but from the life of the soul. One gradually becomes aware that, on the one hand—just as one does in thinking—one gives oneself entirely the power for these imaginations; that nothing in the soul compels one to arrive at these imaginations from anywhere else.

[ 24 ] But one also becomes aware that, little by little, one is following an inner necessity. You will no longer, by living in a world of images—for such is, at first, the world of the imagination—believe that you can arbitrarily string image after image together; rather, you will notice that you are bound by certain laws, just as you are bound by laws in the external world. You can place a chair on a table, and it will stay there; if you hold it up in the air, it will fall. As you observe the external world, you are bound by certain laws if you wish to remain within reality. Thus, as you gradually cultivate your soul in the right way, you will realize that even in this inner world of images you are bound by laws that are just as objective as, for example, the law that a chair can only stand on something that supports it. On the one hand, one feels with one’s consciousness that one is present where the images are; on the other hand, one feels bound by laws that can be compared to those that exist in the physical world.

[ 25 ] What one experiences there must be carefully distinguished in two respects. One must not confuse it with what people experience when under the influence of ordinary visions; for ordinary visions come from the body—one does not create them oneself—and they are not processes of the soul. Imaginations are processes within the soul. Anyone who has not learned to distinguish between imaginations and visions will indeed become a visionary—letting all sorts of mist rise from their body—but they cannot become a researcher of the spirit. One is not present during the very process by which visions arise. Great importance must be attached to this. For this is as essential as certain precautions are in chemical, physical, and physiological methods.

[ 26 ] A critic of my school of thought in the humanities, who considered himself very lofty in his academic wisdom—I do not wish to speak today about all sorts of things that this critic has said about my philosophy, but I would like to quote something from the book by this so-called scholar, the book that has caused such a stir and will see a second edition in a very short time. In it, this gentleman states that it has sometimes happened to him that, when speaking at a gathering, he speaks—he speaks up to a certain point, thinking, as usual, about what he is saying; but then he has sometimes noticed that he stops thinking about that, that his thoughts turn to something else, and yet he continues to speak.

[ 27 ] Well, first of all, I’ll promise you that I’ll never pull a stunt like that—that I’ll just keep babbling on like this if I stop thinking. On the other hand, it must be emphasized that anyone who is even capable of believing that one can come close to the mysteries of the soul by doing such a thing is, from the outset, far too dull-witted to grasp anything at all of what constitutes the nerve center, the very foundation of true spiritual science; such a person is also too dull-witted to say even a single word that comes remotely close to describing this spiritual science. With this single statement, he proves that he is as far removed as possible from what is actually meant here. For this is precisely the essential point: that this spiritual science must point out that wherever the spiritual is sought, consciousness must be present in the very act of spiritual research. All visions, but also all involuntary daydreaming—especially if it were to happen in such an unexpected way that one speaks to an audience without thinking about what one is saying—all of this is excluded not only from speech but also from what takes place inwardly in the soul when one is on the spiritual-research path toward the spirit.

[ 28 ] The other thing that must be distinguished from what I refer to here as “imagination” is the mere life of fantasy. Just as the imaginative life is not a visionary life, nor is it an involuntary mystical experience, so too is this imaginative life not a life of fantasy. In the life of fantasy, images are strung together according to certain laws, yet in an inwardly free manner. In the life of fantasy, one is not as bound to the objective sequence of images as one is in external perception. One knows that a chair cannot float in the air. In the imaginative life, one is this.

[ 29 ] So when, through inner spiritual practice, one truly comes to have before one’s eyes that which one can never have before one’s eyes in outer consciousness or in everyday life, then, my esteemed audience, one experiences a world of images that no longer comes merely from the soul—a world in whose creation the soul is present step by step—; one experiences a new world, a world of images—a world that one does not otherwise have around oneself. This is the first thing that must be attained by anyone who wishes to penetrate into the true spiritual world.

[ 29 ] So when, through inner spiritual practice, one truly comes to have before one’s eyes that which one can never have before one’s eyes in outer consciousness or in everyday life, then, my esteemed audience, one experiences a world of images that no longer comes merely from the soul—a world in whose creation the soul is present step by step—; one experiences a new world, a world of images—a world that one does not otherwise have around oneself. This is the first thing that must be attained by anyone who wishes to penetrate into the true spiritual world.

[ 29 ] So when, through inner spiritual practice, one truly comes to have before one’s eyes that which one can never have before one’s eyes in outer consciousness or in everyday life, then, my esteemed audience, one experiences a world of images that no longer comes merely from the soul—a world in whose creation the soul is present step by step—; one experiences a new world, a world of images—a world that one does not otherwise have around oneself. This is the first thing that must be attained by anyone who wishes to penetrate into the true spiritual world.

[ 32 ] Then, once one has achieved this transparency of the imaginations through further vigorous exercises, the second element necessary for entering the spiritual world comes into play—that is, what I call inspired insight. I use this term and ask you to understand it only in the sense I have explained here. Please do not confuse it with all sorts of superstitious notions. Rather, it is what arises in the soul when it has first strengthened itself within the world of images, which it then dispels on its own. Then this world of images becomes transparent, and the outer, objective spiritual world first makes itself known through spiritual hearing—through spiritual seeing. Now one no longer has merely the strengthened, empowered self before one; now one gains the ability to know through experience: There is a spiritual world around us, just as there is a physical world around us for our physical eyes and ears.

[ 33 ] Yes, my esteemed audience, anyone who believes that one can merely ramble on about the spiritual world, anyone who believes that one does not need genuine research to enter the spiritual world, is very much mistaken. And those who believe that the spiritual researcher is a dreamer who has it easy compared to what is said to be the serious, rigorous research conducted in the laboratory or at the observatory are, in turn, very much mistaken. No matter how difficult it may be to master the methods of the external sciences—what must be undergone with the soul in order to transcend the stage of imagination and truly enter the spiritual world in the manner described far surpasses in difficulty anything that any external science can offer. And only those who have never gained any insight into what spiritual research is actually like speak lightly of these matters. But then, my dear friends, once one has penetrated into the spiritual world—once it reveals itself to one, just as the physical world reveals itself to the physical senses through colors and sounds—then something occurs that one feels in a remarkable way. It arises from the fact that one exposes oneself further and further, opening oneself to inspiration, so that one truly experiences it more and more deeply. What occurs is what one might call “reverse falling asleep.” It is very important that we consider this “reverse falling asleep.” We know that by having undergone imaginative insight—inspired insight—we have entered into all those states that one otherwise experiences only when falling asleep. Just as when one falls asleep, the physical body acts according to its own laws, which have nothing to do with what is happening in the soul.

[ 34 ] The same is true when one has freed oneself from one’s physical body through imagination or inspiration. Consider the process of falling asleep: ordinary perceptions become indistinct and fade away; but then unconsciousness sets in. You do not achieve this subsiding of external physical perceptions because the body is tired, but rather by substituting something else for those perceptions—by having imaginations—and by developing not a lower but a higher activity of the soul.

[ 35 ] This is heightened even further during inspiration. And if you go even further, it is as if you were to wake up in the middle of sleep and see your body lying before you, apart from your soul. This is a real experience. You see, once you have gone through inspiration, you are outside your body. But you are not unconscious; rather, you are inside the spiritual world. You immerse yourself in what was previously revealed to you through inspiration—being by being, process by process. In my writings, I have called this third stage of spiritual knowledge “intuition.”

[ 36 ] Through imagination, through inspiration, through intuition, one penetrates into the true spiritual world. This is the path by which, through the transformation of the soul itself, one immerses oneself in this spiritual world. The spiritual world cannot be attained for this soul through empty phrases or all sorts of mystical babble about merging with this or that, but only through methodical, serious work on the soul. But once one has attained this level of cognition—which, for my sake, you need not call a higher level than everyday life, but simply a different kind of cognition—once one has attained this level, one relates to the external world in a different way than one would without this cognition.

[ 37 ] Although this is actually self-evident to many listeners after the many lectures I have given here, I would just like to mention in passing: The spiritual researcher is not necessarily a spiritual researcher from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep, just as one is not always a chemist when outside the laboratory. For when the spiritual researcher is not immersed in the spiritual world, he is an ordinary person just like everyone else. Naturally, in such moments he simply adapts to the rest of the external world. Anyone who believes that the spiritual researcher becomes a completely different person is very much mistaken. This is precisely what emerges from certain societies and can give rise to so many misunderstandings, especially in the outside world, when the members of such societies repeatedly claim that they are something like “superior human beings.” That is not what is meant at all. That is mere nonsense. What is meant is that, in certain states of life, one brings the soul into such a condition that it can penetrate the spiritual world. And within these states—this condition of the soul—the soul relates to the external world in a different way than usual; even with regard to the finer distinctions of life.

[ 38 ] It may seem strange to you, and yet it is true: For those who view life one-sidedly, it makes a great difference whether one is a materialist or a spiritualist—spiritualist not in the sense of spiritualism, but in the sense of German philosophy. To the researcher of the spirit, it is essentially quite irrelevant whether one is a materialist or a spiritualist. That is not what matters at all. For the materialist who approaches external material life with a deepened sense of self—even when investigating the coarsest material phenomena—will move from matter to spirit, because spirit underlies all matter.

[ 39 ] Start with matter, but don’t stop halfway. For my sake, be as crude a materialist as you like, but be willing to apply thought to your research—then that is enough. And likewise, one must not stop halfway if one is a spiritualist; otherwise, one will always talk about the spirit, talk and talk about the spirit, perhaps even despise matter. But what matters is not to talk about spirit, spirit, spirit, but to find, through the spirit, the way into material life, to immerse oneself once again in material life, and to carry the spirit right into material life.

[ 40 ] Tomorrow I will speak about this in even greater detail to show how the spiritualists—who are always talking about the spirit but have no sense of how to integrate this spirit into real, useful, everyday life—are perhaps even more harmful than the materialists. What matters is not whether one starts from matter or from spirit, but rather that one brings one’s research to a conclusion. But in a certain sense, it is precisely the current scientific approach that prevents one from bringing one’s research to a conclusion. Even though modern physiology and biology focus almost exclusively on the material aspect—even in relation to human beings—using the methods of modern natural science—not the facts themselves, but the way of thinking, the method—one cannot uncover the true mysteries of, for example, human evolution. And this is particularly important for the questions we face today.

[ 41 ] As you know, a particular achievement of the natural sciences is what is called the “idea of development.” Development—it has, after all, become a rather hollow word. Science has been placed within the framework of the concept of development, extending all the way up to human beings, and in this way, we have found things that are useful and things that are not, as well as things of infinite significance. And yet what natural science has accomplished in this field is only half of what can help us understand human beings. For human beings are not such simple creatures that they can be readily understood through a linear conception of their development. Human beings are complex beings. And if one wishes to apply the concept of development to human beings—if one truly wishes to penetrate the mysteries of humanity—then one must also view the human organism, as it appears to the external eye, in the light of the concept of development in a different way than the straightforward manner in which natural science has attempted to do so up to the present.

[ 42 ] One must, in fact, distinguish in the human being between the head—or, more precisely, everything connected with the head as a sensory and nervous organism—which I will now call the “head organism” for the sake of simplicity— one must distinguish the middle organism—that is, what belongs to the life of the chest and the life of the abdomen—and, thirdly, one must distinguish the life of the extremities in the human being. Anyone who has ever looked at the human skeleton will know that what is expressed in humans—in a manner entirely different from that of all other animals—in the structure of the extremities—the arms with the hands and the legs with the feet—is not merely what is visible on the outside; it continues inward.

[ 43 ] And everything that one encounters outwardly in human beings is, at first, material. One comes to recognize it only through its material mysteries when one is able to immerse oneself spiritually in this material realm. For if one applies the idea of evolution—and accepts the concept of evolution as developed by modern science—then only the “middle human being,” the “chest human being,” can be explained by this theory of evolution. The human being, insofar as he is a “head organism,” cannot be explained by this concept of evolution.

[ 44 ] Why is this so? Because the human head, my esteemed audience, does not merely undergo progressive development, but also incorporates regression and reverse development into that progressive development. The head degenerates, in a sense diverting something from the straight course of development; it does not come to a halt when the current of development has run its course, but rather ossifies more than the rest of the organism. What is already expressed in a trivial, external way by the peculiar ossification of the head—in that the cerebrum, too, is anatomically undifferentiated in a peculiar way— all of this, according to the facts of contemporary natural science, also points to what must be established here from the perspective of the spiritual sciences. In the case of the human being—considered as a being of the head—we are not dealing with a straight line, but with a development that is progressive, then again has stalled, and has regressed.

[ 45 ] When one becomes acquainted with imagination, inspiration, and intuition, one gains a deeper insight into material relationships through inner experience—as strange as it may seem—than those who seek only to experience the spirit and the spiritual. This experience of the spirit presupposes the ability to immerse oneself fully in the material world. There one experiences what imagination—through which we are truly human—actually is. What goes on in the subconscious when we imagine? It is very strange, my esteemed audience: when we imagine, our head starves. The head is depleted. Every mental image permeated by thought is a state of partial starvation. Ascetics who have proceeded in the wrong way have then attempted to starve the entire body in order to evoke certain mental images. That is the wrong approach. What is supposed to happen already occurs naturally through a certain unstable equilibrium. In the organism, we are actually only in equilibrium—nourished—with respect to the middle organism; but with respect to the head, this is true only while we sleep. Throughout the entire waking state, the head must be in a state of malnutrition. This is regressive development. It stems from the withdrawal of development, from the process of breakdown.

[ 46 ] And lo and behold, my esteemed audience, you have arrived at something of immense importance—something that bridges the gap between the natural sciences and the humanities. How does imaginative thinking come about? — we ask. Does it come about through a progressive, sprouting, budding development? No, rather through the development being drawn back, through space being made, through development ceasing, through it disintegrating within itself; this is how space is made for soul experience. If one believes that development proceeds as linearly as it does with regard to the purely animal aspects of our middle organism, then one will never arrive at the concept of the independence of the thinking, imaginative experience; but if one knows that development must recede, that everything that brings about growth and life must recede, that it must make room—primarily—for the soul.

[ 47 ] Only when one knows this—when one looks closely at how the head serves as the foundation for soul life—does one arrive at the independence of experience. So, on the one hand, once one has penetrated to the realm of imagination, inspiration, and intuition, one sees how the thinking process—whether correct or incorrect—intervenes in the life of the soul. The body must suspend its function in order for this to occur. Then one can proceed further. One can observe what enters the organism independently as a thought-process—one can see what it is and how it enters the human being when he says to himself: “This is right, that is wrong”—whatever arises from the organism.

[ 48 ] And once one has come to recognize how it is experienced—in imagination, inspiration, and intuition—lo and behold: What does one experience in contrast to thinking? That it is built upon the organism’s reverse development. One experiences that within it—just as it occurs in everyday life when it is true thinking, a kind of thinking that does not succumb to the play of ideas but develops logically according to what is right or wrong—this thinking is an unconscious inspiration for the human being. That is the great discovery one makes. Through spiritual research, one learns to consciously immerse oneself in the realm of inspiration. Now one learns to recognize what constitutes right and wrong thinking. The inspiration is there, but unconsciously. It comes about only when one recognizes the fact: Well, something radiates into us that tells us, “Reject this, accept that.” But these are unconscious inspirations. Where do they come from? This also becomes clear when one examines them from a spiritual scientific perspective, through the experiences one has in imagination, inspiration, and intuition.

[ 49 ] When one has this imagination—when one does not stop at merely having this imagination, but immerses oneself in this inspiration—one comes to realize what inspires one: it is the life one lived before being drawn into this body, given to one by one’s father and mother, through birth or conception. This is where one comes to realize: This physical life is a continuation of a spiritual life one has lived. Now, through thinking itself, it points out to us that the human being descends from a spiritual world and enters into what is given to them through conception or birth by their father and mother as a physical body. By recognizing thinking as unconscious inspiration and observing one’s intuitions—that is, by speaking of intuitive thinking and of the intuition that lives within thinking—one is in truth speaking of the human being’s pre-birth, or rather, pre-conception, spiritual-soul existence.

[ 50 ] In the future, the question of immortality will undergo a significant development. Until now, this question of immortality has often been viewed solely from the perspective of a selfish interest in what follows after death. But this life we live here in the physical body is the continuation of a spiritual life. Spiritual science opens up the prospect of viewing this life here in its connection with the immortal soul—as it existed before entering the physical body through birth or conception—in this connection with the immortal soul.

[ 51 ] Let us now consider the human being from another perspective—that of his or her development. I will have to say something very paradoxical here. But, my esteemed audience, I also know this: what I am about to say—which I will describe as a paradox, as something people might perceive as very twisted—will be a solid asset precisely for future scientific research.

[ 52 ] Let us consider the organism of the extremities—everything connected with the structure of the arms and hands, the feet and legs, and how these extend inward. Here we see development unfolding in an entirely different way. When we consider the head organism, my dear friends, we see development in such a way that we must recognize a regressive development—a retreat from development. What is distinctive about our limb organism is that its development goes a step beyond what is normal for the middle organism; overdevelopment occurs in the limbs. With regard to the organism of the extremities, the human being goes beyond the extent of the development of the head. Even the forms alone—unfortunately, there is not enough time to go into details—the entire life of the organism of the extremities provides conclusive proof that in humans, the organism of the extremities involves overdevelopment; a development toward something that the human being does not need at all for the maintenance of the body. Development proceeds beyond this point, while in the head it becomes regressive. What is the consequence of this? That development in the limb system goes beyond itself. As a result, something awakens subconsciously within the human being that one recognizes only when one comes to fully grasp the imaginative life and then deepens this imaginative life through inspiration and intuition.

[ 53 ] When one looks at the human limb-organism with the spiritual eye of the spiritual researcher, something emerges within this limb-organism that appears as imagination—as imagination arising of its own accord.

[ 54 ] The extremities bypass the process of development. And through this, they become psychologically integrated with something that cannot be seen with the naked eye, but which immediately becomes apparent when one is familiar with imaginative experience. Through his extremities, the human being contains something that he produces as imagination, which has nothing to do with his life here in the body. If one learns to recognize this life that is integrated into the extremities—and can be grasped only through imagination—what does one find there? That which is integrated into these extremities is that which passes through the gate of death, which is the foundation for the continuation of life after death. Just as, through inspiration in thought—on the one hand, in a head that has regressed—that which existed before birth, before conception, is lived out spiritually and soulfully, so, as imagination, that which after death carries our soul life out into the spiritual world like a chariot becomes integrated.

[ 55 ] On the one hand, we are endowed with unconscious inspiration, which spiritual science elevates toward the head. On the other hand, toward the extremities, we are endowed with unconscious imagination, through which lives within us, unconsciously, that which passes through the gate of death and carries us out into immortality after death. We come to know the pre-birth and post-death lives in two different ways: by experiencing the pre-birth life as unconscious inspiration and the post-death life as unconscious imagination.

[ 56 ] One will one day study this from a purely biological and physiological perspective—after all, we’re not children, so we can say it outright—one can study how, in relation to external life, the organization of the extremities is connected to the rest of the human organism. One will then look at the primary sexual organs and their connection to the structure of the feet; one will examine the secondary sexual organs—one need only consider the breasts as secondary sexual organs—and their connection to the structure of the arms; then one will have identified what, in the human being, is integrated through the organism of the extremities as the physical foundation for the creation of a new life that separates itself from the parent. This physical foundation is complete once a person reaches sexual maturity, but the person continues their life beyond that point. What is here the physical organization has its counterpart. Just as the human physical organism, insofar as it is connected to the sexual organization, is the foundation for physical procreation, so too is that which, as the spiritual-soul aspect, underlies the limb system necessary for the bringing forth of that which the human being sends beyond the gate of death and which brings forth his next earthly life.

[ 57 ] Here we have, as it were, a starting point for a strictly scientific investigation of the question of immortality. And when, more than a quarter-century ago, I pointed out in my Philosophy of Freedom that one must observe correctly if one wishes to approach freedom, I indicated that, on the one hand, one must turn to purely intuitive thinking. Today I would add: This intuitive thinking is recognized before birth or conception. This is already stated in The Philosophy of Freedom, where I referred to intuitive thinking as one element of the human will.

[ 58 ] The other element that manifests as an imaginative life—I called it “moral imagination” in the context of the question of freedom at that time—was intended to make the book accessible even to those who consider spiritual science to be nonsense. What is written in the book is described philosophically. The spiritual scientist adds that what appears there as “moral imagination” is part of what lives as subconscious imagination within the human organism and rises to the surface precisely in moral actions. Through the interplay of moral imagination with intuitive thinking, I said at the time, arises what is, in the true sense of the word, a free act of the human will. Today I would add: What is thinking? It is that which is our inspiration here, that which is pre-birth. When does it occur? It occurs when we are able to conceive of an action in such a way that we carry it out—an action so dear to us that it has nothing to do with our instincts and inclinations, but is as dear to us as a person whom we truly love because we have come to know their essence. When we perform an action out of love—that is, not out of selfishness or whimsical notions, but out of an understanding of the action’s inner necessity—then we surrender ourselves to intuitive actions; then we are inspired by prenatal life.

[ 59 ] But where does this power come from? At that time I said: ... [gap]. Today I would add: It is the power that carries us over into the spiritual world after death. This is at work within us subconsciously. In moral action that unfolds freely, what lies before birth or conception shines through. This connects with what enters the spiritual world after death. While we live between birth and death, we are already acting through the unconscious influence within us of what lies before birth, in the intuitive thinking that flows inspiringly into our lives. What lies beyond death is that which has no connection to us at all and yet is accomplished by us; that which is characterized by being done out of love—that is the truly free act. Therefore, one must say: What inspires us from pure thinking has nothing to do with our body at all. The body must withdraw in order for this to unfold. And what works imaginatively has no significance for now, but only acquires significance after death.

[ 60 ] These two factors, which have nothing to do with the body, are the real forces at work in the true, free act of human will. This is the profound mystery: when we turn to free will, we do not find anything mortal in the human being that is acting there, but rather we find precisely that which acts freely—that is, the immortal. The question of free will and the question of immortality are intimately connected, because the only actions that are truly free in human beings are those in which the supersensible—that which is not yet bound to the body, which human beings develop in the spiritual world before they take on a body—is at work, in connection with what arises from oversupply—that which has no significance for present development, that which only takes on significance after death, but which shines forth in the action that separates itself from us, that is performed apart from us.

[ 61 ] That is why I already said in The Philosophy of Freedom: One cannot pose the question this way: Is man free or unfree? That always leads to false answers. In this realm, it is not a matter of either/or, but of both/and. Human beings perform a vast number of actions that arise from the needs of their bodies, from the interplay of their ideas that well up from the body, and from the body’s instincts. But they constantly have the ideal of carrying out actions in which they say to themselves: I am not a factor here; what is to take place is as free as the human being I love is free from me; it happens solely because I recognize that this fact must be realized. Such an action is the one toward which all human thinking tends and strives—the one that is embodied in the unfree action we discussed back then.

[ 62 ] Human beings develop out of acts of bondage by increasingly moving toward their true selves—precisely in their actions and in their willing—as the pre-birth and post-death realms shine into this willing. Human beings develop toward freedom within the realm of the unfree; they are on the path to becoming ever freer and freer. This is a matter of action, not of an either/or choice. Those who frame the question in this way can never arrive at an answer to the question of freedom. Rather, it is a matter of “both-and”; to the same extent that the immortal soul appears to the human being, revealing itself through the body, as this soul actively expresses itself through the body. What the human being accomplishes flows from thought, through love, toward action; to the same extent, the human being becomes ever freer and freer.

[ 63 ] It is precisely from this starting point that we will begin our discussion tomorrow about human life over the course of time, about historical development, and about the various earthly lives. To conclude today, I would simply like to draw your attention to how this very reflection illustrates that the question of immortality and the question of free will shed light on one another—that they are truly intrinsically connected. Free will is a trait unique to the immortal being. No one can be a proponent of free will without also recognizing the immortality of the human being. But whoever recognizes the immortality of the human being knows that the human being is on the path of development toward freedom.

[ 64 ] Even today, my esteemed audience, reflections such as those we have engaged in today—through which a person approaches, by a truly spiritual-scientific path, the answers to their highest questions, those relating to selfless self-knowledge—are still viewed with many prejudices. And what does it take, after all! Yes, my esteemed audience, to persevere with the full power of the soul through what I have called “imaginative perception”—this truly requires something that a person must first cultivate within themselves. It would be more convenient if one could answer the highest questions and mysteries of human life without it.

[ 65 ] What is it that leads people today to regard spiritual science as fantasy, as something unimportant? It is that, in truth, they harbor a subconscious fear and anxiety of that power which must be developed—the power that, through the free experience of the spirit, must grasp the spirit itself. It is this subconscious fear and anxiety that time and again gives rise to opponents of spiritual science. For spiritual research requires this inner courage—the kind that does not believe one will immediately fall into nothingness when one is called upon to sustain, through one’s own power, something one is meant to experience in the spirit, and to bring it before the soul through one’s own power. It is certainly easier to seek answers to life’s mysteries through external means than to be made aware that the soul needs an inner, purely spiritual strengthening that transcends all measures of ordinary life. And so, at its core, it is a matter of complacency and fear that gives rise to opposition to spiritual science. But these things will gradually be overcome by humanity, which is thirsting ever more for the truth.

[ 66 ] I would like to conclude—with a slight modification of this beautiful statement made by a German thinker in this field—with the following words, thereby preparing the way for tomorrow evening’s discussion. Spiritual science is indeed reviled by many today because it is not understood, because it is not recognized, because its necessity for human life cannot be grasped. But if one allows the course of human development to take effect on one’s soul, then one must say to oneself: No matter how oppressive all opposition, all hostility, all misunderstanding, and all slander that stand in the way of the truth may be—the truth finds its way even through the narrowest crevice in the rock of human development, no matter how heavy the rocks may be.

[ 67 ] And as such a truth, the one who, on the one hand, recognizes the needs of today’s humanity—which lie in the subconscious—and, on the other hand, looks into the spiritual world, must see how [it] can unfold from imagination toward intuition—as this kind of truth, the spiritual researcher must regard the truth of spiritual science: as a truth that will wind its way through whatever oppressive burdens may weigh upon it in the form of opposition, hostility, and slander. For the truth winds its way through all resistance, even through the narrowest crevice in the rock of human development, and it must ultimately prevail.