The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. Scientific Understanding of the Supernatural and the True Reality of Human Life

Notes

[ 1 ] Anyone familiar with anthroposophical spiritual science is well aware of the numerous objections raised by our contemporaries against what is to be presented here. We must strive not merely for an expansion of the existing mode of knowledge, but for an entirely different mode of knowledge—and it is against this mode that the objections are raised.

[ 2 ] We have the idea of free action, but this freedom does not arise from the organization. You have a sense of freedom that would be a lie, or we would have to go beyond our organization to reach the foundation of freedom. Where does materialistic knowledge take you? To certain limits. These limits must exist—for example, the concepts of matter and force. We need these limits; we need these concepts. But as we explore these concepts, we must come to realize that we are dismantling the concepts of natural science. We must erect these concepts like stakes; reality is reflected in them. These concepts are mirrors. Just as one would shatter a mirror to find the thing-in-itself behind it, so would one act who seeks to go beyond these concepts using scientific concepts.

[ 3 ] Once you have experienced this, the question arises: Why is it that we set limits for ourselves—that we must set them? Human beings would have to be organized quite differently—between birth and death—if they did not set these limits for themselves. A shared force must be drawn from the soul; that is the capacity for love. Such a being could not love just anything that lives in a physical body. The way we must set boundaries for ourselves is deeply connected to our very nature.

[ 4 ] Because this has always been there, people have turned to the opposite extreme. They sought mystical insight within themselves. One believes one can find within oneself what one cannot find outside through the senses. But there, within oneself, one also reaches limits. What I have told you about self-awareness becomes more and more profound, but it, too, is merely an image. So even there, one reaches limits. The futility of ordinary mysticism becomes clear: one reaches limits there as well. This stems from the fact that a person would not need to possess a power of the soul to arrive at the image—at the limit—through ordinary mystical contemplation. This is the power of recollection, the power of memory. If one were to break through this boundary, the capacity for recollection would vanish. One would be unable to remember oneself properly; one would lose the thread of memory of one’s own self.

[ 5 ] Outwardly: the capacity for love; inwardly: the power of memory, which restrains us from breaking through the boundaries both outward and inward.

[ 6 ] Louis Waldstein: “The Subconscious Self” — Barrel-organ Tones. What becomes embedded in the subconscious over the years transforms with time; hence, what arises in the mystic as an inner vision and something beautiful is like the transformed tones of the “barrel organ.” Neither ordinary knowledge of nature nor ordinary mysticism provides access to the supersensible. The transformation of these powers of cognition is necessary to reach the supersensible. One must seek in such a way that the forces that give rise to the boundaries—that one takes these forces into account and transforms them—so that they no longer produce boundaries.

[ 7 ] In honest self-knowledge, we ask: What happens in the soul when we perceive nature? There is a faculty of perception—vivid and intense—when we are simply perceiving. When we form mental images, this faculty of perception becomes more shadowy. This is connected to the power of memory. What is attenuated in the imagination gives rise to the power of memory. We are always thinking while perceiving. We must distinguish this thinking from the thinking that occurs during recollection and the formation of images. One intensifies thinking into meditation by ensuring that thinking does not give way to memory. Thinking that becomes imagery—that is meditation. Omit everything abstract that never leads to the supersensible. Such thinking—the meditative kind—leads to memory, to recollection, and to imagination. That is not yet insight.

[ 8 ] If one continues this exercise, images will begin to well up within oneself. One must then develop the inner strength to suppress these images. This is followed by a profound spiritual experience. One arrives at a heightened sense of self-awareness. One lies in the dark of night, opens one’s eyes, but sees nothing in the darkness, hears nothing in the silence. Then, along with the “I,” what one has experienced rises up in the night. It is not a matter of remembering, but of looking back on the experiences the soul has gone through since it descended from the spiritual into the physical. One now experiences the soul’s experiences in the supersensible realm. As the poet says: “Time becomes space.” The events remain fixed in time; time becomes space. In this way, one perceives the supersensible realm of one’s own soul.

[ 9 ] Anyone who is a beginner in this matter experiences a sense of disappointment within themselves. They cannot remember—that is, they can recall what they once experienced, but it does not come back with the same completeness and vividness; on the contrary: there must be no trace of memory of such experiences. The soul must make the same effort—even more so than the first time—to have such experiences again and again. One more thing: how fleeting such experiences are. Those who ponder at length in ordinary life, who dither for a long time in making a decision, are poorly prepared for such supersensory experiences.

[ 10 ] The other pole of the supersensible world lies in the time after death. Just as the capacity for memory must be diminished for the first pole, so must the capacity for love be increased for the second pole.

[ 11 ] At every moment, we want to make something different out of what surrounds us. Human beings must transform this will. They must shape their lives with their will. What were you like at seventeen or eighteen? How did your unconscious will operate? One must strive toward this; one must take this will into one’s own hands and make it conscious. This must result in a heightened capacity for love. This is how one enters the life after death.

[ 12 ] This leads to the realization that human beings are rooted in the supersensible. A gulf opens up between outward and inward experiences. Knowledge of the supersensible world can bridge this gulf.

[ 13 ] Human beings are threefold beings: head, torso, and limbs. [Transcript ends here.]

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Transcript Broadcast

[ 14 ] Ladies and gentlemen, for a number of years now, I have had the privilege of delivering this lecture on anthroposophical spiritual science here in Hamburg, just as I have in other German cities, and I have [always] begun by making a remark at the outset of these reflections, which I would like to make again today by way of introduction: I can well imagine—and anyone who is familiar with what is meant here by anthroposophical spiritual science will be able to imagine this as well—that many of our contemporaries have a wide variety of objections to what is presented here. It is precisely those who are familiar with these matters who are aware of the objections that are raised. But they have also learned to assess the weight of these objections because they know just how much the insights presented here diverge from the habits of thought of our age—insights that must first clear a path toward transformed habits of thought, which will, however, most certainly emerge from the deepest, in many people’s subconscious thirst for knowledge in our time—and especially in the near future.

[ 15 ] If the subject to be discussed here, esteemed audience, is one that many regard as beyond the reach of human understanding, then objections to what is to be said arise not only because of this prejudice but also, and primarily, because of another circumstance—objections that, from a certain point of view, [from] are still entirely understandable today, even if they may not be justified. In order to approach the supersensible realm, one must strive not only for an expansion of ordinary human cognitive faculties, but also—based on certain premises that will be discussed shortly—for an entirely different kind of knowledge, an entirely different way of knowing than we have become accustomed to today. It is precisely this approach that gives rise to opposition.

[ 16 ] However, ladies and gentlemen, right from the very beginning of spiritual scientific research, it becomes clear that when dealing with the supersensible, one must proceed from a different kind of knowledge. For the true researcher of the supersensible proceeds from two experiences—not from mere logical considerations, but from two experiences. These experiences are linked to humanity’s thirst for knowledge, to two primary inner drives for knowledge, I would say, which, however, have been pushed very much into the background by official spiritual science in recent decades, so that one can actually see, whenever the science of the soul is discussed, how these two—I would say—fundamental questions of human cognition have been virtually eradicated.

[ 17 ] These two fundamental questions are, first of all, this one: How is the human soul itself rooted in the supersensible? It is, after all, dear friends, nothing other than what is broadly referred to as the question of immortality. And the second fundamental question of human existence is the question of freedom. When one touches upon this question, one immediately realizes that it is truly not merely human desires, or even the trivial fear of death, that leads people to these questions; rather, there can be entirely scientific points of departure that lead to these profound questions of the human mind and the human drive for knowledge. The first point is that virtually every human being, at least once—perhaps many times—more or less unconsciously, yet driven by clearly perceptible feelings, is compelled to ask: What are you, really? What is it, exactly, that you call your self-consciousness? If a person then attempts, with genuine vitality, to gain a clearer understanding—through a somewhat more developed self-knowledge—of what self-consciousness actually encompasses, they must conclude: This self-consciousness actually appears to me as a mere thought; and yet, it must be more than a mere thought—it is what surges up from the depths of human soul life within self-consciousness.

[ 18 ] A philosophical statement by a very, very brilliant thinker, Descartes, has become widely known; in it, he sought to indicate how he had convinced himself of the certainty of self-consciousness as a reality. The statement “I think, therefore I am” has become very well known. And many, many people believe they can anchor the reality of self-consciousness in this maxim. For every human being, however, dear attendees, this assertion is refuted every day, for no one can deny—if they approach the experiences of the soul with complete impartiality—that, at least for the period between birth and death, that which underlies the human self must also be different between falling asleep and waking up, when a person is not thinking. Every instance of sleep refutes Descartes’ statement, “I think, therefore I am,” for I exist even when I am not thinking. One need only take such objections at face value.

[ 19 ] But the statement proves something entirely different. It proves something that is truly not to be taken lightly: that no matter how hard one tries to get to the bottom of it with ordinary understanding—to discern what is actually manifesting within one’s own self, within the soul-self—one arrives at nothing other than thoughts, at a mental image. In ordinary consciousness, one gains nothing more than a mental image of the self. If one examines all other beings, [one finds]: Only in the case of animals, which at first appear to humans as … [illegible], will it very soon become clear that what they experience is grounded in reality in their organization and the like. Human beings themselves must say to themselves in self-observation: Precisely what I designate as the center of my being, I cannot grasp with ordinary consciousness as anything other than a thought, as a mere image; an image appears, and nothing other than an image. And ordinary consciousness does not yield a reality for this image. Reality must be sought by means other than ordinary consciousness or ordinary cognition. Otherwise, there would be an image of something, but no reality.

[ 20 ] It is not in the ideas—which, as I have just said, I do not possess—that all the feelings, all the inner impulses, and all the thirst for knowledge lie, dear audience, which lead human beings to seek how, since it cannot be attained in the sensible realm, the human self is anchored as reality in the supersensible. It is not the fear of death alone, nor the desire to continue existing after death or to possess a suprasensory being, but rather the realization that there is an image for which one finds no reality in ordinary life—this is what drives human beings toward the suprasensory realm in relation to this question. Otherwise, one would have to say to oneself: An image arises in your soul for which you have no reality.

[ 21 ] The second is that which inevitably arises in the consciousness of human action. It is there, but it cannot be explained; no reason for it can be found in the human physical organization. It is the sensation we have—as if... [illegible]—that we are free beings. One can theoretically deduce freedom; it exists in human consciousness, but it never, ever manifests itself through human organization. Human organization only allows us to explain, from a scientific standpoint, that everything that flows from it as an action flows out of necessity. So if we have an awareness of freedom in relation to our own actions, this awareness of freedom cannot come from sensory-physical reality; and only if one has the courage to make the right [ad]missions to oneself about such things can one say: Either you live within something that your consciousness conjures up—with a sense of freedom—which would be a lie, or you must seek reality outside the physical-sensory reality of your organism, in the supersensible, from which the sense of freedom of your soul springs.

[ 22 ] With that, ladies and gentlemen, I have presented to you what drives human beings to approach the question of the supersensible—not merely out of vague feelings, but on the basis of entirely scientific considerations. Anyone who approaches these questions in this way will, from the scientific perspective meant here, have to rely on two kinds of experiences. These are usually regarded merely as experiences of insight. Spiritual science regards them as experiences of the whole ... [illegible] human being—as experiences that are lived through by the entire scope of our soul. The first of these experiences is the one explained by scientific knowledge. I have already remarked here that spiritual science is by no means hostile to scientific knowledge; indeed, it is perhaps even more imbued with the full significance and essence of such fruitful modern scientific knowledge. But spiritual science, as understood here, does not merely accept this scientific knowledge, as the natural scientist himself does—or as those people do who wish to form a worldview based on [appreciation for] the natural sciences—but spiritual scientific research must experience with its whole soul: What can scientific knowledge provide? Where does scientific knowledge lead us?

[ 23 ] It turns out—and I am not merely stating something that can be logically deduced, but rather describing what is actually experienced by those who inquire scientifically with their whole soul—that when you explore other scientific findings, you inevitably reach certain limits. These limits must be established by scientific knowledge itself. Now I could cite many such concepts—which must be presented as boundary concepts of scientific knowledge—where one simply has to remain at the level of thought; one must set them up like stakes, like boundary stakes, and tell oneself: Here, you simply set these boundary stakes. You must not immediately apply ordinary scientific inquiry to them. Otherwise, this concept—like other thoughts—can be tainted by scientific error. I could certainly cite atoms or other examples, but I need only point to the most common scientific concept: the concept of matter and force. We need them if we want to understand the world scientifically, but we must treat them as boundaries.

[ 24 ] If we were to examine what we mean by “matter” and “force” with the same scientific rigor with which we examine other laws of nature, we would immediately—as we are compelled to experience these things—come to the realization that we are destroying scientific knowledge itself. We can no longer uphold what we otherwise assert on scientific grounds. We need this boundary. — Why? — Yes, we become aware that we set this boundary before us, just as we set a mirror before us in which we see ourselves, and only by setting this boundary does it reflect back to us what we hold as a scientific conception. If we did not set it up, we would have no mirror, and if we were to strive to reach [what] is indeed called the thing-in-itself, then our striving would resemble that of someone who says: Here comes my image from the mirror toward me; I want to know what is behind the mirror that is presenting this image to me, so [I must] smash it so that [I] can see what is behind it.” Thus, the one who wishes to cross the boundary of natural science behaves in the very manner exemplified by natural science itself. The entire endeavor to get to the essence of sensible things, with which one confronts the ... [gap] itself, is akin to the ... [gap].

[ 25 ] I have only briefly described it, but this is an experience one must earn—one that is attained by those who, in turn, ask themselves: What must you do to achieve, through the natural sciences, what is necessary so that, on a supersensory level, this ... [illegible] boundary... [illegible] confront you—the very foundation of this fruitful modern scientific knowledge? You must set certain boundaries for yourself; you must allow them to remain in place so that the other may become penetrable to you. Once one has experienced this, dear audience, once one has gone through in one’s soul what I have just described—and today I merely wish to describe, to inspire, that is, to speak of experiences—once one has experienced this, then the question arises in the soul: Yes, do we want to, must we, if we wish to understand the world through the natural sciences, set limits for ourselves? And then one realizes that human beings would have to be organized quite differently if they did not set such limits for themselves. Human beings would have to be of a different nature; otherwise, they would no longer be the human beings they must be for the period between [birth and death]. For it is connected to a very significant soul force that, in observing nature, we must set such limits for ourselves.

[ 26 ] Once one figures out what is actually going on here, what emerges is something immensely significant. A certain power would have to be [ripped] from our soul if human beings were of such a nature that the knowledge of nature presented no limits to them. What would have to be ripped from the soul is the capacity for love. A being that knows no limits in its knowledge of nature could not possess within itself the capacity to love anything—this being, as it lives in the physical body. Anyone who sees through the entirety of the human being must conclude: The part of our being that is directed toward nature must set limits for itself, because this part of the human being is bound to another part that is capable of love. We would not be able to love if we did not possess a faculty of cognition of this nature, one that must set limits for itself in the experience of nature. The very same force in the soul that compels us to set such a mirror-like boundary—that compels us not to cross certain limits—is the very same force that makes us capable of love. Thus, [this] part is connected to our entire being, as we exist here in the body as human beings, in that we have a limited understanding of nature.

[ 27 ] What I have just explained to you is an experience one can have through an understanding of nature, but many of our contemporaries have already had this experience unconsciously; it lives, after all, in that part of consciousness, and that [which] dawns upon us in dark feelings, is not merely observed, but it is there; and because this is present in so many people—and indeed has always been present in many people—many people seek to reach the sources of existence in a different way, to reach that which lies beyond the boundary where supersensible knowledge must take hold, and they then turn to the other pole of human striving, saying to themselves: What we cannot find outside in the sensory world, we seek by immersing ourselves in our own inner being. And there these people seek to sink into their inner being using their ordinary power of consciousness, their ordinary power of concept and imagination—in short, the ordinary power of cognition that they simply possess when they are awake. This is called mystical knowledge, meaning a plunge into the soul using the ordinary life force. One believes that what cannot be found externally in the sensory world can be found within.

[ 28 ] And lo and behold, if one is merely sincere and honest—which, of course, many mystics are not—then one also reaches a limit with this mystical insight. The immediate experience, in turn, reveals: You must descend into your own inner self, but you will find nothing other than your own self—yet your self in such a way that, as you think you are grasping your self, you can feel that you are not grasping yourself in your reality, /between the lines:] as I have discussed. — The image becomes denser and denser, but it remains an image; it does not rise to reality. And one ultimately realizes that, by attempting in this way—in the usual mystical manner—to descend into the inner self, one does not arrive at the supernatural, but rather at the inner sensual, and thus, there too, at a limit. And if one is honest, one realizes that this stems from the fact that there is always—almost always—something subjective, something that comes from within oneself, intermingling with this immersion into the inner self, and that one does not grasp something objective, but rather one merely flickers through oneself, penetrating into oneself for a moment, so that the self becomes ever denser and denser. This is the second experience: the futility of ordinary mysticism becomes clear to you.

[ 29 ] This, in turn, raises the question: Where does this boundary come from? This limit—as one gradually realizes while attempting to attain supersensory knowledge through mystical means—arises from the fact that human beings, as they are between birth and death, require an inner soul force that they could not possess if they were simply able to plunge into their own self through mystical contemplation. If a person had unlimited knowledge of nature, they would lack the capacity for love—another soul force that would have to [replace] it if [they] [wish] to reach that state through mystical immersion. Why do they... [illegible] wish to? What one would lack there is something that is usually … [illegible], namely the capacity for recollection—the power of memory. By immersing ourselves in our inner being, we reach only as far as that spiritual power which reflects back to us the insights, events, and experiences of our life between birth and death. There, an inner mirror reflects these experiences back to us. If we were to pierce through this mirror inward, we would enter the supersensible realm, but we must not pierce it in the ordinary way; otherwise, our capacity for recollection would be shattered—and how much of a healthy human life depends on this?

[ 30 ] Let us simply consider that in those people in whom this connection has been severed, their entire sense of self does not function. Anyone who cannot remember past events in their life more or less loses touch with themselves and wanders aimlessly through life. The pathological [manifestations] associated with this condition are, of course, well known. A person must set before themselves external ideas that they cannot transcend because of their capacity for love. They must become aware of an inner boundary to their inner contemplation, because the power of memory must be at work within. That is why, esteemed audience, even through external investigation of what is there... [illegible], one cannot arrive at any understanding of the nature of the human soul; and although scientific observation has earned such great merit in our time, attempts have also been made to delve into one’s own inner self through memory and scientific observation.

[ 31 ] I would like to mention an example from the literature—I could mention hundreds of others, but to ensure that [it] is verifiable, I will draw from the literature. In the highly commendable Wiesbaden [publishing house, the Wiesbaden Collection, in the series] on [borderline issues of] nerves and mental life, a [work] by Louis Waldstein on the human subconscious self [reports the following]. A story is told—a story in which the author expressed his views on the uncertainty of self-knowledge. Waldstein apparently experienced [the following]: He was walking down the street and passed a bookstore. There he looked at the books on display. There he found a book about mollusks. Naturally, this might interest a researcher, but lo and behold, it wasn’t so much the book about mollusks that interested him—rather, he couldn’t help but smile.

[ 32 ] Now imagine a naturalist who comes across a new book on mollusks and can’t help but smile. There is, of course, not the slightest reason to smile at such a title. What does Waldstein do? He wants to figure out why [he] laughed; he closes his eyes so as not to be disturbed by what he sees or by his own thoughts; he closes his eyes to investigate, to see how he came to realize what made [him] smile. And then, far off in the distance, he hears a barrel organ; he hadn’t heard it when [his] eyes were open. The barrel organ is playing that melody he heard decades ago, but never even paid close attention to because other things interested him back then—the melody to which he learned to dance. Back then, he was more interested in his partner’s charms and the steps he had to take; he only half-listened to what the barrel organ was playing. So it had left only a very faint impression on him, but now, decades later, when the barrel organ… [illegible] strikes up the tune again, it made him smile.

[ 33 ] Does this not show, ladies and gentlemen, that there is much deep within our soul that is largely hidden from the attention of everyday life? The subconscious memory is added to the conscious memory. In everyday life and to the ordinary consciousness, one cannot possibly know what lies deep within in terms of the experiences one has gone through. And these experiences change over the course of a lifetime, and so one may encounter many a mystic who believes himself to be sincere and who says: “From the depths of my soul have risen visions of a supernatural world, visions of glory and grandeur.” [It] need be nothing other than what he heard decades ago—the barrel organ—which only partially influenced specific aspects of his being. Just as Waldstein laughed at the book, what was transformed into the mood of the soul at that time could, after decades, have been transformed to such an extent that this mood apparently gives rise to the most sublime ideas. Human beings must be constituted in such a way that the experiences they have gone through between birth and the present moment are reflected back up from down there. Therefore, the experiences that [unfold] down there—[the mood]—are never in any way authoritative; rather, one must always be clear that what one has been able to draw up from such mystical contemplation is nothing other than the transformed tones of the barrel organ, and much of what is [illegible; distorted?]—about which … [illegible] … [illegible] … [illegible] is talked about, but rather the transformed sounds of the barrel organ, and this leads [on the other hand] to the recognition that, even if one can immerse oneself inwardly through ordinary mysticism, one cannot reach the source of the [inner] human being.

[ 34 ] These are starting points; these are experiences that show that one cannot penetrate into the inner world through ordinary knowledge of nature or through ordinary mysticism. If [the human being] has these experiences that I have described, then they give him the strength to explore in a completely different direction and in a completely different way; for out of these experiences comes the strength for the spiritual researcher to seek a different path and a different method, and this requires, among other things, courage. Inner spiritual courage, ladies and gentlemen, to not remain at all with what the experiences of ordinary consciousness are, the experiences that rightly guide us in everyday life, that also rightly guide us in ordinary science—not to remain there, but to transform this consciousness so that dormant powers emerge which are effective in a different way than those that seek to enter into ordinary natural science and ordinary mysticism.

[ 35 ] It is not merely the use of the ordinary power of cognition, directed outward and inward, but the transformation of this power—the attainment of a new kind of cognition—that is necessary to penetrate into the supersensible life; and it is precisely these two starting points, which are reliable starting points for supersensible cognition, that thus also provide indications as to how one should search. One must evidently seek in such a way that one properly takes into account those very forces, that very capacity of the soul, through which the two boundaries are brought about, and that one brings about a transformation of the soul life in a certain direction, so that these two soul forces can no longer serve as boundaries.

[ 36 ] I have described, esteemed audience, in all my writings what the spiritual researcher must do when he has to work through intimate soul experiences if he wishes to achieve this transformation through this capacity for insight ... [illegible]. There you can [read about] the individual soul experiences that the researcher of the spirit and soul must strive through if he wishes to attain knowledge, [as they are] described there. Today I would like to point out, from a very special perspective, the fundamental manner in which the soul must gather itself in order to truly enter the supersensible realm, so as to be able to cross the two boundaries that one has experienced in the manner described [by me]. The first step is to ask oneself, in genuine and honest self-knowledge: What actually happens through the soul when it is engaged in the study of nature?

[ 37 ] What takes place within the soul can be expressed through two faculties. What I am about to say can be explained in a thoroughly and deeply scientific manner. Of course, since spiritual science is still in its infancy, I must phrase the question here in more accessible terms: The faculties that a person employs when turning toward nature can be understood as the faculty of perception. We perceive by turning toward nature, and through this perception we form mental images. So we know that when we have perceptions, the perception is vivid, intense—it completely absorbs us, as if the external world were coming to life within us through the perception—but we also know that when we turn away from the perception and form a mental image of what we have perceived, this mental image is less vivid and less intense than the perception itself; it is more shadowy.

[ 38 ] Does it make sense in human life, ladies and gentlemen, that when we turn away from perception, our mental image becomes more shadowy? Yes, this is connected to our capacity for memory. If we wish to have perception, we must reestablish a connection to the thing that evokes those perceptions; we must live in full vitality alongside that thing. But if we are left with only an idea of that thing, this living coexistence is weakened, and what is weakened is the power that gives rise to memory. Please keep this in mind. Because we do not merely perceive but also think and imagine in relation to external, sensory reality, we are able to retain memories.

[ 39 ] Now, the spiritual researcher must develop a different capacity for imagination and thought than the ordinary one. He can develop this capacity for thought only if, through genuine self-knowledge, he becomes aware of what perception actually consists of. We never merely perceive; we are always thinking while perceiving—only we do not direct our attention to the thought process, but rather to perception. And it is precisely this thinking that we develop through perception that we must distinguish from the thinking we subsequently develop from memory—from the thinking that merely conceives. And then, once one has come to recognize how one is engaged in consciousness through one’s power of thought, one also comes to strengthen that thinking itself through practice—and the practice itself [is] described in the [aforementioned] books—and to bring it to life. One sharpens mere thinking, without robbing it of its clarity, for the purpose of meditation.

[ 40 ] What is meditation? Meditation is a form of thinking that does not merge into memory, but is strengthened through inner spiritual practice in such a way that it proceeds as vividly as consciousness [perception] otherwise does. Such thinking, filled with inner content—the transformation of thought into an image—is meditation. Therefore, it is good to practice in such a way, in inner ... [illegible], that one rejects all abstract thoughts—they do not lead into the supersensible—[but] that one takes in pictorial thoughts, which are afterimages of external sensory perception, ... [illegible].

[ 41 ] When one develops this kind of thinking, one has a very strange experience with it—an experience that is, at first, extremely surprising. If, through meditation, one repeatedly allows this pictorial thinking to be present in the soul as part of one’s practice, one comes to realize that this thinking initially leads to something that cannot immediately become a memory. It merely leads to a feeling of strengthened self-awareness—a self-awareness that, through its own power, consistently leads to what I have called “imaginative consciousness.” This imaginative consciousness does not yet lead to any insight, but only to a deepening of self-awareness. What was an image up to this point is now felt within oneself as self-awareness. That ... [illegible] works its way into one ... [illegible], in that it has thus empowered itself through being by means of pictorial, meditative thinking.

[ 42 ] If one continues this exercise for a while, one will find that images begin to arise one after another in the soul; as it were, the soul becomes capable of allowing imagination to well up within itself. Then, in turn, one must acquire the ability to suppress this imagination. One must therefore develop two kinds of abilities within the soul: a form of thinking so vivid that it is as vivid as outer consciousness itself, and then, in turn, the ability to suppress it. For often, when one proceeds in this way through meditation, it depends greatly on the inner experience of the soul. I would like to describe this inner experience to you in more vivid terms, for what arises in this realm must be described vividly, since it is experienced through the power of vivid thinking. If, in such an exercise—which must be intensified—one continues to the point where one gains the power to suppress the imagination as well, and at first has nothing but self-consciousness imbued with reality, then one eventually reaches a state of mind that could be compared to lying down at night: You open your eyes; you could see if it weren’t for the darkness. It is also quiet all around; you hear nothing. But while one lies there in the darkness of the night, the memory of what one experienced during the day comes to mind, and this recollection does not merely arise in such a way that one says to oneself: “It was you who experienced that,” but it also encompasses what the “I” experienced during the day; along with the “I” itself, the memory of what was in the surrounding world rises up in that same night. At night, one experiences not merely oneself as oneself, but the world one lives through. One might compare this to... [illegible] an experience that [arises along the path I have described.

[ 43 ] If one has practiced that exercise—[see my] books—for a sufficient period of time, [one will have] succeeded in strengthening one’s self-awareness enough to engage in imagination, and then have the mental strength to suppress that imagination in turn ... [illegible], then what arises in the state of the soul is not memory, but looking back. Just as, in the comparison I made, [a] looking back on the day’s experiences, so now it is a looking back on the experiences the soul has undergone in the spiritual realm before it descended from the spiritual realm and united with the physical existence it received through the physical union of father [and] mother and the two streams of heredity. What arises within the soul from the imaginative consciousness is an intensified sense of self—but not in relation to the present; rather, one must go back and experience oneself in the spiritual realm, in prenatal life, and through this experience of oneself, experience the spiritual world as well. Just as one experiences in memory upon waking from sleep what one has experienced during the day—the “I” in relation to its surroundings—so too does one experience the spiritual, the supersensible aspect of the soul in relation to its supersensible surroundings, through the very soul process I have just described.

[ 44 ] This process first eliminates conscious memory. The poet expressed this intuitively by saying: “Time becomes space.” Having risen to such a capacity for knowledge—one born of the imagination—one no longer possesses ordinary memory in this state, but rather looks back upon the spiritual experiences in the supersensible world, which remain fixed. What one has experienced there remains fixed for spiritual contemplation, just as objects remain fixed when you walk along a path and look back at the objects you have passed: the objects are still there; in the same way, the events remain fixed in time. One notices this when one learns to observe them in such a supersensible contemplation. Time becomes an ideal space. One looks back into the spiritual state of the soul in prenatal life. In this way, one truly sees into the supersensible realm of one’s own being through a transformed insight.

[ 45 ] This must be emphasized again and again: Through the ordinary path of cognition, there is no insight into the supersensible; this insight must be acquired by the soul developing a power that … [not only] … enables it to recall something in a completely different way …, but also to possess something that functions as a capacity for looking back. Anyone who is a beginner in the field of supersensible knowledge—that is, anyone who has not undergone sufficient such training—... [illegible]—may, as is certainly the case for some, ... [illegible] very soon arrive at certain supersensible insights. It is not even ... [illegible]. But afterward they suffer an inner … [illegible] disappointment: that they cannot recall what they have experienced through ordinary memory, that it has passed them by, and that they must go through all the exercises that … [illegible] are two to three times more difficult than the first time. For he would not be recalling something, but rather approaching the same spiritual images of reality; just as we, when we wish to have an experience in the sensory world as a perception, must once again approach the thing itself—[just as] memory is not enough for us—so memory is never enough for spiritual experiences. We must undergo the same process. Here the beginner has the feeling: I had the experience; it should be something lasting, but it does not remain—it is lost to memory. The experiences of the supersensible world are simply different from those of the sensory world.

[ 46 ] I would like to highlight yet another characteristic of this extrasensory experience. It consists in the fact that, when one has the experience, one must quickly look up—and thus focus one’s attention—in order to become extrasensory aware of the experience, for it fleets by rapidly. [There are] many people [who] have unique supersensory experiences time and again; they do have them, but they are not attentive because the experience will already be over by the time they begin to pay attention. That is how quickly these experiences pass. Therefore, the training one must undergo also includes training in presence of mind. The person who, even in ordinary life, cultivates presence of mind in the face of certain experiences—that person makes themselves capable of observing the supernatural. The other does not. The one who, when faced with every decision, dithers back and forth in their thinking, wanting to do this or that but failing to make a quick decision and, once a decision is made... [illegible] and trust their reason, [such a person] does not learn to bring themselves to such a state of mind and is poorly prepared to observe supersensory experiences.

[ 47 ] So far, I have described to you how one can gain a glimpse into the supersensible world beyond birth. The researcher of the spiritual realm cannot, as some philosophers do, simply take the question of immortality as a unified whole and set out to explore it using ordinary cognition; rather, he must view this question of immortality as composed of two parts. First, as I have described, he points to the pre-birth life, reaching there the roots of the soul in the supersensible realm—before it was conceived—from the supersensible. The other aspect, esteemed audience, is that the human being grasps the other pole of immortality, which actually still interests people today... [illegible] still interests people today—that is, [grasps] the pole that leads beyond death into the life that the human being, as a soul, has as its pole once [he] has passed through the gate [of death]. [Stenographic record ends.]