The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Results of Research in the Spiritual Sciences (Anthroposophy) on the Eternal in the Human Soul and on the Nature of Freedom

[ 1 ] Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—which we will discuss again here, just as we did in the lectures a few weeks ago—is still viewed by many people today much as one might view—to draw a comparison—an uninvited guest at a social gathering. At first, of course, one tends to be quite dismissive of an uninvited guest—if one must view him that way. Other scientific movements and other branches of science, in response to the needs of humanity that have already been recognized, are—I would say—invited guests in the spiritual striving of contemporary humanity. However, when one comes to realize that an uninvited guest has something to offer that one had lost—and that, in a certain sense, can be very, very valuable—then one begins to treat even the uninvited guest somewhat differently than before. And this is essentially the situation in which anthroposophically oriented spiritual science finds itself. It speaks of the spiritual and psychological assets of humanity that, in a certain sense, have been lost in a quite understandable way to modern cultural humanity and that must be restored. They have been lost because, over centuries and millennia of historical development, humanity possessed a certain instinctive recognition of what is at stake here; humanity can no longer preserve this instinctive recognition in the same way and has, to a certain extent, already lost it.

[ 2 ] Just as humanity could not remain stuck in the medieval worldview of a stationary Earth and the rotating positions of the heavens and the sun, so too could humanity not remain stuck in the ancient, instinctive insights into the nature of the soul and, with it, into the very essence of the human being. And in the lectures I gave here weeks ago, it was my particular task to explain how, in a comprehensible and justified way, the scientific mode of thinking has taken hold of people’s souls, how this scientific way of thinking is spreading more and more, and how it is bound to exert ever greater influence on the entire cultural development of humanity. But on the other hand, this scientific understanding—as clear and vivid as it is—is not suited to revealing to human beings the mysteries of their own soul life, especially if it is to remain strong and vigorous in the realm assigned to it. And this scientific conception has the peculiarity that it can no longer accept the old instinctive insights into the soul; in a sense, it destroys them.

[ 3 ] The humanities, as understood here, seek—in the same way that the natural sciences do in their own field—to shed conscious light on the spiritual realm through systematic inquiry, thereby consciously restoring to humanity what it has lost as instinctive knowledge.

[ 4 ] Certainly, those who today still regard this anthroposophy as an uninvited, unwelcome guest will, for that very reason, come to see it as a most welcome guest—such is the hope of those deeply involved in this spiritual-scientific endeavor—once they have come to realize that it brings the message and the knowledge of a lost spiritual treasure.

[ 5 ] When we survey the various descriptions of the human soul and its nature—as they have appeared from the time when the scientific way of thinking was already exerting its profound influence, right up to the present day— we see that two of the most important questions that were central to the ancient science of the soul have virtually disappeared from this newer, scientifically influenced science of the soul. Admittedly, a whole series of other questions are linked to these two main ones; but these others are, so to speak, included when one focuses one’s attention on these two main questions: the question of the eternal in the human soul—the so-called question of immortality—and the question of human freedom. To what extent the question of the eternal has had to disappear more and more from the field of vision of more recent considerations, insofar as science is concerned, is something I have spoken about in recent lectures, and I remarked at that time that my task today would be, as best as is possible in a single lecture, to address the question of the soul from the perspective of at least a sketchy consideration of human freedom.

[ 6 ] When the natural sciences extend their mode of thinking to the psychological realm, they must first focus their attention on the extent to which this psychological realm is grounded in the physical aspects of the human being. Now, however, this scientific approach is entirely dependent on viewing the course of external processes—including the course of psychological processes—as they unfold over time, from a causal perspective. When the scientific way of thinking becomes a theory of the soul, it can only view the psychological realm in the closest connection with the body. The body, however, belongs entirely to the material, physical context of the external world. Within this context, the scientific mode of thinking finds regular, law-like relationships in a magnificent form. But these law-like relationships lead us away from—rather than toward—an examination of the two main questions outlined above regarding human spiritual life.

[ 7 ] To cite just one example: As the natural sciences increasingly—I would say—took hold of the study of the life of the soul, they also attempted to apply the laws that had proven so fruitful in their own field to the study of this spiritual realm. In doing so, it cannot help but observe how a human action, how an impulse of the will, how everything that a person undertakes from within their soul, flows out of physical experience. It must conduct experiments in its own way, as it is accustomed to doing in the realm of natural science, and it feels—in a sense, quite rightly—deeply satisfied when it discovers in its experiments that even the life of the soul in no way contradicts what has been established by natural science regarding external, natural life. One need only recall, for example, that physiologists and biologists have conducted experiments to determine the amount of energy that humans and animals absorb through their food; and, conversely, the amount of energy that humans and animals expend when they engage in soul-related activities in the world. Rubner, the biologist and outstanding researcher, conducted experiments with animals in which he demonstrated that everything that manifests as energy in the animals’ movements and actions is nothing other than the ingested food energy converted in a calculable manner. And Atwater has conducted experiments that show how this law also applies to humans, how everything we expend in the form of kinetic energy and the like can be calculated numerically as the product of what we take in as energy through our food and then transform within ourselves into heat and the like.

[ 8 ] Thus, based on its mode of thinking, natural science also traces spiritual life back to the so-called law of conservation of energy. From its own perspective, it cannot help but say: How could anything psychological intervene of its own accord in the workings of the human being—creating something new, as it were, by a miracle—if it can be proven that everything that, so to speak, manifests outwardly from the human being is merely a transformed product of what the human being, in turn, takes in from the world? If human expression is what the body has taken in, then the law of conservation of energy—this law that has played such a significant role in the natural sciences since Julius Robert Mayer, Helmholtz, and others—is fulfilled. Nowhere does a new force appear; everything that manifests as an expression of force is merely a transformed form of what already exists. One cannot, therefore, say that when a person performs a so-called free, voluntary act, it comes from within their soul, for then a new force would join those that are already there, as it were, out of nowhere.

[ 9 ] Anyone who has become accustomed to scientific concepts naturally perceives this as a completely coherent line of thought. And because this is the case—because natural science achieves such great and impressive things in its own field—it is only natural that anthroposophy, which seeks to extend scientific rigor to the spiritual realm, faces a difficult challenge. But not in a few abstract statements; rather, I would say, through the very spirit of what I have to present in these lectures, it should become clear that this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is by no means in contradiction with natural science; on the contrary, it fully continues and develops natural science, even though it takes a path leading from the realm of sensory observation into the observation of spiritual life.

[ 10 ] There, however, it encounters countless prejudices. Anyone who is deeply immersed in anthroposophy knows better than anyone else how captivating these prejudices can be and how they are bound to stir up opposition to anthroposophy. One could say: There are already sufficient reasons—if one is only prejudiced enough to acknowledge them—to raise objections and foster opposition to the very way in which research is to be conducted in the field of anthroposophy. For “evidence,” as it is understood in conventional science and everyday life, certainly exists within anthroposophy; but it must be regarded and interpreted in a somewhat different way than what is called “evidence” in conventional science and everyday life.

[ 11 ] Above all, in ordinary science and in ordinary life, the point is that what one wishes to investigate is already present before one. No one can deny that the world of the senses is spread out right before our senses, that it poses questions to us.

[ 12 ] In a certain sense, this is not the case from an anthroposophical perspective. There, the world itself must first be brought to revelation—the very world we are actually speaking of—brought to revelation in the same way that, for a being from the lower ranks of organisms, for example, if it were to develop further, the world of the senses would be brought to revelation once this being acquired senses. To the same extent that the being would acquire senses, the sensory world would open up to it. Then, when the sensory world opens up to it, its existence is thereby proven. Therefore, much—though not everything—of the demonstrative power inherent in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science will depend on recognizing that the preparatory work within one’s own soul, which the spiritual researcher has carried out in order to arrive at the world he is observing, is justified.

[ 13 ] In other sciences, one works on a certain foundation, and only then does the spiritual activity begin—only then does that which the soul must process begin. In anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, the soul must work first, and its work is not something that formulates laws about other things; rather, its work is, first and foremost, something through which it prepares itself to observe what the spiritual world is actually about. This leads us to the conclusion that we must demand of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science what is so reluctantly acknowledged today: that, as soon as it comes to gaining insight into the supersensible, the faculties within the soul that can perceive this supersensible must first be awakened and drawn forth from the soul. But just as, in the course of evolution, lower organisms that do not yet possess certain senses develop such senses from their still undifferentiated organism through their interaction with the external world, so it is possible to develop abilities from the undifferentiated human soul that lead to the perception of the spiritual world just as the physical senses lead to the perception of the sensory world.

[ 14 ] I will not go into detail today about the development of these spiritual abilities. In many lectures I have given here over the years—including my most recent ones—I have discussed some fundamental principles regarding the development of such abilities and how to awaken them. Today, I would simply like to refer you to my books on this subject, specifically my work How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and my Esoteric Science, which explain what the soul must do in order to acquire the ability—which is certainly attainable—to perceive the spiritual world. It can attain this ability only if it makes its inner being independent of the physical. To avoid repeating myself, I will, as I said, not speak today about how such abilities are attained. I would like to mention only a few of the distinctive features of this spiritual path, which leads into the supersensible realm to which human beings belong.

[ 15 ] I would like to state a truth regarding this path to the supersensible that may seem strange at first. The spiritual researcher must develop within the soul the capacity for a kind of insight that relates to things which, in essence, every self-aware human being would wish to make the object of their contemplation, were it not for certain scientific or other prejudices holding them back. The eternal nature of the soul, the essence of human freedom, and everything connected with them—these eternal philosophical questions of humanity—are questions for every human being. Ancient, instinctive knowledge has dealt with them. Modern spiritual scientific knowledge must follow a path of understanding that relates to something desired, so to speak, by every self-aware human being. But the paths that must be taken to penetrate this supersensible realm through true knowledge are less popular; indeed, they are outright rejected. And not merely rejected out of prejudice, but—I would even say—rejected by certain peculiarities of human nature itself. And here, the following point is particularly relevant:

[ 16 ] When we form ideas and concepts, we are accustomed to basing them on something that exists, on something essential that approaches us independently of these ideas and concepts. As sensory beings in the world, we are in connection with the existing reality about which we form ideas. As human beings between birth and death, as human beings living in the physical body, we are not in direct connection with that to which supersensible knowledge relates. Therefore, this supersensible knowledge must draw upon a greater power of the soul, a far higher inner energy, than the knowledge of the ordinary sensory external world, which always comes to our aid simply because it is there from the outset. This inner strengthening of the soul’s life—which consists specifically in the awakening of the higher faculties of knowledge, this summoning of active, not merely passive, powers of cognition—is something that many people shy away from; it is something that, precisely because it does not relate directly to a concrete reality, appears to very many people as something fantastical, as a mere figment of the imagination. What is most understandable is that those who do not penetrate to a deeper understanding of the matter regard the concepts and ideas of spiritual science as figments of the imagination, because they are accustomed to accepting as real only those concepts for which existence—the “real,” as it is called—is already spread out before the senses. But what interests human beings most of all about the supersensible world—that which of their own being lives on beyond birth, or let us say conception, and death; that which is not exhausted in this sensory world and in the life of this sensory world—must be grasped through such concepts of supersensible knowledge. These concepts must be drawn from the great depths of the soul. The soul, as it is accustomed to observing the sensory world and penetrating it scientifically through certain laws, is weak in comparison to that soul which must muster the powers of cognition in order to look into the supersensible through them. Not how these powers of cognition are investigated, but what they are like in a certain respect—that is precisely what I wish to discuss in today’s lecture.

[ 17 ] People are accustomed to thinking that when they form a mental image of something that is, as it were, taking place in reality, they have an image of something real; they can then recall it; it remains with them as a memory. This is, after all, a characteristic of our ordinary imagination—a characteristic that actually gives us a sense of security in life, enabling us to feel capable of retaining what the external world presents to us. When the spiritual researcher draws up from the depths of his soul those forces that enable him to look into the supersensible, he then finds himself—in “contemplative consciousness” (as I have called this ability in my book The Riddle of Man)—in a position to cast a glance into the supersensible. But if he were now to attempt to retain in memory what he has beheld—that which has appeared spiritually before his soul—in the same way as anything else he has experienced from the outer sensory world, his attempt would initially be in vain. Experiences of the spiritual world—experiences that relate to the eternal, to the immortal aspect of our soul—can be perceived through supersensible powers of cognition; but they cannot be incorporated into memory in the usual way; they are, so to speak, immediately forgotten, like a “dream” fleetingly rushing through the soul.

[ 18 ] Now you might ask: What, then, about these insights? Can they really be regarded merely as the results of a fleeting dream? — One must say: In a certain sense, absolutely! But the following applies: In order to have such insights into the supersensible, one must prepare the entire human soul in a certain way; one must bring about anew each time such an inner state of the soul before which the spiritual vision can arise. What one does in the soul—the work one undertakes within the soul in order to look into the spiritual world—can be retained in memory; one can recall it. So once one has gained insight into this or that event in the spiritual world, or into this or that being of the spiritual world, one has come to know what exercises one must perform with the soul so that this spiritual vision can occur. If, after some time, this spiritual vision is to occur again, one must establish the same conditions within the soul. One can recall these conditions. What one beholds must occur again and again anew. This constitutes a major difference from ordinary knowledge.

[ 19 ] The spiritual researcher is not able—as paradoxical as it may sound—to experience something once and then, as it were, have learned it by heart, so as to be able to bring it to life again and again in his soul like a memory. No, if he wishes to encounter the same spiritual being or the same spiritual event again, he must create within himself the opportunity to experience it anew. As strange as it may sound, when the spiritual researcher speaks of the most fundamental truths—I would say: on five consecutive days to any congregation, to any audience—and he wishes to speak in such a way that what is said springs directly from spiritual experience, then he must have this spiritual experience anew each time.

[ 20 ] What I mean to say is that one of the most important laws—a distinctive feature of our spiritual experience—is this: While our sensory perceptions seem—though this is only an illusion—as if they could resurface later from memory, as if they were a spiritual possession, this is absolutely not the case in the practice of spiritual knowledge. Intellectual insights must always be acquired anew, time and again.

[ 21 ] Why am I addressing this point in particular? I would like to draw special attention here—as I have pointed out on several occasions—to the fact that embracing the path of spiritual science and spiritual research is by no means a necessity for everyone who wishes to engage with spiritual science in the modern sense. Certainly, there is a general desire today to experience for oneself, to a certain extent, what one is to regard as true; and in this respect, it is justified for those who hear about spiritual science and its findings to ask: How can I arrive at such insights on my own? — Yet the essence of the human relationship to spiritual science does not lie in becoming a spiritual researcher oneself. For the path of spiritual research is one that contributes to life—and also to immortal life—only when what appears in spiritual vision is then transformed back into ordinary human concepts, such as we have for the sensory world. No matter how highly developed a spiritual researcher may be in terms of supersensory knowledge, as a human being he would have no particular advantage over others through this spiritual vision; for everything that enters into this spiritual vision is merely a means, not the end. The goal consists in transforming what is gained through spiritual vision back into workable human concepts—into those ideas we have just derived from the external sensory world—even if much of what we express through such ideas, which we have derived from the sensory world, must sound figurative.

[ 22 ] If, therefore, someone—let us say this more or less hypothetically—did not want to become a spiritual researcher at all, did not want to embark on an inner path, then he could still adopt from the spiritual researcher what the latter discovers through his research. The results to which the researcher arrives are understandable in themselves, provided one is sufficiently free of prejudice. And possessing these insights within ordinary human imagination—not through supersensible perception—is what constitutes the true wealth of life. The spiritual researcher would gain nothing at all from his spiritual research if he merely wanted to revel in and be enraptured by supersensible perception; nothing at all; that would be something far more fleeting, far more transient than the ordinary, external sensory perceptions. What matters is that what is transitory in the soul—the vision of the spiritual—is transformed back into workable human concepts. These are then imparted to the soul; they are what the soul can take with it when it passes through the gate of death from this sensory life into another spiritual life. Spiritual vision as such cannot be taken along—only what spiritual vision brings. And just as a spiritual researcher communicates from the spiritual world what can be translated into such concepts—and how this can become a benefit for oneself—so, and just as well, can it become a benefit for others who are not spiritual researchers themselves, but who understand these things solely through general, sound common sense, which is entirely capable of doing so.

[ 23 ] This must be stated once and for all in the clearest terms, because even among many people within the anthroposophical movement, the prejudice arises that what really matters is a withdrawal from life, an immersion into some entirely different—I don’t know—mystical darkness of the soul. That is not what this is about. What it is all about is that, through certain processes of the soul—as I said, you can read about this in the works I mentioned—one discovers what applies to the supersensible world, and that what is discovered can then be transformed into ordinary human concepts, which, admittedly, are still rejected by people today because they believe that these concepts cannot be grasped by common sense. But they are comprehensible, and in time people will come to realize that they are comprehensible.

[ 24 ] If, nevertheless, there is a need today for everyone to want to look into the spiritual world for themselves to a certain degree, then that is certainly justified in life. Literature caters to this desire. And this, in fact, corresponds to a demand of our time: not merely to believe, but to see for oneself. However, as I said, that is not the main point at issue. And if I, in particular, describe in detail the path of knowledge through which one enters the spiritual world, it is, first, to meet the needs just mentioned; but second, and more importantly, because the spiritual researcher himself must set as his goal the task of giving an account of the manner in which he has arrived at his truths. Then, however, even those who read a work such as, for example, How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds or the second part of my Esoteric Science can see, from the way the spiritual researcher describes the path of spiritual research, that this is not a matter of fantasy, but of a real, genuine entry into the supersensible world. In a sense, they can see how an account is given of a reality.

[ 25 ] This, in turn, is something that must be said regarding the fact that, in many respects, the evidence that the spiritual researcher must present must be presented in a different way than ordinary evidence. The spiritual researcher must simply insist that people recognize the comprehensibility and validity of the path he outlines step by step, a path that leads into the spiritual world. But when he nevertheless emphasizes such a distinctive characteristic of spiritual vision as the one just mentioned—that looking into the spiritual world does not correspond at all to our ordinary inner life—he does so precisely to characterize the supersensible world into which one is entering.

[ 26 ] As I said, a characteristic feature of ordinary soul life is that we retain in memory what we have once taken in from the sensory world; this does not apply to spiritual vision. By stating this, one points out that being immersed in the spiritual world is something entirely different from being immersed in the sensory world. One is, so to speak, describing the characteristics of the spiritual world; one shows that, through spiritual research, one enters a world that is not connected to our body in the same way that the sensory world is connected to it. The physical world connects with our body in such a way—when we perceive it—that we can retain what we have perceived in our memory. The spiritual world is so physically distant from us that it does not at all bring about the changes in our body that lead to memory. This is precisely a characteristic of the spiritual world that must be taken into account. And the correct understanding of this characteristic is, in fact, proof that through spiritual vision one is immersed in a world that has absolutely nothing to do with our physical body—that it is entirely justified to say: While everything perceived in the body evokes memories to a greater or lesser extent, what is perceived when the soul is outside the body—as in spiritual vision—evokes no memories precisely because it relates only to our supersensible soul and not to our body.

[ 27 ] So, to illustrate a particular characteristic of the nature of the spiritual world, such a thing is mentioned. And other characteristics that present themselves to the spiritual researcher when he enters the supersensory world are mentioned for the same reason and in the same sense. In the ordinary world of physical perception, the situation is as follows: When we repeat an idea over and over again—how much of education is based on this!—it becomes more familiar to us; we can retain it better, and it connects more deeply with our soul. The opposite is true for what we experience in the spiritual realm. As strange as that may sound, one can say quite plainly: If I have a spiritual experience and try to have it more often, it does not become easier for me, but rather more difficult. One cannot practice having spiritual experiences better and better.

[ 28 ] There is something very peculiar connected with this. There are people who make an effort to gain insights into the spiritual world through certain spiritual exercises. The forces gathered within every soul—which lie in the depths of the soul and are directed toward the supersensible world—are thereby summoned. As a result, a blissful, and perhaps often magnificent, experience occurs—one that is, I might say, as fleeting as a dream. Even if the person has made an effort to recreate the same spiritual conditions—which may even have a stronger effect—it is not necessary for the experience to recur the second or third time. One might even say: A true spiritual experience eludes us once it has occurred, and we must make greater, more substantial efforts if we wish to bring it back.

[ 29 ] Those who have made the initial efforts are often surprised that a very significant spiritual experience does not keep welling up again and again from within the soul. I mention this, too, to show how the experiences the spiritual seeker has as he approaches the supersensible world are entirely different from the experiences one has in relation to the world of sensory perception.

[ 30 ] Another peculiarity is this: As one progresses in spiritual insight, one senses that one must master the events that appear before one in their spiritual essence through the mature state of one’s imaginative life, if one does not wish to fall into phantasms or all manner of fanciful imaginings. One must therefore realize that preparation for spiritual vision is of very special importance. One must already have developed powers of imagination that are as mature, as versatile, and as vivid as possible, so that one can master spiritual experiences with what one brings to them. This, in turn, is quite different from having experiences in the ordinary realm of sensory perception. There, this realm of perception is spread out before us; we gain more and more concepts from this realm of perception; we enrich our concepts from it. After we have had these perceptions, we enrich our concepts. With spiritual experiences, however, the process is reversed: we must first make our concepts rich and multifaceted so that they are prepared when we wish to have supersensible experiences. You see, once again, something entirely different from what exists in ordinary life and in ordinary science.

[ 31 ] What I meant to suggest is that the path into the supersensible realm is one that leads us into a completely different kind of experience, a completely different way of perceiving and understanding, than what we have in ordinary life and in ordinary science. Even today, very many people still shy away from this different kind of perception, from this entirely different way of forming concepts and ideas. And what spiritual science will have to go through is this: Above all, it will depend on people once again finding the courage and strength to form even those concepts that are not—I might say—supported by that to which we do nothing, to which we contribute nothing: the already existing external world of perception.

[ 32 ] These ideas, however, are primarily shaped by the scientific way of thinking. And since this way of thinking has achieved great success in its own right, it has, for a time, led people away from spiritual knowledge. It will, in turn—precisely because of its distinctive nature—lead them back to this spiritual knowledge. Precisely by pointing to the material realm—and as people increasingly see through the material realm—humanity will be compelled to recognize that the spiritual must be sought by a different path.

[ 33 ] I would now like to use certain findings from the spiritual sciences to show how humanity’s understanding will fundamentally change as the anthroposophically oriented spiritual sciences gradually become integrated into human endeavors aimed at gaining knowledge. Those of you here today who hear me speak often know that I am very reluctant to speak about personal matters. But I may make one remark, because it is, in a sense, connected to what I have to present: What I have now set out to say about the relationship of the human spiritual-soul aspect to the human physical-bodily aspect is, for me, the result of a research journey lasting more than thirty years. For in the spiritual realm, knowledge is not acquired in the same way as in a laboratory, where one has a specific object or process before one and can deduce what can be said about it once a method has been developed. Spiritual research is, above all, a process that unfolds over time. And the point is that one arrives at certain insights only when one is able to relate experiences that are separated in time to one another.

[ 34 ] The transition from ordinary scientific knowledge and ordinary consciousness to spiritual scientific knowledge can initially be compared to listening to individual notes without an ear for music versus perceiving melodies or harmonies musically. When one hears a single tone, that is a perception of precisely that single tone; it is a single experience. If one wishes to enter the world of music, then the single tone must be related to other tones; it becomes what it is only by entering into a relationship with other tones. In ordinary sensory perception, the soul enters into a relationship with a sensory external world, with a material external world. This can be compared to the perception of a single tone. In spiritual cognition, the soul must enter into a relationship with that which unfolds in time. I wish only to hint at how significant it is, for example, that the spiritual researcher is able to experience—let us say— experiences inwardly and soulfully today, not merely as an isolated event of immediate present existence, but that he is able to relate it to an experience that may lie a year in the past—just as one note of a melody is related to another note of the melody if a musical conception is to exist. Just as through ordinary perception we connect with something situated spatially outside of us, so too in spiritual experience we first connect with the present experience, but then relate it to what has been vividly recalled from the past into the soul. One views a present experience from the perspective of a past event; and likewise from the perspective of an even more distant experience. In this way, by looking within the flow of time, the soul’s experiences are structured so that one can say: Ordinary cognition becomes something like a musical overview of the soul.

[ 35 ] This enables the soul not only to take in what it experiences in the body, but also to relate what it experiences and is able to remember between birth and death—just as the ear relates one musical note in a melody to another— when it possesses the inner “musical” perception of the soul’s existence, it relates this present life of the soul—which unfolds between birth and death—to what lies before birth, or let us say before conception, and to what lies after death. But the soul must prepare itself for this by relating individual experiences within the life between birth and death to one another, just as the notes of a melody are related; not merely by perceiving the individual experiences, not merely by living through them, but by extending the experience across time and, within time, truly experiencing the various gradations and differentiations as inner music.

[ 36 ] What then occurs is not merely inner music, but something akin to inner reading or listening to words, where one hears not only sounds that enter into melodic or harmonic relationships with one another, but sounds that express a meaning inherent in them. Then, for the spiritual researcher, something will emerge that I can characterize by saying: The ordinary scientific approach views things as one would look at a printed page, describing only the shape of the letters, the lines and angles of the letters in relation to one another, and the sequence of the letters. Applied to nature in the way that natural science does, this is natural science. It is a description of the letters. The spiritual researcher learns to read. He detaches himself completely from what is merely reading letters. And what he finds in nature as the supersensible relates to what is spread out before the senses in nature in the same way that the meaning of what is read and heard—which one takes in—relates to the individual, mere sounds that form the words, or to the individual letters printed on the paper.

[ 37 ] But this essentially depends on inner progress, which one can achieve even if one is not a student of spiritual science oneself, but simply by taking in the concepts and ideas gained through spiritual research. One comes to know the world, so to speak, in its true harmonization and resonance; one learns to recognize the meaning that lies behind this—relatively speaking—“resonant” world.

[ 38 ] In this way, through more than three decades of spiritual research, I have arrived at something that I would like to describe as the connection between the soul-spiritual and the physical-bodily realms—a connection that will most certainly also become apparent in the near future to the natural sciences, which are still far from being receptive to such matters today. For spiritual research and natural science will converge—spiritual research from the spiritual side, natural science from the material side. They will meet, like workers digging a tunnel who, if properly guided, will come together in the middle from both sides.

[ 39 ] What I have to present, then, is based on spiritual research. But even today’s natural sciences—physiology and biology—offer ample opportunity to fully corroborate what I now present as the result of spiritual research. In discussions and reflections on the relationship between the psychological and the physical, people today indulge in what I would almost call a fateful one-sidedness. Anyone who picks up a book on psychology today will see that every introduction begins with a discussion of the nervous system. From the standpoint of natural science, this is entirely justified today. One can certainly say: The natural scientist can do nothing other than relate the psychological one-sidedly to the mere nervous system. A holistic view of life reveals something entirely different. A holistic view of life reveals that only a part of psychological experience may be directly related to the nervous system—namely, the life of the imagination. So we can say: Everything in our psychological experience that constitutes the life of the imagination finds its—well, let’s use the term—physical counterpart in the nervous system. The nervous system is the foundation, the vehicle, the physical vehicle for the life of the imagination.

[ 40 ] But not when it comes to emotional life. Emotional life is, in any case, treated with the utmost neglect by the naturalistic psychologists who seek to make psychology a branch of the natural sciences. Theodor Ziehen—rightly so from his point of view—does not regard emotional life in the soul as an independent entity at all; he speaks only of the “emotional emphasis of representations.” Every representation is said to have, so to speak, an “emotional tone.” This, of course, contradicts the most common psychological experiences. In ordinary psychological experience, emotional life is as real as the life of the imagination. It is not merely a matter of some “emotional tone” of our ideas; rather, emotional life develops alongside the life of the imagination. If one relates this emotional life to nervous activity as directly as one relates the life of the imagination, one commits an error that, while still quite understandable today, is no less an error for that. For just as directly as the life of the imagination is connected to nervous activity, so too—as strange as it may sound today—is the life of emotion connected to all the rhythmic processes in our organism that are dependent on and limited by the rhythm of breathing and its continuation, by the rhythm of the blood, and by the rhythmic inner movements; though we must not think merely of the coarse rhythm of breathing and blood circulation, but of the finer ramifications of the rhythmic system. We must think of what rhythm and rhythmic movement are when we seek the physical, corporeal foundation for the emotional life.

[ 41 ] I am well aware that hundreds of objections can arise when something like this is said. I could really list all of these objections. But I would like to mention just one, simply to give an example of how one must approach these matters—albeit more precisely, much more precisely than “exact” science would have it—if one wishes to recognize them in their true form. For example, someone might say: Well, here comes someone who amateurishly argues that, in order to be physically present, emotional life affects the rhythmic movement of the body just as directly as imaginative life affects nervous activity. Doesn’t he know that, for example, when we experience a musical impression, we take it in through the ear—that is, it is first conveyed as an image—that the aesthetic experience lies within this life of musical imagination, and that it is therefore nonsense to say that the feeling, which is naturally connected to a musical impression, is not a result, a consequence, of the life of the imagination?

[ 42 ] I know that, according to today’s ways of thinking, this objection must actually be universally valid; in reality, however, it is not. We must simply be clear that what we perceive as the sound image through our ears is not yet the musical experience. It only becomes a musical experience when the sound image is met by what, as the ramifications of the breathing rhythm, rises from the act of breathing into the brain. In the encounter between the rhythm that surges up from the breath into the brain—into which the sound image penetrates—we find the physical counterpart to the musical impression. Everything that constitutes emotional life is, at its root, physically connected to the rhythmic life within our body.

[ 43 ] Thirdly, there is something within our soul called the will. Just as imagination is connected to nervous activity, and just as emotional life is connected to the rhythmic interplay of forces arising from the respiratory rhythm and the blood rhythm, so too is all volition in the human organism connected to metabolism. As strange as it may sound, all processes of the will are such that they find their expression in metabolic processes, just as all emotional processes find their expression in rhythmic movements, and all thought processes and all processes of imagination in certain nervous processes. I have drawn attention to this in my latest book, On the Mysteries of the Soul, where I had these scientific findings published for the first time—albeit in a shorter form, as is appropriate given the current paper shortage.

[ 44 ] If one wishes to understand these things, however, one must recognize that nervous activity, rhythmic movement, and metabolic activity do not exist side by side within the organism. The nerve must also be nourished, of course. Thus, nutritional processes are constantly taking place within the nerve. All organs of rhythmic movement must be nourished. All these individual components—these three components of the organism—interpenetrate one another. But precise, truly exact research shows us that what constitutes metabolism in the nerve, for example, has nothing to do with imagination, but rather with the volitional process, which also extends into imagination. Of course, when I want to imagine something, I want to imagine it; when I direct my attention toward imagining, that is already an act of the will. This seed, which is connected to the will, is also connected to metabolism in nervous life. But the very essence of imagination is connected to processes that have nothing to do with metabolism; on the contrary, they involve a reduction in metabolism—they have to do with something in the nerves, indeed, something that can be compared—the comparisons will still seem paradoxical, for spiritual research is, after all, something young and new and must first gradually take root in people’s minds—something that can be compared not with metabolism, but rather with the withdrawal of metabolism, with the onset of hunger. The point is, however, that we are dealing with a decline in the nervous system that must not be confused with the decline in the entire organism.

[ 45 ] Such confusions have occurred. And it is precisely by pointing out such confusions that I will be able to highlight what is specifically distinctive about the newer anthroposophically oriented spiritual science in contrast to older spiritual currents that are still recognized as valid today. Who is not aware that what the new spiritual science—as understood here—seeks to achieve through purely inner spiritual methods that have nothing whatsoever to do with anything physical was previously attempted through means that very much did involve all manner of physical activities and all manner of ascetic practices? One need only recall how certain mystics achieved their union with the spirit through certain acts of fasting—that is, through ascetic fasting—and thus through the depletion of the organism. This is not a path with which true spiritual research, as understood today, has anything to do. But this spiritual research must point out that a process of depletion—which is not abnormal but normal—does indeed take place in the nervous system when the life of the imagination is to find its expression through the nervous system. And in the lecture I gave here weeks ago, I pointed out how the consciousness experienced in the life of the imagination is connected to death. I even said the following here weeks ago: “As we imagine, we are continually dying into the nervous system.”

[ 46 ] Only when such concepts are developed will the natural sciences be able to meet with spiritual research. And so—I can only hint at this, as there would not be enough time to present a comprehensive view in all its details—we must say: On the physical side, the threefold life of the soul—the life of imagination, the life of feeling, and the life of will—is connected to the entire body, not merely to a part of the body, not merely to the nervous life, but to the entire body; for the whole body is involved in this with its three organic members: the nervous life, the rhythmic life, and the metabolic life. Our soul life is not connected to our nervous life in a one-sided way; rather, the whole soul finds its full expression in the whole body. This is a conclusion to which spiritual science leads in its research: that the lives of imagination, feeling, and will have their counterparts in the body.

[ 47 ] But just as these three aspects of human soul life have their physical counterparts, so too do they have their spiritual counterparts. Just as the life of the imagination—even in the context of scientific inquiry—is increasingly integrated on the physical side with the life of the nerves, so too does it integrate, for a supersensible form of knowledge such as I have characterized today and as you can find characterized in my books, with a spiritual aspect that can only be grasped through certain inner experiences that I have referred to in my writings: imaginative cognition. It is the first stage of spiritual cognition, the first stage of looking into the spiritual world. Just as we find, on the one hand, the nervous life as a physical counterpart to the life of imagination, we find, on the other hand, the life of imagination emerging from a spiritual realm that can only be grasped through supersensible perception—specifically through the first stage of supersensible perception, through what is known as imaginative cognition. In a reality that unfolds in images—that unfolds in the images of the drama of cognition—what corresponds spiritually to the life of imagination reveals itself. And in this spiritual counterpart to the life of the imagination—when grasped through supersensible knowledge—we now have before us, at the same time, that which, in temporal terms, pervades our entire existence as a body of image-forces from birth—or, let us say, from conception—until death. While our physical substance is constantly changing, while it is continually being replaced, the unified body of formative forces remains with us from birth to death, which is at the same time the spiritual foundation of our life of imagination.

[ 48 ] This is the first supersensible aspect of the human being, which is connected to the life of imagination just as the physical nervous system is connected to the other aspect.

[ 49 ] But let us consider the life of feeling. Physically, it is connected to the rhythms of breathing and blood circulation; on the other hand, it is spiritually connected to a spiritual essence that can be grasped at a higher level of spiritual vision—beyond the realm of supersensible cognition—than that of imaginative cognition, through what I have called in my writings “inspired cognition”—that is, a form of cognition that no longer requires images but rises into the supersensible world without them. But when what is thus the spiritual origin of our emotional life is truly penetrated by supersensible knowledge, then it is that part of our spiritual being which does not merely extend from birth to death or from conception to death, but which is inherent in us. It exists in the spiritual world before we enter physical life through birth and with which we pass through the gate of death; for to truly unite spiritually with that which underlies our emotional life spiritually means to extend one’s spiritual vision beyond birth and death.

[ 50 ] And—once again, it is paradoxical, but precisely in the field of anthroposophy—because these things are new—certain paradoxes arise for this very reason: just as our life of the will is connected on the physical side to metabolism, so on the spiritual side it is connected to the highest level that we human beings are currently able to attain through spiritual vision—that which I have called “intuitive knowledge” in my books. This does not refer to the ordinary, vague “intuitive knowledge” that people usually speak of, but rather to what is characterized as “intuitive knowledge” in my books: I have called “intuitive knowledge” the actual living into the essential nature of the spiritual world. This encompasses what, spiritually speaking, lies at the foundation of our human being as the highest reality.

[ 51 ] And here is the curious thing: While metabolism—if we are to use these terms at all—is the lowest aspect on the physical side, conversely, that which corresponds to the will on the spiritual side is the highest aspect underlying our being. And that which we must regard as the highest between birth and death—the nervous life, which corresponds to the life of imagination—is grounded in the lowest level of the spiritual world, namely that which can be attained through imaginative knowledge.

[ 52 ] For human beings themselves—and I would like to elaborate on this once more here, even though I may have already drawn attention to it years ago—one thing in particular becomes clear when they come to understand the relationship between their spiritual-soul aspect and this spiritual aspect that can be grasped through intuition. But I can only characterize this in the following way. What I am describing here is not merely something experienced in spiritual vision, but something that every person who understands the findings of spiritual research through sound common sense can undergo. If one truly takes these findings of spiritual research to heart, learns to recognize what spirit is, and experiences in one’s soul what spirit is, then this signifies something special. This event may indeed be described, for it penetrates the soul as something quite extraordinary—this event that awakens inner consciousness in us for the first time: Now you know what spirit actually is, what the eternal is in your soul; now you know it.

[ 53 ] This experience can only be described as an inner experience of destiny. Under certain circumstances, one’s entire human life changes and takes a different direction under the influence of this experience, which manifests itself in the realization of what the spirit within one is. This need not make one less sensitive to other experiences of destiny. Certainly, in the outer life in which we are placed, we experience events that make us rejoice to the heavens, events that grieve us to death; we experience happiness, exaltation, and bliss; we experience sadness and despair. The spiritual researcher need not become numb to these things. On the contrary, he becomes more sensitive to them precisely because he also perceives the spiritual aspect of it all. But whatever may come his way in external life—even though he is just as immersed in experience as the non-spiritual researcher—a major turning point in life, a more profound fateful situation, is the intervention of that which is the experience of the Spirit, of the Eternal within. This is how one learns to recognize how one brings about one’s own destiny, for one must bring about spiritual insight through one’s own powers, just as one brings about turning points in life, in that spiritual insight becomes a matter of destiny of the very, very highest order.

[ 54 ] This also gives one an understanding of the rest of human destiny. But it also gives one a full understanding of what intuition is. Then one realizes how human will is connected to the spiritual realm. And then, through such a destiny that breaks into the life of the soul, one evokes a force that leads supersensory knowledge not merely to what takes place in life between birth and death, nor only to what occurs in life between death and a new birth, but to what is the eternal, spiritual core of the soul—and what also appears in repeated earthly lives. What a person brings to light in the innermost core of their being, they then learn to recognize as connected to the impulses that existed in earlier earthly lives. And what they now experience as fate—what they now experience through their own actions—becomes, once this insight has become fate, something they also know as the foundation for subsequent earthly lives.

[ 55 ] Through the connection between the threefold life of the soul—the life of imagination, the life of feeling, and the life of will—and the nervous life, the rhythmic life, and the metabolic life, one comes to know the transitory nature of the human being. Through the relationship of these three aspects of the soul to the spiritual, one comes to know the immortal, the eternal—that which passes through births and deaths—so that one can grasp this complete human life, which unfolds in successive earthly lives and in the spiritual lives that lie between death and a new birth.

[ 56 ] This is how one gains insight into what the eternal is in human life—in a way different from philosophical speculation. Rather than merely through the analysis or synthesis of concepts, spiritual research seeks to lead us into this eternal by evoking a direct perception of it. What we are as temporal, physical beings is shaped out of the eternal, which consists just as much of the imaginative, the inspired, and the intuitive aspects as our physical being consists of nervous life, rhythmic life, and metabolic life.

[ 57 ] These are some preliminary research findings regarding what emerges as the eternal in the human soul. Only to this eternal aspect—only to that which is independent of bodily life—can what is called human freedom be attributed. The natural scientist must remain within the realm of experience that unfolds in the transitory: in nervous life, in rhythmic life—which he has not yet explored from this perspective—and in metabolic life, which he still confuses with nervous life by seeking, even in metabolism, what underlies nervous life. The natural scientist must remain within this material life. Consequently, for every act of will, he finds something that brings about that act of will. But if one learns to recognize what acts as the eternal in the human soul—if one thereby learns to recognize that this eternal has a content within itself that is independent of bodily life—then what is experienced inwardly and soulfully as human freedom becomes a reality. Why is that?

[ 58 ] Well, as I have just explained in my recent lectures and in today’s talk, a process of dissolution must take place within us; consciousness is, in a certain sense, similar to death; it is a dying into the nervous system when we arrive at a conscious representation. This, however, reveals to spiritual science that everything belonging to the soul is not an outflow of the physical being, but rather that the physical being is merely the foundation for soul experience—and that this soul experience finds its foundation in physical life precisely when that physical life is not developing its growing, progressive forces, but rather when these growing, progressive forces are being broken down. It is the processes of regression within us that underlie conscious soul life.

[ 59 ] Natural science will surely find that these truths I have just stated are entirely consistent with the findings of the natural sciences. I am merely pointing out, as an aside, that nerve cells, for example, are not divisible, whereas reproductive cells are divisible. The capacities characteristic of growing, proliferating cells are precisely absent in nerve cells; they are absent for the same reason in red blood cells. What develops in conscious life is not corresponded to in the body by a plant-like process of progression, growth, and reproduction; rather, it is corresponded to by a regression, a reduction of life. Thus, where conscious life is to develop within us, bodily life must first be reduced, so that the processes that specifically serve bodily life and its functions must recede.

[ 60 ] Spiritual life is recognized in its independence through spiritual science. It is only through this, however, that the concept of freedom takes on meaning, and it becomes fully compatible with the concept that the natural sciences quite rightly develop in their own field—namely, that everything that occurs in our actions and in our impulses of will must be caused by our organism. These scientific concepts are entirely justified. But the organism, precisely by serving more and more as the foundation of consciousness—and it serves as this foundation precisely by doing so—leads to the suspension of its own processes and to its retreat in the face of conscious processes.

[ 61 ] This gives the concept of freedom a meaning that we can express, for example, in the following way: The child is certainly, physically speaking, the product of the parents; but the child breaks away from the parents. If we seek the causes, we must look to the parents. But once the child has grown up and acts independently, we will not always have to trace its actions and what it is back to the parents in every respect. When the child does this or that after turning thirty, we do not trace the causes back to the parents. The child breaks away from the parents and becomes free. In the same way, the spiritual life will one day separate from the physical life, so that the law of the conservation of force is fulfilled in accordance with all causal relationships. But just as the cause of the child lies in the parents, while the child nevertheless grows toward independence, so too does the soul life develop independently of the body, in which the causes of the soul life lie.

[ 62 ] I have thus pointed out, by way of comparison, how the concept of freedom gains meaning when we approach it from another angle to truly explain this inner life: not merely in relation to physical conditions, but in relation to the independent spiritual life that transcends birth and death. It is this spiritual-soul entity of the human being to which we can attribute freedom. Freedom has always been treated in philosophy as an either/or proposition: either the human being is free, or he is not free. Already in my Philosophy of Freedom—published in 1894, now out of print but available for consultation in libraries—I demonstrated, by approaching the question of freedom solely from a philosophical perspective, that one can grasp the concept of freedom by focusing on the independent life of the soul. However, this independent life of the soul is only gradually attained in the course of humanity’s physical evolution. One cannot say: “Human beings are either free or not free.” Rather, one can only say: Freedom is something that human beings acquire in the course of their development, something to which they draw ever closer—by supplying their inner spiritual and soul nature with the forces that strengthen this nature within itself to such an extent that it can develop causality for human action and human will, even though, on the other hand and from a different direction, this causality lies within the human body.

[ 63 ] A rather strange contradiction, isn’t it! On the one hand, it is claimed that everything a person puts into their actions must come from the human body between birth and death; on the other hand, the existence of an independent, free spiritual life is asserted. I would like to clarify once again what this is all about by means of a comparison. Let’s assume we have a space that we can evacuate of air—that is, the space beneath the receiver of an air pump. We can let air flow into it by making an opening in the air pump; the air flows in after we have made the opening.

[ 64 ] It is in this relationship—which one must first discover—that free human decision-making stands in relation to what constitutes a human, intentional act. Spiritual research will reveal the following: When a person follows not merely the impulses of the instinctual life, but rather what I have called in my Philosophy of Freedom the purely spiritual impulses—which one must first bring oneself to act upon—then one does not allow that will to be carried out immediately which manifests itself outwardly through physical causes. Certainly, even free action takes place in such a way that physical causes are present. But these physical causes are first prepared in such a way that the free concept, the free idea, creates a kind of spiritual cavity, just as I create a cavity beneath the receiver of an air pump; and just as it then necessarily follows that the external air flows in through an opening, so too does the effect on our body follow from that action which is conceived entirely in mental powers by our soul. And just as the air flowing in from outside enters the empty space according to purely natural causes, so the body then carries out, in accordance with its own laws—which are now purely scientific laws—that which was first prepared within it, the foundation for which was laid by the free decision of the soul.

[ 65 ] We will have to build upon this concept of freedom in tomorrow’s lecture, and I will elaborate on it further then. I wanted today’s discussions to culminate in an illustration of the concept of freedom—to culminate in the fact that spiritual science shows how the concept of freedom is conceivable only when one rises, through spiritual research, to the life of the soul, which is truly independent of bodily life. It is only from what spiritual science recognizes as the intuitive, inspired, and imaginative part of the human being that free action arises.

[ 66 ] What then, under the influence of spiritual science, emerges regarding the social and ethical concepts that are of such decisive importance for our present time—concepts to which so much points in terms of renewal, in terms of exploring what confronts us in this tragic present, and what this implies for concepts of justice and, more generally, for external human social life—that will be elaborated upon tomorrow. Today I merely wanted to show that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science can certainly stand alongside modern natural science in terms of the seriousness and precision of its research, but I also wanted to show how the spirit must take entirely different paths if it is to be understood in the same sense that nature is understood by natural science—and how spiritual research itself also sheds light on nature, showing that the entire spiritual-soul aspect of the human being is related to the entire physical human being in terms of the nervous system, rhythmic life, and metabolic life. It is precisely because spiritual science will work in harmony with natural science that something great will be able to emerge for the progress of humanity.

[ 67 ] People will gradually stop saying that it is downright shameful for modern people to still acknowledge genuine spiritual knowledge. Not only does one encounter prejudice today when speaking of spiritual science; one can even say that many people today are of such a disposition that they are downright ashamed, believing they are succumbing to an old superstition when they acknowledge what has been presented as the crux of today’s remarks.

[ 68 ] People like to refer to Goethe these days. In my last lecture here, I said that, if it were up to me, I would prefer to call the spiritual science I represent “Goetheanism” and the building in Dornach dedicated to it the “Goetheanum.” I say this once again in light of the fact that there seem to be quite a few people today who consider themselves enlightened—people who want to stand fully on the ground of current knowledge—who say: Yes, Goethe was, after all, one of those who sought to conceive of something all-encompassing in nature.

[ 69 ] But even as a young man, Goethe did not view nature as something that could be exhausted by the kinds of ideas found in today’s prevailing monistic or similar worldviews. Rather, even as a young man, Goethe addressed nature in his prose hymn—which is also titled “Nature”—by saying: “She has thought, and she thinks constantly.” The spiritual science is least concerned with quibbling over words. If someone wishes to call that which consists of matter and spirit in the world “Nature” and seeks only the spirit in Nature, then he may call the entire universe “Nature”; if he goes as far as Goethe in saying: Nature thinks and ponders constantly—albeit not as a human being, but as Nature—then for such a thinker as Goethe, the concept of spirit is already contained within the concept of nature.

[ 70 ] And to those who would like to infer from this recognition of the concept of nature that Goethe’s view aligns with some notion of the limits of knowledge—namely, that one cannot penetrate the spiritual world—it must be replied time and again, as has already been mentioned here in earlier lectures, that Goethe, in contrast to a highly distinguished physiologist, the physiologist Albrecht Haller, who also—quite rightly from his own point of view—stated:

“No creative spirit
Penetrates into the heart of nature.
Blessed is he to whom she shows
Only the outer shell!”

[ 71 ] that Goethe protested against this natural scientist—and protested so strongly that, through this protest, he made it clear: Human beings can find within themselves those powers of cognition that present the spirit not merely as something unfathomable, but as something into which they can gradually enter through diligent, truly intellectually rigorous research. For Goethe raised an objection to Haller’s words—which have just been alluded to—in his old age, I might say, on the basis of a matured understanding:

“No creative spirit
Penetrates the innermost depths of nature.
Blessed is he to whom she shows
Only the outer shell!”
I’ve heard this repeated for sixty years,
And I curse it, though secretly;
Nature has neither core
Nor shell,
She is all at once;
Nothing is inside, nothing is outside,
What is inside is also outside, —
Examine yourself above all else,
Whether you yourself are core or shell!

[ 72 ] These are, after all, the words that point us toward true Goetheanism, which consists in recognizing the possibility of penetrating the spirit of the universe with the human spirit and recognizing the immortal and liberating aspects of human nature.

[ 73 ] How infinitely necessary this is, and how infinitely necessary it is in these tragic times to turn our gaze toward such ideas that come from spiritual research, for our practical life, which has brought such catastrophes upon itself—that is what I would like to speak about tomorrow, to show that spiritual research is an unwelcome guest only to those who recognize no other human needs than those that can be satisfied by mechanistic knowledge. If one learns to recognize other human needs—those very needs that the signs of the times speak so clearly of, especially today in these tragic times—then one will also recognize the necessity of spiritual science in the social and moral spheres.