The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. The Work of the Soul Forces in Human Beings and Their Connection to Their Eternal Essence

[ 1 ] Above all, I ask that you consider the two lectures I will be giving here today and the day after tomorrow as a single, cohesive whole. Although I will strive to make each individual lecture self-contained, certain points—particularly those related to the topic at hand—will only become clear when one lecture sheds light on the other in a certain way, and both together form a whole.

[ 2 ] If we now consider the foundation underlying the reflections of these two evenings—and the reflections I have already had the opportunity to present in earlier lectures here in this city—as an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, then perhaps we can express, with regard to the feelings that many of our contemporaries still harbor toward this spiritual science, a comparison that may come to mind. That is: I would like to compare this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, in a certain sense, to an uninvited guest at a gathering. I compare the invited guests to the other, currently fully recognized scientific disciplines and currents, which are, so to speak, already invited into the overall spiritual life of humanity today simply because people—through their needs, through what the outer sensory world provides, and through what life otherwise demands—seek to draw these various sciences into their sphere. Spiritual science still finds its place within contemporary spiritual life today as if it had not been called for at all. Yet, just as one might initially be unfriendly or tactless toward an uninvited guest, one gradually begins to treat that guest more politely—even more politely than the invited guests—when one realizes that the guest has something to offer that one has lost and that the guest has found. One did not know this before, and only then does one realize it.

[ 3 ] This is likely the case with anthroposophy, at least according to the belief of the few who are already able today to fully immerse themselves in what anthroposophy actually aims to achieve in relation to humanity’s great tasks. What anthroposophy aims to bring to modern culture—to the culture of the present and the culture of the future—is something that, in essence, has possessed people in a different way for centuries, even millennia, and which they are to regain through spiritual science. Instinctively, out of a certain instinctive capacity of the soul, human beings have possessed what might be called a felt recognition of the eternal in human nature, a felt recognition of the true human soul and its mysteries. And only someone who is biased against the spiritual history of humanity can deny that this instinctive knowledge was bound to be lost to humanity — for humanity is, after all, in a process of development, just as, at a certain point in historical development, it had to lose the medieval worldview regarding the spatial structure of the universe, according to which the Earth stands at the center, motionless, while the Sun and the stars move around it. Just as this spatial worldview had to be replaced by another, so too—in the face of the great, significant, and, as spiritual science has—I have often emphasized this here — the old, instinctive recognition of the eternal in the human soul and of those forces within the human soul that are, above all else, most precious to human beings—namely, the cognitive power of free will, which we will discuss the day after tomorrow.

[ 4 ] I believe that the very person who can best appreciate the true essence and deepest significance of this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is the one who recognizes the great and significant advances in scientific knowledge for the overall progress of humanity—and who does not merely take an amateurish approach to the subject, but also understands the natural sciences to a certain degree. Yet precisely because humanity has been led to grasp the world through scientific methods—and to extend this grasp to a worldview—it is, on the other hand, now compelled to seek the spiritual in a different way than it has instinctively sought it for centuries, indeed millennia.

[ 5 ] In the natural sciences, one can only perceive correctly if one increasingly excludes the spiritual from the natural realm one is observing and investigating, and if one introduces less and less of the spiritual into the picture of nature one is constructing. This was not the case in earlier times. In earlier times—one need only be familiar with the spiritual aspirations of those times to see this—people observed natural phenomena and instinctively sensed how the spiritual and psychological spoke to them through these phenomena. They did not separate natural phenomena from the spiritual and psychological. And so, by observing nature, they drew spiritual and soul life into their own inner life through both the facts of nature and the beings of nature.

[ 6 ] Human beings would never have achieved the complete liberation of their being had they not made the ascent to scientific understanding. Thus, by the soul detaching itself completely and, in observing nature, accepting only nature as such—by detaching itself, for the sake of science, from everything spiritual in nature— the soul is thus compelled to draw all the more powerful and significant forces from its own inner wellspring of soul and spirit in order to enter the spiritual world in a new way, apart from all observation of nature and apart from all sensory life. For if there is one thing that must provide the most effective impetus for pursuing anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, it is the insight into what natural science has brought to humanity.

[ 7 ] But as soon as a person of the present day—especially one who has already become accustomed to viewing the world through the lens of the natural sciences—attempts to grasp what spiritual science, as it is now seeking to establish itself within the spiritual movement of the present, asserts, something very significant, I would say, immediately begins to assert itself against this spiritual science—quite understandably. And no one understands better than those who are right in the midst of this spiritual science that it must currently still face opponent after opponent, that it must be met with all manner of prejudices. What this spiritual science seeks to explore—the eternal in the human soul, the workings of the human soul’s forces that point beyond birth and death, that is, what is summarized under the problem of immortality, and also what is summarized under the problem of freedom—is indeed something about which every human being has a natural desire to know. People want to know something about the subjects that constitute the content of spiritual science, as it is understood here. But at the same time, when we speak of the methods, of the manner of research, of the steps that must be taken to penetrate this particular field, then today—because a general understanding of the matter cannot be expected—I would say that not only opposition but perhaps even aversion is bound to arise.

[ 8 ] And in particular, a proper understanding of this spiritual science, as it is meant here, is still hindered today by the fact that those who would like to approach the exploration of what lies behind ordinary conscious life in the human soul would much rather find what they are seeking in all manner of abnormal, in all manner of depressed mental states than in what true spiritual science must actually point to. And so it happens that this true spiritual science is often confused with what can, in itself, certainly yield extraordinarily interesting findings—particularly in the natural sciences—that spiritual science is confused with what brings forth all manner of dreamlike, somnambulistic, mediumistic states of mind drawn from the unconscious or subconscious life of the human being, which eludes ordinary consciousness.

[ 9 ] This confusion is disastrous. But it will continue to be practiced for a long time to come, for it is true—and I want to touch on this briefly by way of introduction—that under certain circumstances, a person can enter states of consciousness in which the ordinary sensory world does not play a role, nor does the ordinary will; dreamlike, somnambulistic, mediumistic states, and so on—from which they draw up all manner of things from a certain depth of their soul life, things that must seem strange to people and are therefore interesting. The strange is always interesting, especially when one can believe—as is indeed true in a certain sense—that it heralds something within the human being that goes beyond ordinary experience between birth and death. However, true spiritual science in particular shows—and the meaning of what I will be hinting at in this lecture will make this clear— it is precisely true spiritual science that shows that what comes to light through dreamlike, abnormal mental states, through somnambulism, and through mediumistic states, has far less genuine human significance than what a person perceives through their ordinary senses and what they can influence through their ordinary will. What a person can influence through their will in everyday life is connected to the human being between birth and death. But what comes to light through the states described is contained in a deeper, lower aspect of human nature than even the sensory world. This occurs because sensory perceptions are excluded, the will is also excluded, and lower organic processes take place, through which that which is veiled from sensory life and the will comes to light. Yet this cannot denote the full, complete humanity, but only something that lies beneath the surface of humanity, whereas true spiritual science seeks to lead the human being upward beyond the surface of ordinary life, beyond what the human being strives for in everyday life and also in ordinary science. Admittedly, these abnormal states, which serve to observe something unknown within the human being, have something quite captivating about them; for by entering into states that are far more closely linked to one’s physical life than even the sensory life—states that are far more deeply rooted in the body—and especially because curiosity and interest are drawn to such things, one experiences in these states something that can bring joy, something that fills one with a certain inner contentment. And the sense of life that then attaches itself to the internal organs also affects the beholder, the observer; the latter believes himself to be secure in the face of these things, believes he has something real before him, which he experiences in a human being whom he himself has transformed: whereas the spiritual researcher leads to what is truly eternal, to that which extends beyond birth and death. He must, of course, also point to a transformation of ordinary human nature; he must point out that the eternal cannot be explored with the senses, nor within the ordinary sphere of the will, which relates only to the external world; but by coming and describing what the human soul must go through in order to free itself from the body, so that it may observe the soul not only with the body but with the soul itself, he then describes states in which a person, from the perspective of ordinary consciousness, experiences something like not standing on solid ground, like standing on the edge of an abyss. For this reason, he seems all the more dreamlike, fantastical. The spiritual researcher, however, when speaking of the results of his research, must not lead the listener to the experiment or to the observation of the external senses—as the natural scientist can—but must instead lead them to the soul itself. Therefore, what he presents must, in a certain sense, take a different approach than when discussing anything from a scientific perspective. When discussing a scientific topic, one first describes: This is done and that is done, or this is here, that is there; and one then links one’s mental processes—one’s concepts and combinations—to this, attempting to discover laws governing what is there, and so on. One links what the soul must produce of its own accord to something that already exists.

[ 10 ] The spiritual researcher must, in effect, reverse this path. And that is what strikes one at first, what initially seems paradoxical—so paradoxical, in fact, that those who cannot grasp the matter say: “Yes, the spiritual researcher merely claims that things are this way; but he offers no evidence whatsoever.” — Well, his evidence consists precisely in showing how the soul must first undergo processes that are purely inner and spiritual, and only then can it approach the spiritual process, the objective realm. Whereas ordinary science takes the process first and then adds what the soul does, the spiritual researcher must draw this from within himself, leaving the soul to itself. Then the soul brings forth such powers, such abilities, through which this or that appears before the person as a spiritual fact that cannot be seen with the eyes or grasped with the hands. The most compelling evidence lies in the demonstration of the path that spiritual research must take.

[ 11 ] In previous years, when I have lectured here, I have elaborated on some of the paths the soul must take in order to truly awaken to what might be called “contemplative consciousness”—or, to vary Goethe’s expression, the “eye of the spirit” and the “ear of the spirit”—so that one may truly perceive the spiritual; I have explained what the soul must set out to do, how, through pure spiritual exercises, it evokes within itself—in a sense—that which the body evokes by organizing eyes and ears from within itself, and how, through the possession of such spiritual organs, the spiritual can truly be perceived. In order not to repeat myself for those esteemed listeners who have been here frequently, I refer you to my books for the details of how the soul must go about bringing forth those powerful forces that otherwise lie dormant in its subconscious, so that it can grasp and perceive them: How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? and to my Occult Science, as well as to all the books that describe what the soul must accomplish in order to truly equip itself with new spiritual organs for perceiving the spiritual. However, there are certain fundamental principles I would like to emphasize, particularly with regard to the path of spiritual research, and so today I would also like to say a few words about how the spiritual researcher arrives at the facts we will later discuss.

[ 12 ] For those who are unable to engage truly and intimately with the inner spiritual exercises that the human soul must undertake in order to find the eternal within themselves and in other beings, for them, of course, that sense of ease—which one experiences when simply inducing people into abnormal, mediumistic, or somnambulistic states in order to perceive something extraordinary—that sense of ease comes to an end. And then, when a person approaches unprepared what is required in terms of spiritual exercises to truly perceive the spirit and its life, then—yes, then—the interest I spoke of at the beginning ceases. So that one can say: Every individual has an interest in the subjects that spiritual research seeks to understand. But they have less interest in the mode of perception, in the method. What the spiritual researcher must do to penetrate the real spiritual world is not as entertaining, interesting, or attention-grabbing as the experiences of the somnambulist—or as the experiences of the medium initially appear to the outside observer. No, one may well say—as paradoxical as it sounds—that what the soul must undertake to explore its most precious, most cherished, highest, and eternal spiritual values initially even evokes aversion; it evokes a lack of interest. One will initially find that the spiritual exercises of which the spiritual researcher speaks may at first be undertaken by one person or another out of curiosity, but are then quickly and easily found to be boring. And what must be undertaken within the soul in order to reach the eternal—the essence of the immortal being within the soul—is often also found to be boring and not worth one’s interest. At first—especially when a person becomes aware, through the intensification of thoughts and a transformation of feelings (which I will discuss later), that they are approaching the threshold of what may be called the spiritual world—at first, it is fear of the unknown. A person refrains from penetrating this world because they fear the unknown. They do not become conscious of this fear; but the unconscious fear is no less a fear for that. Then a repulsion—even a hatred—begins to assert itself; I will give examples of this later today.

[ 13 ] These are entirely explainable phenomena. Overcoming them is therefore necessary. Anyone who truly penetrates the spiritual world through his or her soul must go through a personal inner struggle. And one might say: If there are indeed people who at first enter the spiritual world without difficulty and take an interest in the tedious aspects of the spiritual exercises of which the spiritual researcher speaks, it is because, through a certain shift in human attention and interest, that which is utterly tedious ultimately becomes interesting precisely because of its tedium. Through such soul exercises—by strengthening the thoughts and directing the feelings and the will in a different direction than they take in ordinary life and ordinary science—the soul comes to truly recognize, for the first time, how it uses the body to evoke the memories of ordinary consciousness in order to live in ordinary existence.

[ 14 ] In principle, I would like to highlight today something that may first arise in spiritual research—as it were, the path to inner psychological experimentation, which can then open the way into the spiritual world. The further course of my discussions will already demonstrate the validity, to a greater or lesser extent, of what I am describing here.

[ 15 ] If one remains rooted in one’s experiences of the present moment or the present day, one cannot at all access that part of the soul which belongs to the eternal. What the spiritual researcher first notices when he truly strengthens his soul so that it can perceive independently of the body is that, in his ordinary daily life, the human being is immensely dependent on a certain widespread sense of the present. One always needs the body to experience whatever one experiences. And one can say: If one experiences only the present—only what is around us and taking place in the present—then one is cut off from one’s soul experience, just as one is cut off from the experience of the day when one lies in deep, dreamless sleep. As strange and paradoxical as it sounds, human beings sleep through their soul life—that which is truly eternal in human nature—because of the experiences that the present offers them through their senses and their ordinary will. Human beings sleep through their soul life. Sleep thoroughly encroaches upon daily life.

[ 16 ] How does that actually work? It is like this: The person who develops the gift of self-observation—it must first be developed; it is not readily present in ordinary consciousness—realizes that he cannot at all bring into his soul what he has experienced today, or even what he experienced yesterday, in such a way that he is able to comprehend it in the light of the Eternal. Our physical nature always plays a part in what we are currently experiencing. Only when—as the inner experience of self-observation shows—two or three days have passed since any given experience, when an experience, an observation, or anything we have gone through in ordinary daily life is two or three days in the past, only then has it reached a state within the soul where one can recognize it in its true spiritual nature. Before that—before two or three days have passed—that part of us which perceives this soul-content is still so permeated in our experience by sensory impulses and by impulses arising from the inner body that we are unable to sift out certain elements; we are unable to grasp any experience in the way it lives in the soul—and only in the soul—as soul. We must therefore generally refrain from examining what we experience in the present moment for its spiritual content. But what is peculiar becomes apparent when everything physical— everything that lingers from the senses, everything that still works from within the body in bodily sensations—when that is gone and the event is nothing more than a memory—we can, of course, recall any experience in a vague way—when the event is nothing more than a memory, then we can no longer recall so directly the actual active part that the soul played in the experience. We can remember the experience, but we cannot hold this experience before us in the same way that we process a present-moment experience. But without being able to do that—without being able to immerse ourselves in something that has been separated from us for two or three days in such a way that we experience it as vividly as a present-moment event—without that, we cannot approach the spiritual, the eternal, at all. However, one is greatly mistaken if one believes that something that took place two to three or more days or years ago and is recalled could be experienced in the same way as a present event. Not only has it faded, but above all, that immediate inner activity which the soul unfolds in a present event—it cannot unfold that when faced with a past event. The soul’s own activity lies dormant in the face of the past experience. The past experience emerges as an image. But what one experiences in the present does not emerge along with it. That, however, must be awakened. One can develop what is to be experienced in relation to any event or experience from long ago, if one is fortunate enough to do so. Unless one happens to be a spiritual researcher, it is best not to attempt to focus on memories from very far in the past, but rather to take those from the recent past—two to three days ago—because this is the surest way to achieve what is to be attained. If one takes an event that occurred two to three days ago, it is best to choose one that was experienced precisely to lead in this way toward the eternal in the soul. Ordinary experiences do not do this at all. Therefore, the spiritual researcher will be compelled to carry out what are called exercises in thought and feeling. Through these exercises of thought and feeling—for example, by concentrating on thoughts for much longer than one normally does in everyday life—one is able to experience inner spiritual realities right from the start, earlier than people usually do. And then one reaches a point—if, as mentioned, we consider the shortest possible period of time—which can be the case after two to three days—where one can truly look back on these two to three days through ordinary memory.

[ 17 ] So let’s be clear: After some time, the spiritual researcher comes to view the experiences of the past two or three days as if in a tableau. This is necessary. It is necessary to truly bring to the present what one has experienced over the past two or three days. In what one has experienced over the past two to three days—once one has trained oneself through the necessary self-observation—one will sense everywhere how the physical organs are still at work. Admittedly, once one has become accustomed to living in the soul, the memories of these two to three days can unfold as if in an instant, so that one has before oneself a picture of these two to three days. But during these two to three days, it is not the case that one has the soul before oneself detached from the physical; rather, for what one recalls from these two to three days, one does indeed have the soul before oneself, but it is permeated throughout and influenced at every turn by the physical experience. It is merely like a memory spread out over these two to three days and acting rapidly.

[ 18 ] The situation is different when it comes to an event that took place two to three days ago. If, after reviewing those two to three days as I have described, one has prepared oneself to truly experience this event as if it were happening in the present, then one is living in the spiritual realm.

[ 19 ] You see, I am not describing anything abstract to you, nor am I weaving a web of concepts; rather, I am describing what the soul does with itself in order, first of all, through the passage of a certain amount of time, to break free from that which cannot be experienced purely in the soul, and to return to something that can now be experienced in the soul. The soul life must, however, be strengthened; so that one can truly be spiritually immersed in something that occurred just two or three days ago in the course of one’s life. Then one knows what these two or three days actually mean in a person’s inner spiritual experience.

[ 20 ] This teaches us to recognize something that can only be recognized in this way. We learn to recognize that what we are experiencing spiritually in the present detaches itself entirely from the body, becomes spiritualized, and is only truly spiritualized after two to three days. But then, for ordinary consciousness, it lies dormant in the darkness of consciousness to such an extent that a person sleeps through it if they have not prepared themselves to live within it now. If, however, they have prepared themselves, they know that they are now with their creative soul, with what their soul has not otherwise experienced: they find themselves immersed in a purely spiritual-soul experience.

[ 21 ] Of course, one can search for experiences that occurred even further back; but then one is faced with the significant necessity of truly reviewing, as if in a tableau, everything that happened up to that experience—which may have occurred years ago. This is, of course, much more difficult than recalling what has happened over the last two or three days and carefully reconstructing it in one’s memory. Only when one has accomplished this—only when one has traced it back piece by piece and can still retain enough strength in the soul to experience what then arises—does one know through direct experience: Now you have grasped in your soul that which is purely spiritual, that which is at work within you but does not appear at all in ordinary consciousness. In ordinary consciousness, even memory does not function in such a way that anything approaches with the vitality necessary to experience it as the soul. The physical aspect always plays a role in bringing memories to light. The power of memory is initially bound to the physical, even if it is not derived from the physical.

[ 22 ] With this, I have pointed out to you that through a very specific inner experience—something that must be carefully prepared for and for which one must carefully train oneself inwardly—the true soul within a person is discovered. Once one has discovered this true soul, one knows: This soul is within you. One knows: If one has the opportunity to approach this very same soul aspect again, then it is there. For in discovering it, one knows: This soul aspect is now independent of everything sensory. The sensory realm only exerts its influence back to the point in time one reaches when one discovers this. This soul aspect is now present, having become independent of the physical; this soul aspect has now also become independent of the will and is not bound to the human being’s external organs of movement. By grasping this soul aspect, one knows: What is grasped there with the quality of duration is that which grasps this duration within itself in such a way that the human being carries it through death. This is what is eternal in human nature. And one now knows why this eternal aspect eludes ordinary everyday consciousness: because this everyday consciousness develops only with the aid of the body, and because that which does not develop with the aid of the body is experienced by this ordinary everyday consciousness in the same way that deep sleep is experienced. Just as if one were to bring up from deep sleep experiences that are so dull—there they are, after all—that ordinary consciousness simply does not perceive them, so too does one draw from the inner wellspring of the soul that which is found precisely in the manner I have described.

[ 23 ] One could say: This is the first stage of the life of the soul, which already offers something—not merely in a conceptual sense, but rather a direct perception of the soul. One has before one’s beholding consciousness that which passes through the gate of death. And in having this, one knows that the human being, by living directly within a spiritual reality, is not dependent on the present moment for that spiritual reality; one knows that this spiritual reality possesses its own permanence and that it gives rise to what the human being now experiences.

[ 24 ] When a researcher of the spiritual world describes to you what happens at the moment of death, he is not doing so out of imagination, but by continuing what I have just explained. He knows that the soul, upon freeing itself from the physical body, needs two to three days to look back before it enters into itself, into its own being. In this way, he comes to know within his own soul what the soul experiences as it passes through the gate of death. He comes to recognize how this soul, as it passes through the gate of death, still undergoes a review lasting two to three days—a tableau of life; how this retrospective then recedes; how the soul, two to three days after death, having become completely free from physical experience, lives in the same element—when it enters the actual realm of the soul—as the spiritual researcher does during those two to three days when he conducts the inner experiment of which I have spoken to you.

[ 25 ] These soul exercises, which lead to experiencing the soul-spiritual realm and the soul-spiritual environment, can certainly be found in the works cited, How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? and in my Occult Science. They can be practiced by anyone, but it is not necessary to do so. I must emphasize again and again: The spiritual researcher introduces what the soul must do to reach the spiritual-soul world; but it is not necessary to personally undergo these exercises in order to be convinced of the truth of what spiritual research brings to light. The spiritual researcher himself, strange as it may sound, gains nothing for his eternal life from what he achieves through his exercises, from what spiritual research itself gives him, from this insight into the spiritual world; gains nothing of lasting value for his eternal life; rather, he gains something for his eternal life only through his ability to transform what he perceives as spiritual-soul-related into the ordinary, accessible concepts of common sense. Common sense can understand what the spiritual researcher has to say when he transforms what he perceives in the spiritual world into concepts and ideas.

[ 26 ] This common sense need only free itself from all the prejudices that are still piled so high today, standing in the way of true understanding. On the other hand, however, people today demand not merely to accept something as true on the basis of good faith, but to verify everything for themselves to a certain extent. That is why there must be writings today that enable everyone—just as the aforementioned writings do—to verify what the spiritual researcher says. However, the objections frequently raised by people who believe themselves qualified to judge are, as far as possible, wide of the mark. For example, it is said: When a spiritual researcher speaks of how he—or those he has led into spiritual research—truly looks into the spirit, how they observe the spiritual-soul aspects of another person, then let them show us this once. We’ll bring them some people; they are not to know anything about what is going on in these people’s soul-spiritual lives, but they are to observe these people through spiritual vision. Then they will be able to make their statements. If these are accurate, then we will believe them.

[ 27 ] It is very strange that this objection has been raised—I discussed it at the end of my book On the Mysteries of the Soul—and that it has come up time and again, even though spiritual research gives everyone the opportunity to investigate and says: This and that can be done; one can convince oneself of everything the spiritual researcher claims. Instead of convincing oneself in this way, people demand of spiritual research something that would destroy it entirely. For that which is to be observed by the soul constantly eludes observation whenever any form of bondage approaches the soul, whenever any compulsion is imposed upon it, whenever the powers the soul unfolds do not arise from within itself. This cannot be achieved through the observation of external experiments; each person can only do so in relation to themselves. But if one makes the effort, one will arrive at the same conclusion as the spiritual researcher. The external arrangement for this—the experiment—is something that must dispel the spiritual researcher’s abilities just as life is dispelled when the organism is cut open. As strange as this may sound, it is so.

[ 28 ] I have guided you in how the soul realm can be experienced. Of course, this is only a beginning. Such exercises must be repeated again and again. One goes further and further until, finally, a spiritual realm with beings surrounds one, just as the sensory world spreads out before the senses. But this spiritual perception has certain distinctive characteristics. And I would like to mention a few of these characteristics. First of all, when the spiritual researcher has an experience, looks at this experience, and becomes aware of it, one might think that such an experience must relate to the person in the same way that any other experience of the external sensory world does. That is not the case. It turns out that when the spiritual researcher has such an experience, he cannot bring it into his memory—into ordinary memory. Just as, as I have shown, one must go beyond ordinary memory for two or three days, so too does one step out of memory when one enters the spiritual world. Once one has beheld a spiritual phenomenon, one cannot simply incorporate it into memory so as to recall this spiritual experience. One must constantly evoke it anew. You must understand this well: When the spiritual researcher succeeds in translating his experiences into mental images and concepts, he possesses concepts just as ordinary ones are; naturally, he can remember these. But that is not the spiritual experience itself; it is the conceptual image. One can remember that. But one cannot recall the spiritual experience itself. Spiritual experiences are facts that exist within the spiritual world. One can observe them, but they do not remain in memory. If the spiritual researcher wishes to have such a spiritual experience again or repeatedly, it is not enough for him simply to muster the effort he would otherwise expend on a memory; that leads him nowhere. Rather, he must once again bring about the same inner soul processes within himself; he must do exactly what he did to arrive at the experience in the first place. Only then can he approach the same experience. The fact that a spiritual experience does not imprint itself on memory—that it can only be relived through those inner soul processes—is proof that what truly lives in the spirit is enduring and cannot be destroyed by death. It is enduring.

[ 29 ] Thus, the very nature of the spiritual researcher’s experience proves the independence of the spiritual-soul aspect from the physical body. The spiritual researcher would have to be immediately convinced that, just as his sensory perceptions cease with death, so too would his soul experiences cease with death—if he were able to remember them. For even those powers that are bound to memory are attached to the mortal body. One encounters the immortal only when one is beyond what memory is.

[ 30 ] I would like to mention another strange experience—one that particularly strikes many people who practice spiritual exercises. When, in ordinary life, one sets out to do something and carries it out again and again, it provides a certain kind of practice. You get better and better at it. Strangely enough, the opposite is true for spiritual experiences: Once you have had a spiritual vision that is quite vivid, quite alive—once you have looked into something that has spiritual permanence—and you want to bring it about a second time, a third time, it proves difficult and increasingly so, and you then have to make greater efforts. There is no question of practice here, no question of habit; one must exert oneself more and more to achieve it again. The spiritual experience, so to speak, eludes us once we have had it.

[ 31 ] This strikes many people for a specific reason: namely, when someone approaches a spiritual experience for the first time, they possess many latent reserves within themselves; much that has been dormant until now is stored there and is now awakened to spiritual vision. Under certain circumstances, they can have a very vivid spiritual experience. If they are not yet sufficiently prepared, not yet mature enough, and immediately try to repeat it—having previously experienced it more through their reserve strength, from the subconscious, than fully consciously—then they can no longer do so, and they may be very unhappy about it because, above all, they want to have that experience. And they often shy away from the effort required to practice more intensively and to engage in greater spiritual activity in order to once again create the conditions that can bring about this experience. So you see, the exact opposite applies to what is so important to us in ordinary life. As far as soul experiences are concerned, there can be no question of acquiring knowledge in order to repeat things. The more we approach them, the more soul experiences separate themselves from the physical, and it is precisely through this that they reveal their soul-spiritual nature.

[ 32 ] Furthermore, it is an absolute necessity that, if one wishes to have spiritual experiences, one must ensure that one’s conceptual and imaginative life is prepared for these spiritual experiences. One enters a state of spiritual confusion that is not pathological, but merely a state of mental confusion; yet this leads to all sorts of illusions when one has a spiritual experience that cannot be grasped by concepts, that one cannot comprehend. One must therefore strive to make one’s conceptual faculties mature—and increasingly so—before approaching the spiritual experience. Just as one needs a mature eye to perceive colors, so one needs a mature power of imagination to truly grasp what confronts one spiritually.

[ 33 ] What the spiritual researcher describes can thus be understood in every detail through common sense, if one observes life and compares what the spiritual researcher has to say with what everyday life presents. One need not be a researcher oneself; and the researcher himself reaps the fruits of his research only when he can transform his spiritual visions into ordinary, comprehensible concepts, which he communicates to himself in the same way he can communicate them to another. The spiritual researcher must also understand these concepts through his or her common sense. Only then can others understand them as well. What the occultist gains from the results—the fruits—of spiritual research, any person can gain without being a spiritual researcher themselves. Spiritual research is needed only to convince oneself that these things are true.

[ 34 ] Now, I would like to say that there are certainly many objections that can be raised against the practical significance of the findings of the humanities. And since I am discussing some of these findings precisely in this context, I must, of course, insist that this alternative approach to spiritual research be taken into consideration. First, the inner work must be done in the soul; only then does one arrive at the reality of the findings. The researcher does not say, “It is this way or that way,” but rather, “When one performs the corresponding inner work in the soul, one arrives at spiritual realities that present themselves in such and such a way.” — The evidence lies in the nature of the research. Of course, I cannot present all these things in full detail in just one short hour; one would need not only ten lectures but a course spanning many months to convey what needs to be conveyed. Therefore, it is quite understandable if one finds that the spiritual researcher, while giving a basic indication of the path, then presents riddles that seem to have been plucked out of thin air. But that is not the case; rather, if the path is correctly pursued with scientific precision—just as any modern science grapples with its mysteries—research can be conducted with the same precision in a spiritual and psychological manner.

[ 35 ] First, I would like to mention this fact of life, this context of life, by referring to the statements of those people who, time and again, say—based on the prejudices and preconceptions of the present—something along the lines of: Why bother exploring what lies beyond death? Why investigate this eternal aspect of the human soul? When death comes, I’ll see for myself how things stand; I can wait and see. — Nothing could be further from the truth. Spiritual research shows that when it encounters souls who, after death, have attained independence from the body, these souls live in an environment that they themselves have prepared between birth and death. Here in the sensory world, we live in a sensory environment. This sensory environment is what we experience. After “death,” we live as souls in that which we have brought to consciousness between birth and death regarding the spiritual. And that which was not present for us between birth and death is not an external world for us after death. Our inner world—and this becomes a great law of spiritual knowledge—insofar as we have consciously penetrated it as a spiritual reality, not through spiritual vision but by acknowledging through sound common sense what spiritual vision reveals, becomes our outer world. And the only thing we have as an outer world after death is what we had as an inner world between birth and death.

[ 36 ] If, between birth and death, we acquire only ideas related to the external sensory world, or ideas that are tied solely to the material realm, then our surroundings after death must be shaped by such ideas. Since I wish to show that spiritual science arrives at concrete, real results, I will not shy away from stating what is still considered so ridiculous by so many today—just as the Copernican worldview was deemed ridiculous when it first appeared; but these things must be stated. If, between birth and death, we acquire nothing other than concepts derived solely from the sensory world—concepts drawn from life in the outer sensory world—then this is our inner world during physical life and will become our outer world after our death. And the consequence of this is that those souls who have not made an effort to become consciously aware that behind the sensory world lies the spiritual world are, after death, banished to the earthly sensory sphere until, after death—when it is much more difficult—they have freed themselves from the belief that there is no spirit and from the habit of not looking toward the spiritual. A spiritual environment of a different nature than the earthly-material one can only be attained by passing through death with a consciousness that a spiritual world exists. Therefore, souls that do not acquire this awareness will be held back in the earthly sphere after death. They can be found there by those who have paved the way through spiritual research.

[ 37 ] And what leaves an even deeper impression on the soul regarding this fact is the following: When one encounters souls on the path described, one comes to recognize that these souls exert a beneficial influence in the earthly sphere only when they act upon that sphere through the physical body. Here in the earthly sphere, our bodies place us in the proper relationship to our surroundings. If, after death, we remain in the same surroundings—as the fact mentioned above indicates—then we have a destructive effect. Then we are connected in the wrong way. Anyone who is a true researcher knows: When people here believe that destructive forces arise on their own and dissolve on their own—when destructive forces flow into human life without any concrete, real reasons—then it is the souls of those who have not found spiritual consciousness here and who, after death, exert a destructive influence on this earthly life.

[ 38 ] Once this truth—which many still find ridiculous today—is fully understood, namely, that human beings bind themselves to the Earth in order to act as destroyers of earthly conditions after death, and that after death they intervene among human beings on Earth in a tragic and furious manner, then a concrete relationship between human beings here and the spiritual world will once again be established, then it will become a cosmic duty—a duty toward the world order—not to limit oneself to what can be experienced only outwardly in physical life, but to experience it in such a way that one is permeated in one’s inner life by the realization that, in one’s soul, one stands in a relationship with the spiritual world, which surrounds us just as much as the physical world, except that ordinary consciousness does not perceive it. Just as the farmer who has never heard of air does not believe that air surrounds him, but thinks that there is nothing there, so too does ordinary consciousness lead one to believe that where something cannot be perceived by the senses, there is nothing. The spiritual world is there, and it can be perceived when consciousness truly awakens to this spiritual world.

[ 39 ] Another point I wish to present as a fact is this: One comes to understand how that which is not actually accessible to any natural science—or is accessible only in a negative sense—the discerning reader will agree with me in this assertion—how death has thereby entered the realm of research. While, fundamentally speaking, the natural sciences deal only with what is ascending development, what is growth, the researcher of the spirit learns to recognize the intervention of descending development—the intervention of death into development itself. He learns to recognize the role that death plays; he learns to recognize this through concrete facts.

[ 40 ] Let’s take an example: Let us suppose that death comes upon a human life in a violent manner, caused by something in the external world—for example, by a boulder falling on a person, a house collapsing on them, or being shot on the battlefield—all of which are violent deaths. In the context of the world, this holds something inexplicable for human beings. As the spiritual researcher advances and penetrates ever deeper into understanding, he comes to realize that it is not only the case, as I mentioned earlier, that my entire life—from birth until now—is contained within my present human life, except that what goes back two or three days has already become spiritualized. As the researcher advances further—not only strengthening his thoughts through inner exercises but also strengthening his emotional life so that the feelings that arise in the course of life are perceived, and so that he can compare the spiritual experience to a musical experience, to a tone, a sound, a noise—when one experiences music, one must be able to recognize the tone. By continuing in this way, one learns to connect one experience with another—to bring together a soul experience that, as I have described, lies two to three days in the past with another that may lie seven to nine years in the past. One can perceive them as resonating together—not philosophically dissecting them, but perceiving what is experienced in time, what presents itself as a soul experience, alongside duration, as I have described it. This is experienced musically—to use a metaphor—when a person has their experience before them in this way. Then they can also extend this, independently of the time between birth and death, not only to events from two to three days or years ago, but also to what happened before birth or conception. There they experience themselves as spiritual-soul beings, before they descended and united with a physical body that gives them external sensory perception and the ability to act upon the external world. And as he progresses even further, as he advances toward a form of knowledge that I shall characterize in the following exposition, he also experiences himself in past earthly lives; he experiences the things that have an effect on him from past earthly lives. And when a person has truly come to develop within themselves a form of knowledge through which they directly experience the soul, through which they are able to know how the soul exists in the course of time, then a moment comes in life—one that profoundly affects that life—when the person can say to themselves: “You have united yourself with the spiritual-soul.” That is a fateful event! — This says far more than can actually be put into words. One need not become numb to the rest of life; on the contrary, one can become much more sensitively attuned to everything that can uplift a person, lifting them beyond ordinary daily life to the highest bliss; one can experience what plunges us deep into misfortune; one can participate in all of fate. Nevertheless, there may come a moment when one says to oneself: Stronger than any other stroke of fate is the one that acts upon the human soul in which this insight becomes so concrete for us, so vivid, that we grasp the spiritual. Then this fateful experience of insight spreads over our entire life, and we also come to understand the rest of fate. We understand how our present fate is shaped by past earthly lives. We come together with past earthly lives, without remembering them—for spiritual experiences as such cannot be remembered directly at all; but something arises that is far higher than memory: the insight into the past.

[ 41 ] This is what must happen when one seeks to explore something like violent death, which intrudes upon life. One cannot explore it by considering only a single human life course. Within that single life course, it appears as if by chance. Violent death is terrifying. But when one sees how a person’s entire life consists of the life courses that lie between birth and death—during which the person is connected to the body—and the intervening periods, which are much longer, during which the person is spiritually in the spiritual world between death and a new birth, then one finds that what enters human life violently as death is a significant experience. The soul is, so to speak, snatched in an instant from the life of the body, through which it is connected to the sensory world; because it is not driven spontaneously from within into the spiritual world, but is seized by the external world itself, it is thereby endowed within itself—precisely through the experience of something external—with a very special power.

[ 42 ] It is simply a law of the spiritual world: the inner becomes the outer as the soul enters the spiritual world. And the outer experience here becomes an inner one; an experience such as a violent death becomes an inner one. What is a violent death in one life appears in the next earthly life as a force that emerges from the ordinary world of life.

[ 43 ] Therefore, when we observe in the course of a human life that a person has been able to accomplish something extraordinary at a particular moment—that he has given his entire life a new direction, as if forces had welled up in his soul from unknown depths—this stems from a violent death in a previous life. These forces, which give life a new direction, are now the subject of much research; indeed, there are many accounts of how people suddenly give their lives a new direction. Such events can be traced back to violent deaths, which, of course, must not be sought out in any way. For a death that were sought as a violent death would no longer be one brought about from the outside. Of course, this cannot be desired. The desire for such a death, for example, would make a violent death similar to the ordinary death that occurs from within the organism—one brought about from within the body itself. Indeed, it would not only make it similar but would even place the person in a different relationship to life than ordinary death does. Ordinary death, which is brought about from within at any age, brings with it for subsequent lifetimes what is more of a steady, uneventful life, as it is originally laid out from childhood and birth onward. A violent death, however—whether sought through suicide or through a desire for it—would impair the person in such a way that in the next life he or she would be unable to cope with life, becoming, so to speak, adrift. We must not even allow the desire to meet a violent death in any way to enter our lives. Properly understood spiritual science has nothing to do with any kind of hostility toward life.

[ 44 ] You see, by seeking the effects of the soul’s forces in a concrete, spiritual-scientific way—rather than merely in an abstract, philosophical manner—one arrives at real, specific findings that make human life understandable. I wanted to offer a few thoughts on this today. I know that, especially when one does not engage in abstract talk but instead presents such concrete results of spiritual research, one often encounters not only resistance but also the ridicule of one’s contemporaries. As I have already said, this aversion begins today as soon as the spiritual researcher merely describes his method, the nature of his research. If one tries to judge what the spiritual researcher has to offer based on what one already knows without spiritual research, then it is no wonder that what the spiritual researcher presents seems like mere rhetoric, even before he has developed his method, which provides evidence for the independence of spiritual life. These methods are very often judged as something that leads to no facts. Now I would like to know whether what is presented in just these two lectures today and the day after tomorrow are not weighty facts that have a profound impact on life; what could be more weighty than this revelation of a violent death and the condemnation to play a destructive role after death if one has not imbued oneself with certain spiritual concepts between birth and death.

[ 45 ] The point is this: When such things are mentioned, it is not necessarily the case that the person recounting them is presenting them as fully valid facts; rather, the listener may be unable to grasp their reality, so that they remain mere platitudes to him. Even today, much of what the spiritual researcher has to say will remain mere rhetoric to contemporaries. Hatred, I said, will perhaps often be directed even against the method of research itself. I would like to offer a few examples of this, for these examples are significant not only because of what they directly characterize, but also because they reveal something about the very nature of spiritual research itself.

[ 46 ] Just a short while ago, I gave a lecture in a city in Switzerland on the same topics I have discussed today. A few days later, I received a letter from a very courteous individual, in which he sought to express how a person of the present day, having listened to the lecture, responds to what the spiritual researcher has to say—that is, how he currently relates to the ideas presented. Since the letter is very polite, I would like to quote a few passages from it in order to characterize spiritual science a bit through the way ordinary consciousness relates to it.

[ 47 ] First of all, the person in question says that what I presented did not strike him as fact at all; rather, he writes: “In my humble subjective opinion, there was not a trace of fact in this nonsensical doctrine.” The doctrine of reincarnation seems to be at the center of your spiritual research. With all your—as you say—thirty years of study and research, haven’t you yet realized how ridiculous it would be if a human spirit, having developed and advanced during its earthly life, were to fall back into childhood and have concepts explained to it all over again...

[ 48 ] This is an objection that can, of course, be raised very easily, but it completely falls away for anyone who understands the nature of this spiritual aspect when it is encountered in the way I have described today. One knows at the same time that this soul, even after having lived through many earthly lives, can go through these earthly lives again and again for its own enrichment—and can do so in such a way that certain things, which one truly recognizes as a great deficiency when one discovers the soul, one could truly no longer go through in old age, but must instead go through them anew, starting in childhood. Anyone who surveys human life as it extends beyond death and birth knows that it is just as ridiculous to say one does not want to return to childhood as it would be ridiculous to say: “I’ve already learned French, I’ve learned German—why should I now, just because people demand it of me, also have to learn Chinese?” Why should I now have to learn that again, word for word, syllable for syllable, along with all the grammar?

[ 49 ] These objections that are raised simply show that there is no willingness to go along with these things. But they would not be raised if it were not for what I have spoken of: that a certain aversion to spiritual research arises. And this aversion stems essentially from the following: When the soul is led to recognize its own nature, it must realize that it is indeed in need of undergoing many earthly lives; that the qualities of perfection it attributes to itself in later earthly lives are, in many cases, not derived from its very own essence, but rather from its cultural environment—and that these are not truly its own.

[ 50 ] And so it comes to pass that when the spiritual researcher must describe this soul, must describe it, so to speak, in its nakedness—how it is, in a sense, in need of undergoing repeated earthly lives—people become angry; they become angry, in particular, when the findings of spiritual research are described, because they sense that the soul is not what they would like it to be. One touches upon much that is unconscious and subconscious in these souls; but this unconscious and subconscious must indeed be pointed out.

[ 51 ] Much more interesting than this letter—which comes from a courteous person who, in all honesty, expresses concern about the anthroposophical teachings—much more interesting than this courteous letter is something else. I would just like to mention, however, that this letter—after everything has been addressed as I described earlier—concludes with the man saying: “I would be delighted to receive a reply from you.” — One couldn’t be any more polite!

[ 52 ] Now, I would like to demonstrate—using a single phenomenon that is, of course, known to few but is nonetheless significant enough to be mentioned—that a human being can become evil when confronted with what is truly spiritual. There is a contemporary philosopher—whom I hold in high regard—named Richard Wahle. I have admired Richard Wahle ever since his first philosophical appearance, because through his great acumen he has succeeded in a unique way in presenting everything that human beings perceive through their senses in such a way that it appears entirely as an image that is completely free from anything spiritual. We still mix in the spiritual when we describe the sensory. Richard Wahle has succeeded in describing everything a person experiences in sensory life in such a way that he completely expels the spirit, so that truly only what can be perceived sensually remains, and everything spiritual must be rendered void. This had to be done once, and it is interesting that it has been done. It relates to what we experience as the world in the same way as if someone were standing before a wonderful painting and wanted to describe nothing of what it depicts except how the splashes of color are arranged next to one another. But it would be interesting to see, just once, what it is like to have a wonderful painting described to you in this way—simply as a series of splashes of color placed side by side. If one applies this with great acumen to the phenomena of the world, that, too, is a merit. This is how the philosopher Richard Wahle—who is presumably a philosopher of our time precisely for this reason (he is one of the most distinctive)—has, through this, achieved something quite special in the course of his life. For I have never—and I am quite—I say this without vanity—familiar with the world’s philosophical literature—but I have never heard such railing, not even from Nietzsche, against philosophy and the futility of philosophy as I have from Richard Wahle in his books The Whole of Philosophy and On the Mechanism of Intellectual Life. No matter how hard one strives as a philosopher, a human being has no more philosophy than an animal and differs from the animal in a certain respect only in that he believes he must somehow struggle against the spiritual world—and cannot do so. — So wrote Wahle just recently.

[ 53 ] In fact, philosophy has never been railed against as vehemently as it has by this public advocate of philosophy. But the university professor Richard Wahle railed so vehemently against philosophy only because, in the course of his work of stripping away everything that is merely sensually perceptible—from which he had driven out all spirit—he had, precisely through this negative approach, come into contact with the spirit. And certain aspects that characterize spiritual life are, in fact, characterized by no one among contemporary philosophers better than by the spirit-scornful Richard Wahle. I would like to cite a passage from Richard Wahle’s Mechanism of the Life of the Soul, for it is interesting because it shows how a person driven by his own acumen, in the very act of banishing the spirit—I might say, just as it is slipping right out the window—is nevertheless compelled to perceive that very spirit. One might say, as the poet puts it: “The little folk never sense the devil, even when he’s already got them by the collar.”—But a man like Richard Wahle still just manages to perceive the spirit; that is why he says: “What a tiny space the spirit occupies in the universe! It is merely like a puddle in which stars are reflected. If the combinations of the spirit were to constitute a significant part of the world, the world would have to be ashamed of them; that would compromise the universe. Isn’t it strange that the universe is conceived as if our wretched spirit were its pinnacle, when it would be better to forget about it altogether?”

[ 54 ] This is the attitude that quite understandably arises when one approaches the spirit, which is the most precious thing to human beings. There are various reasons why this is so; we will encounter them the day after tomorrow. But I also wanted to illustrate this fact to you through a remarkable phenomenon of the present day—namely, the fact that, at the boundary between the sensory world and the spiritual world, we must overcome whatever holds people back—first as fear, then even as hatred and aversion—from truly entering this spiritual world, which can be entered along the paths I have described in this lecture.

[ 55 ] In addition—and let me say this in closing today—many people who are willing to acknowledge the spirit are particularly satisfied when they can say: “Yes, we admit there is a spirit; we admit that there is some kind of spirit, for human beings are always faced with something hidden, something they cannot fathom.” — And so, while people may forgive you for speaking of the spirit, they will not forgive you for penetrating so deeply into the spirit that you can describe concrete facts and entities from this spiritual life—as I have described some of them today. For they do not want to hear that the immortal can actually be explored, that the spirit cannot simply be presented as something inexplicable, but that by developing certain soul powers, one can penetrate this realm they call “unknown”—and indeed, as we shall see the day after tomorrow, one must penetrate it if there is to be salvation in human life. One must penetrate this realm if one is to correctly interpret such terrible catastrophes—such as the one that has now befallen humanity—as signs of the times.

[ 56 ] But all sorts of people invoke those who have sought to understand the spirit. And so we see that those who contribute most to today—often through quite astute investigations—to undermine the very possibility that leads to an understanding of spiritual science, as it is meant here, are the very ones who invoke a spirit whom I am always most eager to cite whenever I wish to name a figure upon whom is built what I have achieved through decades of my own spiritual research. I always wish to emphasize that this spiritual research is not based on anything fantastical or dreamlike, but on the sound foundations laid by Goethe’s worldview.

[ 57 ] Goethe himself was not yet a researcher of the spirit; the time for spiritual research had not yet come. But anyone who, as I did in my early writings, delves deeply into Goethe’s worldview will find in it the fundamental starting points upon which to build. And if one builds upon them, one is led directly into further development—into what I call spiritual research and which leads to the kind of results I have characterized today. Therefore, if it were up to me alone, I would like to call this spiritual research “Goetheanism” and the building in Dornach dedicated to it the “Goetheanum.”

[ 58 ] It is not necessary for this to happen; but just as I am convinced that, on the foundations laid in human culture by Goetheanism, what humanity must strive for in the future for its own salvation will have to be built, so I know that the movement I describe as anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is the direct continuation of Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis—and indeed of Goetheanism as a whole. And when some people invoke Goethe, claiming he rejected the spirit and referred to everything as nature, one may well point out that Goethe, while still relatively young, in his famous prose hymn “To Nature” did indeed call the universe “nature,” but included the words: “it has thought and is constantly thinking.” When one says of the universe that it ponders, that it thinks, one attributes to it not merely an unconscious but a conscious spirit, endowing it with conscious spiritual nature. Then there is no need to argue over words. Spiritual science is certainly not concerned with words. Whether one calls what is perceived as the universe “nature” or “spirit” is irrelevant; what matters is that one understands it in its concreteness, in its uniqueness, and in its inner nature. And in this regard, too, one can agree with Goethe—one can concur with him—when he does not wish to present the unfathomable merely as unfathomable, when he does not wish to deprive human beings of the ability to penetrate the unfathomable. One need only point out what I myself pointed out here years ago: Goethe spoke out explicitly against this misunderstood Kantian principle of the ineffable in nature to a researcher—one who otherwise has great merits—a great researcher. A prominent, great researcher said:

[ 59 ] “No creative spirit
Penetrates the innermost depths of nature.
Blessed is he to whom she reveals
Only her outer shell.”

[ 60 ] Goethe responds to this researcher, saying:

[ 61 ] “Into the heart of nature—”
O you philistine!
“No creative spirit penetrates.”
Me and my brothers and sisters
May you not remind us
Of such words:
We think: place by place
We are within.
“Blessed is he to whom she reveals
Only the outer shell!”
I’ve heard this repeated for sixty years,
I curse it, but secretly;
Tell me a thousand thousand times:
She gives everything abundantly and gladly;
Nature has neither core
Nor shell,
She is all at once;

[ 62 ] Bit by bit, we are inside it. Nothing is inside, nothing is outside!

[ 63 ] Examine yourself above all else,
To see if you are the kernel or the shell!

[ 64 ] Goethe pointed out, in a truly spiritual and mental reality, that human beings can be the core of nature—that is, they can perceive themselves as spiritual and mental beings, and thus know themselves to be in harmony with the spiritual and mental essence of the entire world.

[ 65 ] To point this out within a psychological and spiritual reality—that is the task of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, in order to give people the conviction that they are not merely spirit, but can recognize themselves as spirit and live consciously in the spiritual world.

[ 66 ] More on that the day after tomorrow.