The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Essence of the Human Soul and the Nature of the Human Body

[ 1 ] In this lecture, I would like to present an overview of what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science has to say about the most diverse areas of life, and today I will begin with some of the most significant findings of this spiritual science regarding our understanding of human soul life and its relationship to the nature of physical life.

[ 2 ] It seems that this science of the soul must gradually provide the foundations for the most important questions of human life—those questions that are the very limits of existence. For it cannot be denied that contemporary cultural life tends to accept insights only if they can be grounded in science from one perspective or another. When the great mysteries of the soul’s life confront us, we will feel compelled today not merely to ask about this or that creed, for we are imbued with the conviction that we must approach the world’s mysteries scientifically; we have the feeling that this is how it must be. Thus, one will also want to approach the science of the soul; one will want to ask: What does the science of the soul have to say about the human being’s entry into physical life and the human being’s departure from physical life? In other words, what does the science of the soul have to say about the relationship between what is transitory in and around the human being and what is eternal within the human being?

[ 3 ] But now one must say: From the moment that the science of the soul—which is still recognized today through tradition—turned to modern thought, from that moment on, this modern science of the soul has, to a greater or lesser extent, entered very murky waters. Whenever one speaks of modern psychology, one must repeatedly recall a contemporary psychologist, Franz Brentano, who recently passed away here in Switzerland and who, in the last third of the 19th century, resolved to devote his entire life and research to the understanding of human psychological life. When he published the first volume of his so-called Psychology, his study of the soul, in 1874, he uttered some remarkable words. He spoke of how it is indeed necessary, in the present day, with regard to the understanding of the soul, to take no other path than one that can be justified before the natural sciences. Whether the path discussed in this lecture can stand up to scrutiny by the natural sciences will be the subject of tomorrow’s discussion.

[ 4 ] Thus Franz Brentano attempted to approach the life of the soul using the same methods and the same mode of thinking that are customary in the natural sciences, just as he believed they ought to be. And he then uttered these remarkable words: Over time, the science of the soul seems to have devoted itself solely to the study of what is called human imagination, feeling, and volition; what is called memory; what is called attention; what is called love and hate; and the like. He pointed out to this school of psychology that modern natural science has indeed brought all sorts of things to light regarding these matters, but that it appears as though the introduction of modern scientific ways of thinking and modern, scientifically rigorous methods into the study of the soul has prevented it from realizing the great hopes —as Franz Brentano says—that the Greek sages Plato and Aristotle had already held for the study of the soul: the hopes of gaining, through the study of the soul, a glimpse into that life of the human being which, it seems, is shed when the mortal body perishes, into the eternal life of the human soul.

[ 5 ] And so Franz Brentano states: No matter how precisely one might describe how ideas follow one another, how they connect within the human soul, and how they interrelate with feelings and impulses of the will, one still faces the impossibility of addressing the fundamental questions of the life of the soul, since what is gained through scientific methods—even in the most rigorous investigations—cannot lead there. But Franz Brentano also harbored the hope at the time that, by applying the methods of natural science, he might ultimately arrive at a theory of the mind that would offer insights into these fundamental questions of existence.

[ 6 ] Now, there is the remarkable fact that when Franz Brentano published the first volume of his Theory of the Mind—which was intended to comprise three to four volumes—in 1874, he promised that the next volume would appear in the fall of that same year and that the subsequent volumes would follow shortly thereafter—yet none of them ever appeared. I have already mentioned this fact here.

[ 7 ] Anyone—as I explained in the last chapter of my most recent book, On the Mysteries of the Soul —who delves into the unique course of Franz Brentano’s development—which, after all, only came to a close last year in Zurich—will find inner reasons why this serious scholar, who took the exploration of the life of the soul so incredibly seriously, was unable to publish the continuation of his book, not for external reasons, but for internal ones. And anyone who follows Franz Brentano’s subsequent essays and books will see how this man made attempt after attempt to penetrate more deeply into the life of the soul, and how these attempts failed him time and again. And anyone seeking an answer—seeking an answer today from the various experiences one can have when approaching the currently accepted, publicly valid theory of the soul with a living interest—will ultimately find that: Franz Brentano, like his entire school and almost all other theories of the soul recognized today, shrinks back from taking that step which I wish to describe to you in this lecture: the step into a true spiritual science.

[ 8 ] The idea that the study of the soul must take on an entirely different form if it is to be effective for human beings again is something that people, especially in scientific circles, shy away from today. And when one allows the entire breadth of today’s psychological—that is, the literature on the soul—to sink in, one gets the feeling that this study of the soul is still dominated by ideas that have been passed down among humanity for centuries, perhaps even millennia. The study of the soul has not changed these ideas very much.

[ 9 ] In another area, however, much has changed, and the doctrine of the soul has not yet kept pace with advances in other fields. Above all, today’s scientific view of the world reveals what has changed in the course of human development over the past few centuries. Only a superficial examination of this development can overlook the most essential aspects—failing to see that, just a few centuries ago, people’s entire worldview was dominated by concepts, thoughts, and ideas that were entirely different from what is possible today.

[ 10 ] People are unwilling to acknowledge this. Even today, they are not yet willing to recognize that, as part of humanity’s progress, concepts and ideas have fundamentally changed. But so far, this change has been applied only to the field of natural science.

[ 11 ] To begin my reflections today, I would like to characterize this change as follows: People used to have certain ideas—and anyone who has studied the literature, particularly the scientific literature of earlier times, will find that what I am saying is justified—people used to have certain ideas through which they could comprehend both the inner life of the soul and the natural world outside, the manifestations of nature, in a way that met the demands of that time. The very same concepts that were applied—I would say—to understand the causes of lightning and thunder, of rain and sunshine, of the changing seasons, and of other natural phenomena; the very same concepts used for this purpose were also applied to the life of the human soul. The life of the soul and the natural world were not yet as separate in human perception as they are today due to the advances in the natural sciences.

[ 12 ] And natural science itself, I would say, has established order within its own field. Through strictly scientific methods of observation—namely, through the art of experimentation—it has compelled the development of new concepts within its field.

[ 13 ] The study of the soul has, for the most part, remained stuck in ancient conceptions, even among the broadest circles of the educated public. And so it happens that what the study of the soul offers today is, in essence, not grounded in facts or substance; it appears merely as words. Concepts, feelings, volition, memory, recollection, attention—even such things as love and hate: certainly, one can feel them; one can sense that there are realities present in one’s own inner life of the soul. But in scientific psychology, these are expressed through empty phrases—words that no longer correspond to what must be demanded of true science today, and that no longer correspond to the results of observation.

[ 14 ] Just as the natural sciences have had to evolve toward new concepts and ideas over the past three to four centuries—and especially in the 19th century and right up to the present day—so too must psychology evolve if it is not to remain fruitless for human life. And it must take the bold leap to entirely new starting points.

[ 15 ] I do not wish to detain you any longer to show you how, particularly in what is today referred to in books on psychology as “imagination,” “will,” and “feeling,” what is presented there, in essence, no longer offers anything of reality. I merely wish to point out that it is precisely through this that psychology has strayed from its true calling.

[ 16 ] You are all probably aware that when people today turn their attention to those major fundamental questions of human existence that I alluded to earlier, they very rarely turn to academic psychology—which, after all, should provide insight into these matters, precisely because it is the study of the soul. They find nothing there either. They find all sorts of—I would say—minor descriptions of how one idea follows another, how ideas give rise to other ideas, and so on, but they find no way to arrive at what actually interests them. People are reluctant to admit in this field that the very kind of thinking that humanity has generated from within itself in the course of its progress has been applied only in very specific, peculiar ways in the natural sciences; that this very thinking, however, when it understands itself properly, makes no headway in the study of the soul; that, so to speak, in its attempt to make real progress in the study of the soul, it runs into nothing but dead ends and arrives at nothing but empty phrases.

[ 17 ] But that would be the path—the first negative step, so to speak—toward entering into a true science of the soul. Spiritual science takes this path. Above all, spiritual science thoroughly examines the entire manner in which the modern world approaches the revelation of natural phenomena. Spiritual science seeks to gain clarity regarding the nature of the concepts used in the natural sciences. And by adopting an absolutely positive attitude toward scientific research in this way, spiritual science comes to recognize that the very research which can lead the natural sciences from triumph to triumph comes to an abrupt halt when one attempts to grasp the life of the soul. This inner life can only be grasped by taking refuge in a different way of conceiving—a completely transformed way of conceiving—indeed, in a transformed inner being.

[ 18 ] Perhaps it will be a long time before this inner boldness awakens in wider circles of humanity—the boldness to truly prepare one’s entire inner being to look into the spiritual realm. But if spiritual science is to emerge once again in a way that is fruitful and promising for humanity, then this step is necessary.

[ 19 ] I will, of course, have the opportunity to discuss the details of spiritual scientific research into the soul in tomorrow’s lecture. Today I want to touch on just one thing: how spiritual science attempts, from two different angles, to prepare the inner being of the human person so that it can truly gain insight into the life of the soul. One angle involves a special training of thought and imagination. People have a completely mistaken notion of spiritual science if they believe that it has anything to do with methods derived from spiritualism or mysticism. For those who truly wish to delve into it, this spiritual science will prove to be the clearest form of science they can find anywhere in the present day.

[ 20 ] Above all, it is a matter of strengthening and intensifying the act of imagining itself—of thinking, if I may put it that way. The point is that in everyday life and in conventional science, we engage in thinking, so to speak, merely as a byproduct of life and research. In our external lives, we allow all the things that seek to affect our senses to influence us. In science, we likewise allow that which makes observation through experimentation possible to influence us. We allow our thoughts to be stimulated, which then lead us to the laws of nature.

[ 21 ] These thoughts, which, in a sense, arise in the soul only in conjunction with external life, prove to be inadequate precisely at the moment when one seeks to look into the inner life itself. They lead nowhere.

[ 22 ] One must first have this experience. Therefore, the task is to immerse oneself in the life of imagination in such a way that one imagines it, so that one experiences inwardly what actually happens when one merely thinks, merely imagines. It doesn’t matter at all what one imagines. The point is simply—I’ll speak about the details tomorrow—to engage in this imagining and this thinking in such a way that one devotes oneself to it fully, as one might say, meditatively. So that, precisely in this thinking, in this imagining, one experiences what one cannot otherwise experience—neither in life nor in science—namely, how the inner being of a human being attunes itself when it follows a mere thought, be it a thought born of the imagination or a thought taken in from the outside.

[ 23 ] But then, when one experiences thinking in the way I have described, for example, in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? or as I intend to hint at in principle from a certain perspective tomorrow—that is, when one truly experiences thinking inwardly as methodically as one otherwise experiences the external phenomena that present themselves of their own accord— then one experiences something that must indeed touch one—as a person of today—in a strange way, especially if one has tried to grapple with the traditional views of the soul.

[ 24 ] Those who, so to speak, immerse themselves in meditative thinking—those who rest in mere thinking—come into conflict with the most widely accepted views, which stem initially from Augustinianism, were then adopted by Descartes, continue to haunt the contemporary mind, and have, in essence, crept their way into the thinking of all those who, in the old way, with old methods, and with old ways of thinking.

[ 25 ] There is a statement, I would say, that runs like a motto through all of modern philosophy. It is Descartes’s statement: “Cogito, ergo sum,” “I think, therefore I am.” It is, expressed only in a more precise form, the very words that Augustine himself spoke. It is the conclusion reached by thinkers who said to themselves: Well then, if the external world presents itself to us, perhaps it deceives us; perhaps everything it reveals to us—the external world—is an illusion; that is, the impressions that my eyes and ears reveal to me, which are produced by them—perhaps these are merely illusions, perhaps they are merely phantoms. A certainty—as Augustine already said, and as Cartesius, or Descartes, specifically said—there is a certainty that cannot be denied, for it is experienced directly: “I think.” For even if I doubt everything the world reveals to me, even if I live solely in doubt, I must still doubt—that is to say, I must think. Therefore: I am within my own thought. When I doubt, I think; therefore I am: Cogito, ergo sum.

[ 26 ] I am not saying all this because I believe that philosophical views dominate thinking in the broadest circles, or because I believe that what modern humanity thinks about the soul is a consequence of what these philosophers have said. No, I do not mention this for such a reason, but rather because what these philosophers have said is precisely a reflection of what humanity has thought over the centuries. It is not that people have learned to think from the philosophers, but rather that the philosophers have used concepts inherent in human thought—precisely those concepts that must be dispelled through the methods to which modern spiritual science must point. This modern spiritual science, by urging people to immerse themselves in thinking itself, to put themselves in its place, to experience it as I have described, leads to the realization: The more one thinks—the more one continues in mere thinking what one otherwise experiences only as a byproduct of external life—the more one enters precisely into unreality; not into the reality of inner life, but into unreality. And until one acknowledges the statement, “I think, therefore I am not,” one will not come to understand a true modern theory of the soul.

[ 27 ] It is so radically necessary today to take the step toward a true doctrine of the soul that we must put an end to the notion: “I think, therefore I am”—and rise to the insight: By beginning to think in a vital, inner way, we distance ourselves from true being: I think, therefore I am not.

[ 28 ] You learn to recognize this by immersing yourself more and more deeply in thought through meditation; it is precisely by refining and strengthening your thinking that you come to understand it: When I think, I cease to be.

[ 29 ] In fact, the statement “I think, therefore I am”—insofar as it seeks to rely on an inner certainty—would already be refuted by every instance of sleep. For in sleep we do not think in the sense intended by Augustine, Descartes, Bergson, or similar thinkers. Sleep consistently refutes “I think, therefore I am” every night.

[ 30 ] Well, that is the first step: to recognize in thought the unreality of inner experience.

[ 31 ] The second point is that one must then feel utterly adrift, for it is, in fact, something terrible for any person who knows how to take these things seriously: that in seeking to advance toward inner contemplation—toward so-called self-knowledge—one is led, precisely through thinking—that is, through what belongs intimately to one’s inner life—into non-being. From another perspective, this inner method employed by spiritual science must be supported. If the meditative life is a cultivation of thought, then, on the other hand, a cultivation of the will must be pursued.

[ 32 ] Will—we actually only recognize it by entering into some kind of relationship with the external world. Just as thinking is, to a greater or lesser extent, a byproduct of external observation or scientific research, so too is the will a byproduct of our actions: we experience it through our external activities. Yet, in the process of observation, we overlook something in which the will plays a very significant role. After all, even if we initially look only at our transient physical life, we live in time. Each of us looks back on the time leading up to our birth and knows that a time will come leading up to our death. We live in time. But we do not merely live in time; rather, we, so to speak, come into being in time; we develop in time. And anyone who can cast a thoughtful gaze into their inner self knows that it is not merely, let us say, the constitution of their body, nor merely their upbringing; they know that with the help of their physical constitution, their upbringing, and other means, they themselves are working on their transformation, on their development. After all, we are different people in every phase of our lives, and we are always actively participating in becoming different.

[ 33 ] This inner work, insofar as it originates from within ourselves, is necessary—if I may use the paradoxical expression—to take into our own hands and to practice self-discipline. That is to say, not merely to allow self-education and self-development to take place unconsciously, but rather to consciously work on one’s transformation using those methods—I will speak more specifically about this tomorrow; I have described them in my books How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and An Outline of Esoteric Science—that can be applied. This leads to the realization that this conscious reworking is a very essential process of the will. And one actually comes to know the will only when one takes self-discipline into one’s own hands.

[ 34 ] This, however, imparts certain powers to the human soul from two directions, through which it is now possible to gain entirely different starting points for the study of the soul than have actually existed up to now. And above all: Anyone who has sharpened their thinking in the way intended by these methods comes to view the entire course of human life in a different way than is otherwise possible. They come to truly observe, for the first time, this earlier spiritual life that always accompanies us. They come to grasp certain moments in this inner life and truly bring them into their field of vision—into their spiritual field of vision—which cannot be achieved by any other means than through those concepts and those inner soul impulses that have been developed in the way I have described. These can take steps and reach the inner life of the soul. Whereas all other concepts merely try in vain to grasp that which is spiritual.

[ 35 ] This leads one to do more than simply acknowledge the unreality of our being in imagination. The first step is to know that imagination is unreal. So no matter how much modern psychology—that is, modern psychology that still works with the old methods—attempts to extract something from these concepts, no matter how much it seeks to rely on the statement “I think, therefore I am” in all its forms, it will never extract a psychological reality from thinking, because we simply do not exist when we think; because in thinking we can find only that which is not truly part of us. The unreality of imagination—that is the first thing that dawns on a person when they are truly able to exert their thinking, when they are willing to exercise self-discipline over their will.

[ 36 ] If one wishes to focus on feeling—which, after all, is what one seeks to observe in the study of the soul—one cannot do so. Why? — That question is answered by the very person who has investigated imagination and will as I have described them. He comes to recognize that feeling, when observed by ordinary means, presents itself as confused. Just as thinking is unreal, so feeling is confused.

[ 37 ] And a third point—which, I would say, is demonstrated precisely by the enlightened study of the soul in our time—a third point becomes particularly clear when one follows the paths I have described: the incomprehensibility of volition. The unreality of imagination, the confusion of feeling, the incomprehensibility of volition.

[ 38 ] Isn’t it true that one need only—I would say—pick up books such as Ziehen’s, which is, in a certain respect, outstanding, to see that it is precisely those who base their views on current scientific conceptions who allow themselves to be misled in the study of the soul. At least they believe so; one can grasp something of this through imagination. Even feeling is merely an intensification of imagination. But the will is completely lost on them. One sees that one is acting. One assumes that something is taking place there. But ordinary concepts cannot penetrate into what the will actually is.

[ 39 ] The task now is to apply those powers of the soul—which have been developed in the manner described—to the life of the soul. And it is best to take feeling as the starting point, rather than imagination, which we will discuss shortly. Nor from the will, but from feeling. And here it becomes clear: one cannot understand feeling by considering just a single moment of human life. What I am feeling right now can never be understood if one considers only this present feeling. What a person is feeling right now can only be understood if one takes into account what came before and what comes after. What is truly remarkable is that, in order to understand feeling, one must conduct genuine, serious research, as is otherwise customary in the natural sciences. Let me begin with a concrete example.

[ 40 ] Let me put it this way: someone sets out to understand Goethe’s feelings in, say, 1790. One struggles by first trying to imagine: How did Goethe feel in 1790? How were his feelings toward the world nuanced, shaded, and so on? Once one has formed some ideas about this, one is led to ask the question: Yes, how does Goethe’s emotional state in 1790, let’s say, compare to his emotional state 15 years earlier, or to his emotional state 15 years later? — The method I have described compels one to arrive at the correct answer. One is ultimately compelled to consider Goethe as a whole, his entire life course. And this will require the science of the soul to examine biographies from the perspective I am now about to characterize. Goethe’s feelings in 1790 would have been completely incomprehensible, even to Goethe himself in 1790. We are only beginning to understand them now that we have the entirety of Goethe’s life before us.

[ 41 ] Let us carefully study what was revealed about Goethe’s nature between 1790 and 1832. And then let us study what influenced Goethe, what was revealed through the innermost depths of his being from his birth, 1749 to 1790, and let us try—as we are otherwise accustomed to doing—to relate scientific phenomena to one another; let us try to view Goethe’s life after 1790 in terms of its effect on what he experienced before 1790—then the particular nuance of feeling, the particular emotional mood of 1790, becomes apparent. Everything we feel at any given moment is an effect of our own future on our own past.

[ 42 ] This is how we will study biographies in the future! This is also how we will view the individual. We will say to ourselves: How remarkable that what is expressed in our feelings already reveals, I would say, the impact of the life to come, but also our entire past life.

[ 43 ] However, one will find in such studies that a certain inner resolve is required. For example, one of the methods for properly addressing the point raised here will be to ask: What is the unique nature of the emotional life of people who died very soon after the point in time under consideration?

[ 44 ] The most interesting insights into a person’s emotional life arise when one considers those individuals who died shortly after the point in time under consideration. This peculiar retroactive effect—which, after all, acts back upon the emotional nuance of that moment—is something that, despite all the resistance the present may offer, will already have unfolded in the future exactly as indicated here. One will come to realize that what lives within a person in the immediate present is the pressure of their future upon their past.

[ 45 ] Because we have preserved the past in our memory and the future is shrouded in darkness, we also experience the confusion of our emotional life and the mystery of our feelings. If we now truly wish to delve into the human being in a spirit of inquiry, is the next step then to try to understand the life of the imagination, to ask ourselves: What is it, actually, in a human being that allows them to imagine, to decide to have this or that thought? — No one can answer this question who is not capable of making a proper observation. This is the observation of the moment of waking up.

[ 46 ] Just as a future theory of the soul will not be based on all the fine-sounding phrases currently found in books on the soul—in so-called “psychologies”—regarding feeling, so too will a future theory of the soul not be based on the so-called “observation” of imagination — for that leads to nothing more than empty phrases, tautological empty phrases that contain no reality — but the study of the soul will feel compelled to connect itself to a reality, though one that lies beyond ordinary life: waking up. For ordinary life, waking up happens in an instant. After all, a person moves from sleep into waking life, and rarely has the opportunity, amid the disorder of waking, to reflect on how he or she has awakened. But even if they did, they could not comprehend it at all with ordinary imagination. They can only understand it when they bring themselves to form such a conception as I have described—as the result of meditative imagination, of meditative thinking.

[ 47 ] There, however, the human being is—I would say—thrown into the abyss, in that he must recognize something unreal in his imagination. But in return, this imagination is refined and made inwardly strong. And it is only through this that the human being is truly able to observe the moment of awakening.

[ 48 ] The method—as I said, we will describe it in greater detail tomorrow—that spiritual science employs in this field enables the researcher to approach a moment such as that of waking up in the same way that a natural scientist approaches an electrostatic machine or some other apparatus, or as he stands before an observation provided by nature. And then, before the imagination that has thus been strengthened or transformed, the moment of waking appears in such a way that one can look directly into it and say to oneself: Here you emerge from a world that, from falling asleep to waking up, is—and was—just as permeated by thoughts as your waking life is permeated by thoughts.

[ 49 ] This is the great discovery that can be made. Certainly, some individuals have sensed it. You will find references to it everywhere in the works of certain psychologists, particularly in the form of the statement: “Even if one does not know that one is dreaming constantly, one is dreaming constantly.” But one does not merely dream—this is the discovery made through concentrated thinking—one does not merely dream, but one learns to recognize: The consciousness one has while awake during the day is something entirely different from being filled with thoughts. It is a looking at the thoughts one has during the day. One simply cannot look at the thoughts that fill one from the moment of falling asleep until waking up in this way—namely, because at the moment of waking—if one does not have this sharpened, focused thinking, which must first be cultivated—one forgets at that moment what has been experienced during the night while asleep.

[ 50 ] And that is precisely a great, significant moment in which one begins to realize: You emerge from a life of thought that remains unconscious to ordinary consciousness; you emerge from a veritable sea, from a veritable flood of thoughts.

[ 51 ] And this leads to another observation. Only when one is able to look in this way at that flood of thoughts that also coursed through the soul when it is not in waking consciousness does one realize why one is unaware of these thoughts in waking consciousness. For one realizes: At that moment of waking, one cannot take in everything one has experienced in the soul during the entire time of sleep; one cannot take that into the body while awake during the day. But the body is the only instrument for thinking. You must use the body. You cannot draw in what peruses your soul in your nighttime thoughts. The body is unsuited to receiving it.

[ 52 ] And now, once one has recognized the actual process underlying this, once one has recognized that one does in fact live in a spiritual world while asleep—a world that cannot enter into the nature of physicality, which exists in and of itself and is characterized precisely by the fact that it cannot enter into it— once one has recognized this through contemplation and observation, then one can find the transition from this experience to ordinary imagination, to ordinary thought-formation.

[ 53 ] For exactly the same thing that takes place in a certain way as a kind of reality when one wakes up—that very same thing takes place, only in a figurative way, when one moves from ordinary daydreaming or from the ordinary mere observation of the external world to a mental image, to the formation of a thought. The formation of a thought, the formation of a mental image, is nothing other than an awakening that is, in relation to reality, a shadowed form. We awaken the very moment we form any thought.

[ 54 ] And this will be the significance of the new science of the soul: that it is able to recognize that waking is not limited to that distinctive moment in the morning when we rub our eyes upon waking from sleep, but that we are constantly waking up. And it is only in a particularly intense form, and translated into reality, that what is a force governing our entire life—insofar as we form ideas and thoughts—manifests itself in the moment called “awakening.” Thus, the force that reveals itself to us in awakening, and in the formation of thoughts, permeates us continuously.

[ 55 ] But this also shows us that this act of thinking corresponds to a world that cannot enter the human organism at all. When we think, however, we must reduce reality to images because our body compels us to do so. Reality is not allowed in, as the moment of waking up shows us. But we also come to recognize that we could not have these images of imagination if the spiritual essence, the spiritual reality, did not exist within our body. And from there, having progressed on the one hand from waking to imagining, we have now gained the possibility of stepping back from waking to a significant moment in life—the moment of birth, or let us say, conception. We have gained this ability by awakening within ourselves that inner spiritual power which allows us to recognize that imagination is a continuous process of awakening.

[ 56 ] If one possesses this spiritual power, it in turn enables one, from the perspective of observing the process of awakening, to look back upon what might be called the entry into the physical-sensory world. This will be discussed in more detail in the third lecture.

[ 57 ] You can see from this that modern psychology, as spiritual science seeks to develop it, is based on actual observation; however, it brings about this observation not through the observations we already have, but through the concepts we must first acquire in the science of the soul—concepts we must cultivate within the soul itself. The important thing here is precisely to recognize that our imagination exists only in a pictorial form and that, as we enter physical life, the imagination must therefore take on this pictorial character because physical life cannot directly perceive the reality of the soul.

[ 58 ] One comes to realize that images of the entire prenatal—or, let us say, the spiritual-soul life preceding conception; just as, at the moment of waking, all the thoughts we have experienced from falling asleep until waking up appear before our soul, so too, if we methodically continue our observations, the spiritual-soul experience that became connected with the physical body upon the human being’s entry into this physical life appears before us independently. There is, in fact, a direct progression, on the one hand, from an understanding of the moment of waking to a mental image. On the other hand, this enables one to proceed from observing the act of waking to the human being’s entry into earthly life.

[ 59 ] What is unbelievable to people today about these things is simply that—as the spiritual researcher knows as well as anyone else—one must, of course, say: “Yes, I don’t understand any of this; I can’t form any concept of it.” — But that is precisely the point; that is exactly what matters: that one cannot approach these things at all through ordinary imagination. That is the first great discovery one makes, and that is what is at stake. It is only by acquiring powers other than those one already possesses that one is able to observe the spiritual and soul life prior to birth or conception.

[ 60 ] It is only through a process such as the one I have outlined that one can recognize the imagination in its true spiritual roots.

[ 61 ] On the other hand, this path also leads to the ability to delve deeply into the will. The will—as I have already said—must thereby be raised to a different level than it occupies in ordinary life, than it exists in ordinary life, by taking self-discipline into one’s own hands. This, however, brings about something entirely different from what I have described so far. Up to now, I have described the path toward the images—the path toward the images that broadens one’s gaze beyond birth or conception, but also into the unreal realm of the life of the imagination. We gain certainty of the independence of that which reveals itself in the imagination through the path I have outlined.

[ 62 ] The situation changes when we also come to know the will more precisely through self-discipline. In the imagination cultivated through meditation, we make ourselves, in a certain sense, independent of bodily life. We perceive this independence in that what the body cannot take in—all the thoughts of the night—now enter into consciousness, so that one sees how one truly rises out of a sea of thoughts.

[ 63 ] By taking the discipline of the will into one’s own hands, one feels increasingly dependent on the body. One feels, so to speak, more and more at home with the body. One penetrates deeper and deeper into the body. One arrives at what an external science can never attain. After all, it can only explore—in an external way, by proceeding anatomically and physiologically—the outer aspects of the inner world. Through an inner process, one learns to recognize what actually takes place within the body when one wills, when a volitional impulse takes hold in any way. It sounds highly strange to people today, but one comes to know this bodily life through the will in such a way that one has the same experiences when willing as one otherwise experiences, for example, with hunger and thirst, or with immediate feelings linked to bodily activity. While the act of imagination takes one farther and farther away from bodily life, making one increasingly independent of it, the cultivation of the will leads one to actually experience the will in the same way one otherwise experiences hunger and thirst, satiety, and the like. One arrives at the most everyday sensations connected to bodily life. In particular, one learns to recognize how the thought that transforms into a volitional impulse cannot help but express itself—in one who has developed the will within oneself as I have indicated—as something inner and sensorial, much as this inner state expresses itself when one is hungry. As paradoxical as it may sound to people today: with a cultivated will, one experiences a volitional thought through a feeling of hunger or thirst; you can call it whatever you like.

[ 64 ] The point, then, is to recognize the great difference between the culture of the life of the imagination—which makes us increasingly independent of the nature of our physical life—and the culture of the life of the will, which shows us how, in our everyday existence, it is precisely through the will that we are connected to our physical life.

[ 65 ] But it also becomes apparent—when one proceeds in this way to observe the will, when this observation of the will truly becomes as much an inner experience as the sensations of hunger and thirst—that there is something within this will which, every time a volitional impulse is formed, proves to be very similar to the moment when a human being falls asleep. And one now also learns to recognize, I would say, the mystery of falling asleep—this peculiar transition into the unconscious state. This proves to be entirely parallel, in terms of observation, to allowing a thought impulse to penetrate the will. The volitional decision that is made proves to be a process of falling asleep that has begun but has not been carried through to completion.

[ 66 ] And now one comes to know the opposite of what one previously learned through the practice of visualization. Through visualization, one discovers that the spiritual-soul aspect one experiences from falling asleep until waking up cannot enter. That spiritual-soul aspect, which expresses itself in the will, cannot leave the body during the ordinary waking state; it is held back. And this kind of holding back manifests as the power of the will. When it is released—when it is no longer held back by the body—the moment of falling asleep occurs.

[ 67 ] This will be the other starting point for modern psychology: To find the connection between the will and falling asleep—between the spiritual-soul aspect, which can no longer be held in check and then unites with the universal cosmos through the human body, and the act of falling asleep—just as we have found the connection in another way between the formation of ideas and waking up. If one then learns to recognize what is actually happening on the other side as it manifests in falling asleep—and how intimately related this is to every impulse of the will—then, through the line one has drawn in one’s research between falling asleep and willing, one regains the inner soul power to extend that line toward the other side. By investigating imagination, one has gained the ability to look back to the spiritual-soul life before birth—or, let us say, before conception. In this way, one can explore the other line in the opposite direction. First, one traces the line from falling asleep to the will. One discovers the kinship between the impulse of the will and falling asleep. Then, with the strength one has thereby acquired inwardly, one traces the human soul life beyond falling asleep, and then the other side of human existence reveals itself: death. For then the intimate kinship between the will—the force that lives in the act of volition—and death becomes apparent. A significant discovery that has taken place here will be made quite systematically by natural science itself in the not-too-distant future; it will substantiate what spiritual science must establish from the other side. For natural science will show—and in part it is already on this path—that everything connected with impulses of the will is connected with certain toxic phenomena, with the formation of certain poisons, with everything that leads the human being in the same direction toward which he is led when he faces death.

[ 68 ] The forces that enable human beings to unfold their impulse of will are the forces that are on the path toward death. And how are they on this path toward death? If imagination is merely an image—a reflection, so to speak, of its true reality—then volition is embryonic, a mere seed, so to speak. And our ability to will is based on our capacity to hold a certain force within that mere seed.

[ 69 ] If you imagine the seed of a plant and then the entire plant as it develops, you have the image that you can apply to what spiritual research reveals regarding the will; for what we call the will—that which we express as an inner force in every single impulse of the will—is an embryonic dying. Just as we are constantly awakening, constantly being born, by turning to thought, we are constantly dying by exercising our will. The power of dying lies within us; we merely dampen it—dampen it precisely through the nature of our physical life—keeping it within our physical life and releasing it briefly when we fall asleep, allowing the body to recover. But the power we carry within us through our ability to unfold impulses of the will—this power is the embryo of the very force with which the soul passes through the gate of death.

[ 70 ] Thus, the most everyday concepts—the concepts of imagination itself and of volition—are linked to the great fundamental questions of existence. We look beyond physical life when we truly learn to understand imagination and volition. Empty phrases have come to represent imagination, feeling, and volition—I will discuss other concepts in the following lecture—because we have not yet managed to apply the true mode of thinking in natural science, the observational approach, to the life of the soul as well. As a result, the entire study of the soul has, in a sense, become a scholarly squabble.

[ 71 ] Isn’t it true that those who fixate on certain concepts—even if they are nothing but empty phrases—ultimately believe they are actually thinking something when they use these words? That’s more or less how it works in today’s conventional psychology as well. But the person living life—who wants to know where they stand at the boundaries of this life—realizes they are dealing with empty phrases; what is written in conventional theories of the soul simply offers them nothing. These conventional theories of the soul stem from a way of thinking that simply lacks the courage to truly transform imagination and volition in the manner described. For if one does transform them, new perspectives emerge for explaining feeling, imagination, and volition.

[ 72 ] I will discuss other matters in the third lecture. However, certain concepts arise that present feeling as the result of one’s entire life between birth and death, imagination as the result of life before birth or conception, and volition as the embryonic, germinal aspect of that which we carry beyond death.

[ 73 ] One cannot arrive at any real, meaningful understanding of thinking, feeling, and willing unless one begins to view life as a whole in the way it has been described today, thereby moving from waking and falling asleep to being born and dying.

[ 74 ] It must be said, however—tomorrow I will have to justify before the Forum of Natural Sciences what I have presented today as findings—it must be said that the kind of thinking required to make sense of these matters must have the courage to break with many things.

[ 75 ] But do not believe that someone who has arrived at such conclusions—which must rightly seem paradoxical, perhaps even foolish, to people today, especially to contemporary scientists—that someone, if he has taken the matter seriously, has not gone through everything that others who doubt it also know. Refuting this matter is easy. And all the objections that can be raised could be dealt with in the same way that Eduard von Hartmann proceeded back then—albeit in a less important matter—when, based on his philosophy of the unconscious—as I have already mentioned—he attempted to refute the materialistic-Darwinist concepts that were prevalent at the time. At that time, the natural scientists—and indeed, famous natural scientists—said: “Oh, he’s just a philosophical dilettante! He doesn’t know anything about real science.” One can overlook that. — A wide variety of counter-writings appeared against this “dilettante,” reflecting roughly the same mindset held today by those very intelligent people who shake their heads at the ideas that can be, I might say, preliminarily communicated today from the future doctrine of the soul. Counter-writings appeared, including one by an anonymous author, someone who did not give his name: “The Unconscious from the standpoint of physiology and the theory of descent.” And lo and behold, Darwin’s biographer, Oskar Schmidt, Ernst Haeckel, and other Darwinists praised this work as stemming from a true scientific way of thinking, in contrast to the dilettante Eduard von Hartmann. And one of them said: “Let this anonymous author reveal himself to us; we regard him as one of our own!” — Another said: “I myself could not have said anything better against Eduard von Hartmann’s treatise.” — And these people contributed greatly to the treatise selling out very quickly. A second edition was needed very soon. Then the author revealed his identity; he was no longer anonymous: It was Eduard von Hartmann!

[ 76 ] He had once taught a lesson to those who are unable to truly put themselves in the shoes of that which encompasses everything they themselves know—and quite a bit more.

[ 77 ] Well, in this way, the science of the spirit could provide complete refutations of itself. I myself once attempted, in Prague, to first refute the science of the spirit in two consecutive public lectures, and then to establish its validity. Refutation is, of course, much easier than establishing validity. But something else is far more significant. We really ought to tell ourselves this today, especially in light of certain things that have happened again very recently: Humanity has so much to unlearn, and indeed, quite a few people have recently taken the trouble to unlearn one thing or another. Must it really be external coercion that leads people to unlearn? Admittedly, for many people it will time and again be external compulsion that leads them to rethink their views, but today is truly a time when it is necessary to engage in a kind of self-reflection, that kind of self-reflection which, in turn, leads one to realize how the step taken into the soul—into the unreal—originates from the clear scientific concepts that lead from triumph to triumph, or from other contemporary conceptions; how only such an exploration of the soul’s powers, as has been described today, can lead into the soul, and that one can come to acquire the power for this exploration from within oneself, and that, on the other hand, modern natural science itself—for those who truly understand the essence of this science—leads into spiritual science. That is precisely what I would like to demonstrate tomorrow.

[ 78 ] In the third lecture, further details will be presented regarding the foundation of that science of the soul, the findings and general approach of which have been outlined today. In any case, by establishing this modern science of the soul, spiritual science will bring it out of the realm of academia and make it available to those who seek a science of the soul’s life that can serve human existence, particularly in relation to its most perplexing questions.

[ 79 ] Anyone who delves more deeply into the science of the soul as it is practiced today, and then into the science of the soul as pursued by spiritual science—as understood here—will find that: The study of the soul as it is taught today at our universities—and as is repeatedly attempted—leads either to empty phrases or to what it has led a serious, profound person like Franz Brentano to conclude: that one can make no further progress at all. One will be able to move forward only if this study of the soul is grounded in spiritual science.

[ 80 ] It will then truly lead us from the temporal aspect of human life—as we shall see in the third lecture—into the eternal realm of the human soul. It will show that in the future, if people are unwilling to follow the path outlined here, there will either be no doctrine of the soul at all, or one that provides the soul with nourishment that is of no use to it. There will either be no doctrine of the soul, or a useless one, or there will be a doctrine of the soul grounded in spiritual science. This doctrine of the soul requires energy and—I say this without any pretense—inner courage. But the times are such that, by placing people in an external existence that will require a certain amount of courage, it also points to the fact that the treasures, that the achievements of the human inner life, are to be gained not by merely letting things take their course, but solely through bold progress in the life of the soul—namely, through methods that must first be sought, that were not already there.