The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Justification of the Science of the Soul in the Sense of Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] Anyone capable of thoughtfully observing contemporary intellectual life cannot fail to notice that there is something extraordinarily vague about the spiritual quest of a large portion of our contemporaries; that most of these people, when they seek to form ideas about their place in the universe—or, one might say, about their very humanity—find it difficult to determine what they should hold onto.

[ 2 ] If one examines the reasons—through an unbiased consideration of what people encounter in life today, what life offers them—if one examines the reasons that lead to an unclear, an indefinite way of searching, one will likely find that it is precisely something that, in a certain sense, constitutes the hallmark—indeed, the triumph—of our age that, on the other hand, gives rise to this indeterminacy, this lack of clarity. That which has characterized our age—for several centuries now, but especially since the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century— one might say, for the better and, as recent years have shown, also for the worse, is humanity’s admirable progress in terms of scientific understanding—an understanding of the external processes of existence in the world—and in terms of the consequences this entails for immediate practical life.

[ 3 ] It is easy to say—especially when one considers the particular peculiarity of how this scientific insight, this habit of perceiving the world scientifically, affects human beings—that linked to it is the impossibility of penetrating the truly spiritual realm by this means. Perhaps today’s reflections will reveal to some of you, my esteemed audience, how the greatness and triumph of scientific knowledge are connected to the fact that, in its own way, science cannot shed light on the life of the human soul.

[ 4 ] Now, however, this scientific way of thinking, justified by the external authority it possesses, claims in a certain way to shape all the habits of thought of modern human beings. It has—as becomes clear to anyone observing the development of humanity—changed everything in the psychological makeup of human beings with regard to certain modes of perception. If we look back at the way the world was viewed before the dawn of modern intellectual life—we can take Copernicanism as the dividing line from the old era—it becomes clear that people at that time formed conceptions of the world that were vast, suited—as they needed them back then, though they would no longer suffice today— on the one hand to gain insight into the natural processes they encountered at that time, and how these ideas were at the same time suited to shedding light on what lived in their souls as ideas, pulsating as feeling and will. Human beings had, in a sense, unified conceptions of the world that they could direct, on the one hand, toward nature and, on the other, toward their inner selves.

[ 5 ] Today, people do not always realize—because they are not accustomed to properly observing the development of humanity’s spiritual life—just how much today’s ideas differ from the older ideas just mentioned.

[ 6 ] On the other hand—and we will discuss this in detail the day after tomorrow—all religious creeds, which have, after all, more or less survived from ancient times and are echoes of those times, are nourished by what lay at the heart of such ancient conceptions. A certain way of thinking about the human soul and its place in the world has persisted within them. Into this, the authority of the natural sciences has brought a tremendous upheaval. People today are no longer satisfied with what has been handed down to them from ancient times, for they are accustomed to viewing the world scientifically and want science to provide insight into the place of their soul in the universe, in the cosmos, and into its development.

[ 7 ] But it is precisely here that one must admit—even though people have grown accustomed to no longer seeking help from the old authorities when they need guidance regarding their humanity—that what is now offered to them scientifically can satisfy them very little. If one looks at what is officially presented today, for example, as a philosophical theory of the soul, a person who seeks to approach this science of the soul with common sense and an honest soul will find nothing from which he can, so to speak, make something of it. There are striking examples today that show that what I have just said is true.

[ 8 ] There is, for example, a peculiar philosopher — his name is Richard Wahle — who, despite being a professional philosopher—that is, someone who is even called upon to represent philosophy as a science at a university—is, in a peculiar way, dissatisfied with his discipline, which claims to be able to shed light on the most essential aspects of human nature, yet which he cannot in any way credit with being capable of providing such insight.

[ 9 ] I am by no means inclined to give the impression that such individual personalities, with their views, have any profound influence on the thinking or ideas of their contemporaries. On the contrary, I believe the opposite is true: such individuals reveal what is pulsating within thousands upon thousands of our contemporaries. It is simply manifested in a strikingly obvious way in a solitary philosopher who is dissatisfied with his own science.

[ 10 ] Well, this philosopher speaks strangely about his philosophy. He says: The philosophers of earlier times—with whom he is also highly dissatisfied—can be compared to cooks and waiters in a restaurant who serve people spoiled food. Today’s philosophers, however, can be compared to cooks and waiters who stand around idle in a restaurant. — So this philosopher wants to say about his discipline that in the old days it was worthless, unable to shed light on what is most important in human beings, and that today it is not only worthless but offers absolutely nothing at all.

[ 11 ] As strange as it may be that a man who thinks this way about his science should officially represent that science, it is nevertheless understandable that such phenomena occur in our time. For the peculiarity lies in the fact that, ever since the emergence of Copernicanism and Galileanism, ideas have taken shape in the natural sciences that are fundamentally different from the old ideas, which suited both nature and the human spirit just as well, given the needs of that time. Natural science has made progress and has developed concepts that are vastly different from the old ones. To this day, the science of the soul has not undergone such a transformation of its old concepts. Psychology has remained stuck in the old concepts, with which people today simply cannot be satisfied, because they have learned to think about the world in scientific terms, and because an unconscious demand has awakened within them to be able to investigate the soul in the same way that natural science investigates external nature. This creates, I would say, an inner conflict, particularly among the best minds of our age. And this inner conflict manifests itself in the fact that they must acknowledge: In the science of the soul, what is presented consists, in part, of mere words or empty phrases. One seeks to explain what a concept is. One seeks to explain what a feeling is, what volition is. One seeks to proceed from this explanation in order to arrive at the question of whether the human soul is eternal or not. But anyone who approaches these matters with sound judgment, thinking, and imagination will very soon realize that there is actually nothing substantial, nothing real in what is said about spiritual life; that the old concepts have lost their bearing in the face of the compelling nature of scientific concepts; and that new ones have not yet been formed.

[ 12 ] Against this backdrop, there is today an instinctive longing among people for a new science of the soul, for new knowledge about the soul. But there is still no clear understanding in the public consciousness as to the path that should be taken in this search.

[ 13 ] From these foundations—foundations that are deeply rooted in the necessities of human development—has grown what I have already had the opportunity to discuss here on several occasions, from this very place in Bern, and what I would like to discuss again today in relation to certain chapters: what I call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Today, this spiritual science is often viewed as all sorts of things—anything but what it actually is. It is regarded as the offshoot of some sectarian movement of the present, or as something that seeks to establish a new religion, or the like. No, this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science aims to be precisely what modern human beings need most of all. It aims to be that which provides something to hold onto when seeking, in a truly modern sense, to unravel the mystery of human soul life.

[ 14 ] However, the paths that this spiritual science must take are still so unfamiliar to contemporary thinking that a large portion of our contemporaries find the way these things are discussed difficult to understand, while another portion finds them paradoxical or fantastical. Yet this is something that every newly emerging spiritual achievement shares with this anthroposophically oriented view. And so today I would like to speak in particular about the most important questions of the soul and their connection to human physical life from the standpoint of this science; I would like, in particular, to begin by pointing out how this spiritual science is, for the most part, not at all what a large portion of our contemporaries imagine it to be, but rather what is urgently demanded precisely by progress in the natural sciences. This progress in the natural sciences has, I would say, instilled in people a certain habitual way of thinking that is rooted in authority. This is the belief that there are certain limits to knowledge, that these limits cannot be transcended. People tell themselves: Perhaps there is nothing at all beyond these limits of knowledge. On this side of these limits lies only the material world, the world of sensory perception. — So either one must renounce the very idea of a spiritual-soul life, or one must tell oneself that one cannot cross the boundaries that separate us from this spiritual-soul life and must therefore forgo any knowledge of the soul.

[ 15 ] It is precisely this point—this essential point—that appears with great clarity to those who reflect deeply on such matters, yet which, in a vague, subconscious, and instinctive way, troubles all people today who are willing to think at all. From this perspective, the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here begins its search for the soul. For this spiritual science of the soul proceeds from two inner experiences—two experiences that are precisely connected with the emergence of the limits of knowledge in the soul’s quest. It is not that this science of the soul seeks to contradict the natural sciences in a frivolous, amateurish way when the natural sciences find themselves confronted with the limits of knowledge; no, this science of the soul seeks precisely to deal appropriately with the experience of the limits of knowledge in the natural sciences. However, this spiritual science does not merely theorize; rather, it seeks to advance along the path of knowledge with the help of the methods of natural science and the mode of thinking characteristic of natural science. It seeks, with complete inner clarity, to reach the point where one can feel: Here you stand at the limits of knowledge in natural science. — And it then seeks to experience what can be experienced at these limits of knowledge.

[ 16 ] And lo and behold, this science of the soul must first acknowledge these limits of knowledge. Precisely because it does not proceed with blind or amateurish opposition to the natural sciences, but rather familiarizes itself thoroughly with the way the natural sciences conduct research, it arrives at an experience at the limits of knowledge, which I will now describe.

[ 17 ] She tells herself: One can use scientific thinking to trace natural processes, but one will always come to certain cornerstones of knowledge that cannot be transcended—cornerstones in the face of which scientific thinking itself must falter. I could cite many such cornerstones, but since there isn’t time to cover everything, I would like to mention what is usually summarized by the terms “force and matter”—concepts that are very frequently grouped together in this way within the atomistic worldview. I would like to begin with that. When a person trains themselves in the natural sciences, they can see how far they can go in breaking down natural processes, but also how they are then compelled to simply accept certain concepts, certain ideas—namely, force and matter. And how one must then say to oneself: Faced with these concepts—which, admittedly, represent realities in the sensory world—you cannot go any further; you cannot penetrate them with natural science; you must stop there in your understanding of nature. If one does not proceed in a one-sided manner from Kantian views, but rather examines this inner experience at the limits of knowledge with an open mind, one asks oneself: Yes, why is it that this scientific method places us at such a limit, at certain cornerstones of thought—what is the reason for this, really? — People usually do not realize this because they do not organize their thinking in the way I intend to characterize later this evening, and thus do not truly come to observe their inner life. They do not notice that human beings themselves, as they are organized—if I may use that expression—are to blame for the fact that they must come up against such cornerstones.

[ 18 ] People cannot ask themselves: Why is it, actually, that I encounter such cornerstones? They cannot move from one such experience—that of natural science—to another scientific experience, namely, a spiritual experience. But if one can do this, if one acquires a certain capacity for it, the following results: On the one hand, if one has trained oneself in natural science, one has the experience of the limits of knowledge within that natural science. On the other hand, one then attempts to gain clarity about the inner experience one simply has when facing another human being. And one will then notice, having trained one’s inner soul life: It is something entirely different whether one approaches a natural phenomenon with a scientific, analytical mindset or whether one faces a human being and tries to understand that person, to draw close to them in a soulful way. And once you have learned to make comparisons in this area, you realize that the very soul force that enables you to approach another person with understanding—that this same soul force builds a bridge between one person and another and thereby makes human life possible in the first place—that this very soul force, because it is always present between us, because it must always be there, because the human being is a whole, because it cannot be ruled out when we conduct scientific research—that this soul force is what leads us to the cornerstones of the limits of knowledge.

[ 19 ] We simply could not feel love from one person to another, feel sympathy from one person to another, or feel affection, if we did not possess this spiritual power, which—if one may say so—stands in the way of scientific understanding. Because the human being is a whole, because he must also possess the power of love, and because this power of love is constantly at work—it cannot remain silent when we engage in scientific inquiry—the limits of natural science become apparent. The very same power that causes us to incline toward others with love is the very same power that sets the boundaries of natural science for us. This is what becomes clear to the spiritual researcher: If natural science were not subject to limits, human beings would be beings incapable of love!

[ 20 ] You see, this is the one important experience which, I would say, must set the soul’s inner driving forces in motion so that one may arrive at what I here call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. One must not be opposed to the natural sciences; one must be able to engage with them and be trained in them if one wishes to be scientifically active in spiritual knowledge. But one must turn what the natural scientist usually treats merely as theory into an experience, and from that experience it then becomes clear that things are as I have just explained—namely, the unique interplay between the cognitive faculties of natural science and the human capacity for love.

[ 21 ] Some people recognize this consciously, others unconsciously. They sense it instinctively. They then turn in a different direction, seeking to go beyond the limits of scientific knowledge to attain an understanding of the soul. There they embark, more or less clearly or obscurely, on mystical paths, seeking what natural science cannot offer them through the path of so-called self-knowledge—a form of mysticism that is more or less clear or obscure.

[ 22 ] You can see from what I have stated that one cannot arrive at a study of the soul through the methods of natural science—this is precisely what the experience I have spoken of teaches. But one also does an injustice to the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here if one confuses it with what is commonly called mysticism today. For just as the experience reveals to the spiritual researcher the impossibility of scientific knowledge in the realm of the soul—an experience the spiritual researcher must have undergone— he must also have undergone the other experience—which reveals to him the impossibility of ordinary mysticism in penetrating the life of the soul—in order to have the correct starting point.

[ 23 ] The anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here is neither an imitation of natural science—although, as I have shown, it is by no means amateurish in relation to natural science—nor is it what is commonly called mysticism or the like. But it must have undergone the mystical experience, just as it must have undergone the experience with natural science. Just as it must have reached the limits of scientific knowledge, so, on the other hand, it must have come to realize the impossibility of penetrating the inner life of the human being via a mystical path and thereby finding the core of human soul life—the connection with the infinite and the eternal. The researcher of the spirit must also be well acquainted with the limits of mysticism. It must have become clear to him that, when he searches along the paths so often described as “mystical,” he enters into a realm of the indeterminate that ultimately tells him nothing. Of course, this initially expresses itself merely as a feeling. If he investigates further, he will find that there is also an inner power of the soul at work that prevents him from arriving at a study of the soul through mystical means—just as, in the sense I have just shown, the capacity for love prevents one from arriving at a study of the soul through scientific means.

[ 24 ] The following becomes apparent: No matter how hard a person may strive with the ordinary consciousness that we use in everyday life—which we continue to use in science, albeit in a somewhat more methodical form—and no matter how much that person attempts, with this consciousness, to descend into their inner being—what is commonly called “mystical research”— they arrive at nothing other than what has, in the course of ordinary life between birth and death—up to the present moment in which the mystical inquiry is being undertaken—in some way crept into the life of the soul. On this point, natural scientists who are naturally inclined toward mysticism are caught in a great deal of confusion. They often believe that through inner soulful contemplation they can draw out this or that which might shed light on the mysteries of this inner life. But we have already advanced so far in clear-sighted research—including into the natural processes of the human being itself—that we can no longer be led astray by such inner contemplation, provided we proceed thoroughly. To illustrate this, I will cite an example from philosophy, so to speak, although I could multiply it a hundredfold from my own experience. However, so that it can be verified, I will cite it from the literature. You will find it in the treatises on the borderline questions of nervous and sensory life, published in Wiesbaden. One of these writings deals with “The Subconscious Self, Its Relationship to Health and Education.” An interesting case is recounted there. Louis Waldstein, who wrote the treatise, speaks of a personal experience. He says that he was once walking down the street when he stopped in front of a bookstore because a scientific book on mollusks caught his eye. He wanted to remember the title of this book on mollusks. He looked at it with the eye of a naturalist. And lo and behold, he had to smile. Now, just imagine: a naturalist stands in front of a bookstore, sees a book on mollusks—and has to smile, without even knowing why he has to smile! Then it occurs to him: I’ll close my eyes for a moment; perhaps I’ll realize why I had to smile. — He closed his eyes, and lo and behold: what he hadn’t noticed while he’d been paying attention to everything else—before he’d closed his eyes—was the sound of a barrel organ in the distance. They were the same notes that had accompanied him when he’d taken dance lessons decades ago. Even back then, he’d paid attention to those notes; they’d interested him—how he was supposed to do the steps—or perhaps they’d reminded him of his dance partner. So the notes that corresponded precisely to that melody were the ones that had stuck in his mind. He’d forgotten them. But now, decades later, something deep within his soul compels him to smile as these notes resound again—to smile while looking at a book about mollusks. They ring out in his mind quite vaguely, subconsciously. But he cannot help but smile as he looks at a book about mollusks.

[ 25 ] You can see how this inner life of the soul actually unfolds, and how little one is inclined—as you can gather from this—to pay attention to this inner life of the soul and its structure in everyday life.

[ 26 ] The connoisseur of this inner life of the soul, however, knows, first of all, that much of what a person believes they have certainly not experienced—but rather draws originally from the soul—is nothing other than some reminiscence from childhood, youth, or the like. For example, as a mystic, one is often inclined to believe that one can draw something out of one’s own soul; yet in doing so, one is merely drawing upon one’s memories from youth or the like. But the connoisseur of this inner life knows even more. He knows that not only do these impressions—which often enter the soul quite vaguely—resurface just as they entered, but that they can transform over time, that they become something entirely different, indeed, that they undergo a symbolic transformation, no longer resembling the original in their course when they resurface. And yet one is dealing with nothing other than what one has just brought up. Thus there are many a mystic who draws from his subconscious perceptions of the divine, of the eternity of the soul—great truths, as he believes—and lo and behold: These great truths are nothing other than—figuratively speaking—the transformed notes of a barrel organ that have remained as reminiscences. I merely wish to point out how necessary it is, when speaking of mysticism, to pay attention to these things.

[ 27 ] Truly, the anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here is not some scientific gimmick; it is not something that fails to take into account the kinds of transformations taking place that I have just described. It is thoroughly grounded in science. And because it is, and seeks to be, thoroughly grounded in science, it looks clearly at what constitutes the inner life of the soul. And there it arrives at the conclusion that, based on the methods—the methodological approach—which I will characterize in a moment, there is an inner soul force that prevents us from descending at all into what is the eternal core of the human soul.

[ 28 ] Just as—as I described earlier—our capacity for love prevents us from penetrating into the innermost essence of nature and sets limits on our understanding of nature, so there is a power of the soul that prevents us from descending into our own innermost being. And this inner power of the soul is a very ordinary one; it is one without which our ordinary life and our ordinary consciousness cannot be healthy. It is simply the ability to remember, which holds us together as human beings in consciousness between birth and death. This capacity for memory prevents us from looking inward into our eternal being, for with the ordinary consciousness that we develop in everyday life and in ordinary science, we can look only as far as that surface from which the experiences we have absorbed are reflected back. And so, through the capacity for memory, limits are set within us—limits that the mystic experiences.

[ 29 ] This is the second experience. One is that in the natural sciences one cannot enter the realm of the soul; the other—which must first inspire one to research and from which one must proceed—is that through mysticism one cannot truly penetrate into the innermost depths, because the power of memory stands in the way.

[ 30 ] By truly and intensely experiencing anthroposophically oriented spiritual research from within—by having gone through these things through inner experiences—one gains, I would say, precisely from the disappointments of these inner experiences, from the inner “tragedy” of these experiences, the strength to go further. And what does this “further” consist of? This “further” consists, on the one hand, in the resolve to refrain from attempting to penetrate the mysteries of things with the ordinary consciousness one employs in ordinary life and in ordinary science; but also, at the same time, in the other resolve to now seek a different consciousness, to seek a different power of the soul. From what he gains from these two experiences, the spiritual researcher’s ability is kindled to find a consciousness different from ordinary consciousness.

[ 31 ] This will be what the new doctrine of the soul must add to the old one—which is no longer valid today— is that one cannot at all gain insight into the life of the soul in the sense of modern consciousness and thought—neither through the natural sciences nor through mysticism using ordinary consciousness—but that this consciousness itself must develop into a different one; that a different consciousness must spring forth from ordinary, everyday consciousness. For this reason, the anthroposophically oriented spiritual scientific research referred to here develops methods through which a science is sought that does not merely investigate according to the rules of ordinary consciousness, but first prepares the human soul for a different consciousness—a different state of consciousness—in which one then investigates the life of the soul. In this way, this newer theory of the soul regains the ability not merely to speak of words, as I indicated earlier—as the official theory of the soul does today—but rather to approach realities, spiritual realities.

[ 32 ] I will now merely outline, in general terms, what you will find clearly explained in my books, for example in How Does One Gain Insight into the Higher Worlds? or in my Occult Science regarding methods for developing a consciousness that can lead into the true mysteries of soul life. The point here is to first cultivate within the soul that which can become a certain inner soul force—but which, I would say, transforms—or rather, metamorphoses—the very power of memory. For it is the power of memory, as I have explained, that prevents us from penetrating into the very core of the human soul.

[ 33 ] Now, among the methods of inner spiritual development described in the writings I have cited, you will find perspectives on how to cultivate inner spiritual practices that do not rely on the power of recollection or memory.

[ 34 ] On this point, perhaps—truly not out of silly personal vanity, but because the subjective and the objective are intimately intertwined here—I may mention how, decades ago, I came to see the difficulties involved in transforming one’s inner spiritual power in order to embark on a journey of spiritual exploration. Of course, the personal experience I wish to recount is, in itself, a highly insignificant one, but it was truly decisive for me decades ago. Whenever I had to complete a math test at school, I always found it difficult to finish the assignment, even though I was actually—and I say this not out of vanity, but simply as a fact—a very good student in math. I had no interest, I would say, in calculating with mathematical, algebraic, or geometric formulas. After all, someone else would have simply worked out the calculation using the formulas. I felt an inner compulsion to first derive the formula on the margin, to do everything necessary to arrive at the formula; I had no interest in simply memorizing the formulas; rather, I was more interested in practicing those mental processes that take place in the immediate present and are not mere remnants of memory. I wanted to experience these things in the immediate present. I came to realize that this non-reliance on memory might indeed stem from an innate disposition of the soul. And that was, for me, the starting point for continuing to search for the methods you will find described in the books mentioned—methods that consist of using a meditative approach, if we want to call it that, to develop the imagination to such an extent that this imagination becomes as vivid within a person as the inner life of the soul otherwise is in perception.

[ 35 ] Isn’t it true that when we perceive the external world, our senses are accompanied by thought? There is a certain vitality in our inner life when we perceive through our senses and accompany those perceptions with our mental images. But we only accompany our external perceptions with our thinking. In meditation, one does things differently. In meditation, one uses mental images that one has formed oneself, that one can clearly grasp, and about which one knows precisely: They are not perceptions, not reminiscences, not something borrowed from memories or extracted from phenomena, but rather they are something one has created oneself, something one can clearly grasp.

[ 36 ] One brings such images into one’s inner consciousness, surrenders to them, and gradually strengthens one’s inner power so that the inner soul—without forming an image through external perceptions—becomes just as vivid as the soul’s dwelling in sensory perception, accompanied by images. But one notices something else by truly cultivating this spiritual exploration through a life of meditation—even if it often takes a very long time and must be pursued intensively. Here the peculiarity becomes apparent: the images one then forms—precisely the most essential, important, and fundamental ones—must constantly be recreated and do not pass into memory. These are images that live in the soul without appealing to the faculty of memory.

[ 37 ] What I am telling you now is simply experience; it is something that can only be described. Of course, anyone can say that it must first be proven. It is proven through inner experience. Not through spiritualist séances, not through any external, mechanistic means, but solely by evoking this entirely different kind of consciousness—one that does not appeal to memory—does one set out on the path to gain insight into true spiritual life. For only such perceptions, which do not appeal to memory, are capable of leading a person into spiritual life.

[ 38 ] However—and this is another experience—at first they provide him only with images of this spiritual life. Whereas when a person perceives through the senses, they immediately have the feeling—no matter how much epistemologists may object to this, I could justify it all—that they are he is facing reality—a person knows just as well that when he advances to such concepts that do not appeal to memories, as I have described, he can experience something with these concepts that he cannot otherwise experience in any way, but only in images. Through this stage of inner soul life, which they have reached in this way, they are now clearly aware that just as a person relates to the sensory environment through their body, so too do they relate with their soul—something they cannot imagine or know through ordinary consciousness—to a spiritual world that, at first, appears to them only in images. This is the great experience without which a science of the soul—both in the present and the future—is impossible, for the old one is no longer useful, precisely because it is rendered useless by the scientific way of thinking.

[ 39 ] The significant point is that a different kind of consciousness can truly spring forth from ordinary consciousness, and that this different consciousness is what first provides clarity on the matter: Human beings are not only surrounded by a sensory world, but they are also surrounded by a spiritual world. And just as every human being is present with their body in the sensory world, so too are they present with their soul in a spiritual world—a world of spiritual-macrocosmic beings. When a person has the experience I have just described, they cease to speak in terms of vague pantheism: “There is spirit, and spirit, and spirit…” [gap in the postscript]. Pantheism is nothing but an unclear, illusory, and blurred view of the world. What emerges—albeit initially only as an image—is a concrete spiritual world that presents itself to the soul in details, in spiritual beings, just as the sensory world presents itself to the soul in concrete details. But these are images.

[ 40 ] That is the sole reason why, in my writings, I refer to the level of consciousness to which a person ascends through such meditative means as “imaginative consciousness,” or, initially, “imaginative pictorial consciousness.” The spiritual world approaches the human being just as, when he uses his eyes, the sensory world confronts him in colors, in light and darkness. But even when he merely develops his life of imagination, he is aware that he is dealing with images. You see, it is a development of the life of imagination that enables the human being to look into the spiritual world in this way. If a person wishes to go not only to images but—in the sense of spiritual science as understood here—beyond the images to spiritual realities, to the reality of spiritual beings, then they must develop not only their life of imagination in this way but also their life of will. Just as, in ordinary consciousness, we actually only— I might say, imagine as an afterthought—we perceive, and from that perception we develop imagination, forming thoughts about the external world, but in ordinary consciousness this is actually more or less a byproduct—so, for ordinary consciousness, what lives in the will is also a byproduct.

[ 41 ] As a rule, we can only observe the will by directing our actions toward the external world. But this does not allow us to truly understand the will. I could cite many examples here from recent psychology based on scientific thinking. You need only read a book such as Ziehen’s Physiological Psychology to find confirmation: when we reflect on the will, we never reach a conclusion. This is a realm into which one does not usually gain insight. With ordinary consciousness, one sees only that a person transitions from their inner life to an outer life—to external relationships with the world—by gradually transforming their volition into action, so that their outer life becomes an imprint of the impulses of their volition. However, observing this volition with ordinary consciousness does not take us any further; it does not allow us to penetrate the essence of this volition.

[ 42 ] And this is the point: Just as imagination has been developed in the manner just mentioned into imaginative cognition by establishing a certain relationship to memory and the capacity to recall, so too must a certain relationship between human volition and the capacity for love be established in a unique way. This relationship is established by, as it were, bringing inner light into the will, so that the human being becomes much more active inwardly with regard to the will than he or she usually is. Through this, he or she will be able to bring the will into an entirely different sphere.

[ 43 ] I would like to illustrate my point once again with a very simple example. Many people do not notice such things in life; yet they are there. Among other things, people can also write; every person has their own handwriting. But there are two kinds of writing ability. There are different kinds of writing ability! One consists in having a certain handwriting that emerges from within a person, as if through the body’s constitution. One has one’s own handwriting. One simply cannot help but—I would say—direct the movement of the hand in a certain way, and the handwriting becomes natural in a certain way, just as one holds a spoon in a certain way when eating, or does something else out of habit; one writes, in fact, as a result of one’s physical constitution.

[ 44 ] But there is another way of writing that occurs among a number of people whom one usually overlooks. This is the way in which one actually draws or paints what is written, in which one’s imagination is fully engaged, and in which one sketches out the letters like a draftsman or painter. This type of handwriting is very common among people who, in their youth, greatly admired a particular teacher or some other authority figure whose handwriting they imitated.

[ 45 ] This is merely meant to illustrate that, in ordinary writing, a person habitually engages their entire being. However, they can also incorporate into their writing elements that otherwise operate only in the realm of the intellect or cognition; they can incorporate observation and imagination into their writing. Yet these are intrinsically connected. Just as it is connected to love—when a person spends their entire life imitating letters as if they were a painter or draftsman—so, strangely enough, love objectively always intrudes into the will when observation joins the will, when the ability to accompany the will through observation joins the will. How, then, can this be achieved? Well, one can achieve it through strict self-discipline, specifically in the following manner.

[ 46 ] In life—as every person knows—we evolve. Anyone who can look back even a little on the course of their life knows that ten years ago, they had a completely different inner state of mind than they do today. Not only do we change as a result of the new experiences we have gained, but we also truly change in that our habits of thought become different, even if this change is less pronounced than the sum of our inner experiences and the like. But for the most part, we do this unconsciously. Life, our upbringing, and our circumstances are what move us forward.

[ 47 ] Anyone who wishes to engage in spiritual research must learn to consciously pursue this inner development. In other words, they must develop the power within themselves to truly become something else through their mere imagination, through their mere ideas. This is simply part of the method of spiritual research, part of the preparation for spiritual research. One cannot penetrate into the innermost depths of spiritual life unless one has first gone through the process of becoming capable of incorporating impulses for one’s own development through imagination.

[ 48 ] Just think about how ordinary life plays out in this regard. People often have the very best of intentions when they resolve to abandon this or that trait or to acquire this or that trait. They do acquire other traits, but through upbringing, through circumstances, and through their external lives. But their inner spiritual life, in mere imagination, is not strong enough to influence the will.

[ 49 ] This, in turn, is achieved through the methods described in the books mentioned, which enable the very innermost being of the human person to become attuned to the will. Then a special development of the capacity for love takes place. While, on the one hand, a capacity for spiritual research must be developed that does not rely on memory, on the other hand, a capacity must be developed that infinitely deepens the capacity for love and makes it objective. For what, after all, stands in the way of our innermost ideas changing us? It is nothing other than self-love. And the possibility of changing oneself through mere inner imagination rests on the fact that one can indeed transform self-love into objective love.

[ 50 ] But by proceeding in this way, one comes to draw forth another state of consciousness from the one one experiences in ordinary life. And this other state now enables you to say to yourself: You have formed images through what has been described earlier; you knew that there is a spiritual world around you in which your soul lives, just as your body lives in the sensory world. But now you know: These images correspond to a reality that you encounter by developing within yourself an impulse that is cultivated through systematic efforts in the course of your own self-development. — Now you will not only encounter the images of spiritual beings; now you will encounter spiritual reality itself.

[ 51 ] We have now reached this stage. We have drawn a different kind of consciousness out of ordinary consciousness. Now we truly become capable of gaining insight into human soul life through the abilities I have just described to you. Above all, one thing becomes clear: Isn’t it true that the spiritual researcher can only describe how he arrived at these insights? One might then—and I repeat—easily ask: “Where is your proof?”—The proof lies precisely in the fact that he describes how he arrived at these insights, that these insights can be verified using common sense, and that anyone can reach the same conclusions if they examine the evidence for themselves.

[ 52 ] One possibility that may arise, for example, when one has mastered the abilities of this heightened consciousness, this supersensory consciousness, is that one can now truly gain insight into what was previously impossible—due to the two thresholds mentioned, the mystical and the scientific—namely, that one can now truly gain insight into the state of transition, into the rhythmic alternation in human life between waking and sleeping. For one wakes up differently when one has developed this consciousness. One wakes up in such a way that one now knows clearly upon waking: From the moment you fell asleep until you woke up, you had an inner soul life; not for a single moment were you in any kind of nothingness; you had an inner soul life that is simply very different from the one you experience in the body. Now one realizes how the processes of the soul proceed alongside those of the body, how these processes of the soul are merely drowned out—from waking until falling asleep—by what the human being experiences in the body; yet in reality, from the moment of falling asleep until waking up, a person is in the spiritual world outside their body; and at the very moment when they are about to wake up and enter their body, precisely because they are dependent on their senses to convey knowledge and perception, what was experienced from falling asleep until waking up is erased. The afterglow is certainly there for the human being; but one only becomes clearly aware of how one has lived in the spiritual realm from falling asleep until waking up when one has learned to live in such mental images that do not appeal to the power of memory. For that is precisely what is peculiar: We lead a soul life from falling asleep to waking up, but we forget it because we are trained, in ordinary consciousness, to know only that which we can retain even today for ordinary consciousness. In order for a healthy soul life to exist, we cannot grasp the images of sleep in ordinary consciousness, since they are not intended to become memories in the ordinary sense, but rather to be forgotten. We can only grasp them if we have a soul life that is not predisposed to forgetting, but to remembering.

[ 53 ] So we can say: Just as, when one moves forward in space, one looks back at the space one has traversed—which is something different from memory—so, when one has awakened, when one has reached a certain point in time, one can look back on what one has experienced. Remembering, which is a process of bringing things up from the life of the soul, transforms into an inner beholding, into looking back. However, as one develops these abilities, it follows that the capacities of supersensible consciousness increase more and more, and one becomes increasingly able to truly study the life of the soul.

[ 54 ] One of the first things one can study, for example, is the emotional life. And it is helpful to begin precisely with the emotional life and to orient oneself toward the experience of waking up and falling asleep using the developed faculties of supersensible consciousness. One can now truly approach the reality of the soul’s emotional life. And there something peculiar becomes apparent—something that presents itself directly to perception once one has developed supersensible consciousness, but which can be verified, and verified in an interesting way, in life. For if one examines, with the consciousness I have just spoken of, what feeling is in a human being at any given moment in their life—one can only examine this once one has developed the soul forces that lie within supersensible consciousness; then it can be verified, as I will mention shortly—if one examines the moment of feeling, the emotional life, that which is present in a single moment of feeling, then the remarkable fact emerges that this emotional life in a single moment is a convergence of everything one has previously experienced and everything one is yet to experience.

[ 55 ] After exploring this matter from a spiritual-scientific perspective, I made an effort to substantiate it and verify it using examples that allow for such verification. Take, for instance, Goethe’s spiritual life—the inner emotional processes he experienced, say, in the year 1790. With Goethe, we can really examine things in great detail. Now one can study what Goethe went through up to 1790, what weighed on his soul, what sprouted fruitfully within that soul, and also what Goethe experienced after 1790, up until 1832—what he thought and contemplated. And it is truly the case—you can verify it: If you consider the fundamental character of his experiences after 1790 to be significant, and likewise those from before 1790, you will find Goethe’s emotional state at that point in time, 1790. At any given moment, a person emotionally experiences the convergence of what constitutes their immediate past since birth and what will follow until their death.

[ 56 ] Once the newer theory of the soul has been fully developed, we will obtain interesting results, for example in the following way: We will examine the inner life of people at a certain point in time, shortly before their death. Anyone with an unbiased perspective will see this everywhere: An impending death expresses itself precisely in emotional life; for emotional life is the confluence of what was there before and what is yet to come—what is already present, like a flash of lightning from the future, which has not yet found expression in experiences but is expressed in the emotional tone.

[ 57 ] This is how one comes to understand the inner workings of the life course, which is, after all, primarily a flow of feelings. And now, having examined feeling in this way, one can move on to the examination of the life of the imagination. But one can no longer explain the life of the imagination today in the way that any of the conventional schools of psychology do—it would amount to nothing but empty phrases if one were to explain it that way—but rather, one must have prepared oneself through the development of supersensible consciousness, for example, to truly observe the moment of waking up, to see how waking up consists in the experience making its impression on the physical body. One knows this because one knows that the soul has lived in a spiritual environment from falling asleep until waking up—an environment that is entirely different and can exist only because the soul is outside the body. One therefore knows that waking up is a immersion into the body.

[ 58 ] In this way, one recognizes the independence of the soul. And one now learns to recognize that this awakening of the soul repeats itself, as it were, in short, successive rhythms within ordinary human thinking and ordinary human imagination. These rhythms unfold within the continuous flow of ordinary consciousness—something you hardly notice, but which has been observed in a very interesting way by individual researchers in recent psychology and described in great detail by John Ruskin. Thus, the actual process that takes place is always that there is only a miniature image, a small shadow of the awakening. You are constantly experiencing this awakening as you transition from non-imagination to imagination. This is extraordinarily remarkable; it is extraordinarily important.

[ 59 ] If one comes to understand the nature of imagination in this way, one can build a bridge between imagination and awakening; once one knows that imagination is merely a small awakening, one also knows how the independent spiritual swings back and forth into the physical. And by building the bridge to awakening on the one hand—from imagination to awakening—one can, on the other hand, acquire the ability to build the bridge from awakening to being born or conceived, to that immersion of the soul into the physical body that occurs when the soul, having been present in the spiritual world before being born or conceived, immerses itself into the body.

[ 60 ] Today, spiritual science can point to this continuous path. If one comes to know imagination in its reality, then a direct bridge leads from imagination to awakening—that is, to the observation of the transition of the independent life of the soul into physical life—but from there, a further bridge leads to the perception of the disembodied spiritual life before birth or, let us say, before conception. And whoever can carry what they have developed in supersensible consciousness into ordinary imagination knows that they are now not only looking back on their earlier spiritual life, but also that this earlier spiritual life is active within their present life of imagination.

[ 61 ] This is the point where, as far as I am concerned, people can still laugh or scoff today when spiritual science—of the anthroposophical kind, as meant here—points to a pre-birth, spiritual life of the soul, and also points to previous earthly lives, which one comes to know just as truly through spiritual insight. One may laugh; but the path can be shown by which this can be scientifically investigated, once the possibility of such scientific investigation has first been established.

[ 62 ] This is the point where we can draw attention to how one can proceed just as rigorously and without amateurism as modern science does today, but through the cultivation—the systematic cultivation—of a higher consciousness, and how one can establish a spiritual science that leads us to the eternal core of the human being, leading us to truly know that human beings, with their souls, belong to a spiritual world, just as they belong to a sensory world with their bodies; and that in this spiritual world lies their eternal essence, that they emerge from it—just as they emerge from it upon waking, just as they are born and conceived—and immerse themselves in their physical life, immersing themselves in their life of imagination and feeling.

[ 63 ] On the other hand, one can examine the life of the will through supersensible consciousness. Here, too, a peculiarity becomes apparent.

[ 64 ] If one has cultivated the will through thought and self-discipline, as I have described, then one realizes that the act of willing—the transition from ordinary consciousness to the impulse of the will—bears a great resemblance to, and is in fact identical with, not waking up, but falling asleep.

[ 65 ] If one truly comes to understand the process of falling asleep in supersensible consciousness, one can compare it to the thought: “I want.” Then one learns to recognize that the immersion into the will is, each time, a shadowed miniature image of falling asleep. And one can build a bridge between the process of the will and falling asleep. Natural scientists may deny precisely those scientific findings that could confirm what I have just said. One can build a bridge, I said, from the processes of the will to falling asleep, but then also from the process of the will to death—that is, to the soul’s departure from the physical body and its entry through the gate of death into the spiritual world.

[ 66 ] Whoever understands the will in its reality can, starting from this point, gain true insight—scientific insight—into the true question of immortality. For it is this genuine insight—not the kind of knowledge that modern psychology offers in empty phrases—but a genuine insight that can be acquired in no other way than through the aforementioned comparison of the will with falling asleep; from there, the path leads to death. And just as, through the images we bring to mind, we experience the prenatal period—or the time before conception—which we spend in spiritual life; just as this imagining is a lingering effect, a pictorial lingering effect of our life before birth or before conception—so the life of the will is an embryonic life, which we then, having drawn out of the embryonic stage, bring to full completion after death and carry over into the subsequent earthly life.

[ 67 ] The inner connection between the will, the act of willing, and dying—this must become apparent to the higher consciousness, to the supersensible consciousness. So that if we were to imagine what is still embryonic as a process of the will—which is precisely why it is a process of the will for us—if we were to imagine it intensely heightened, if we were to imagine what takes place within us when we will intensely heightened: What would emerge? Death, death every time, because willing is an embryonic dying. That is why, precisely through willing, we can study what happens during dying. During dying, the same thing happens as when we fall asleep: the soul’s passage from bodily life into the supersensible, into spiritual life.

[ 68 ] The point is not that any fantastical hypotheses are concocted in the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science I am referring to here, but rather that, conscientiously and with genuine scientific training, one proceeds in such a way that one draws upon the experiences I have described, and, drawing on these experiences, kindle the power to develop a different kind of consciousness from ordinary consciousness. Only with this different consciousness is it possible to explore the life of the soul. What is then explored—as I have described in my books—is such that common sense can verify it.

[ 69 ] To investigate this, supersensible consciousness is necessary. Once it is present and the matter has been investigated, anyone can verify it, just as anyone can verify any other science. For it is a general human capacity; it is not a special, divine gift, and so on. The question may now arise: Is the fact that this anthroposophy, as understood here, is emerging precisely at the present time somehow connected to the distinctive impulses of the present?

[ 70 ] Well, at the outset of our evening reflection today, I did say that it is precisely the natural sciences themselves, within their own limits, that challenge this spiritual science. On the other hand, however—as I will have the opportunity to discuss the day after tomorrow—demands are arising in our social, moral, and religious life today that are made by the human soul and cannot be satisfied by the old traditions.

[ 71 ] Just as I was able to show today how this spiritual science comes into being, how it—through truly conscientious research—seeks the immortal in the human soul and arrives at the certainty of the human soul’s immortality through direct perception, so, too, only this spiritual science is capable of accomplishing what I am to present the day after tomorrow—something that many people today believe they can achieve by entirely different means. One cannot investigate the life of the soul unless one penetrates into supersensible consciousness. Similarly, one cannot investigate the foundation of the social structure of human society unless one penetrates, through the means of higher consciousness, into the foundation of moral, religious, and sociopolitical life as we understand it today. It is also historically necessary that human beings, in order to meet the great demands presented to them by the necessities of the world’s development, penetrate with this supersensible consciousness into what people think, do, and will.

[ 72 ] That will be presented the day after tomorrow. Today, however, I simply wanted—I might say—to lay the groundwork for this more contemporary lecture, namely, the justification of the science of the soul in the sense of anthroposophy. And even if I have been able to present only a rough outline of what is at stake here, I nevertheless believe that anyone who looks less at my words than at what these words sought to express—and at their implications—will be able to say: Through this science of the soul, humanity—which is searching today—will be able to find what I said at the beginning of today’s reflection: that it lacks precisely what it can hold onto in its search for the soul and, subsequently, in its outward search.

[ 73 ] Clarity will emerge regarding something that a large portion of our contemporaries are seeking, and that others—who are not yet seeking it—should be seeking. It will become clear to them that the traditional conceptions of the soul will become increasingly useless to modern human consciousness; that people will become uncertain precisely about the most essential, enigmatic questions necessary for their inner life if they cling only to the old conceptions; and that new conceptions will become necessary.

[ 74 ] This is what I wanted to show: Either we must seek, along these new paths I have indicated, a new science of the soul to satisfy humanity’s highest inner needs, or—which would be a cause for immeasurable regret—we would have no science of the soul at all. Either we will seek a new science of the soul through anthroposophically oriented spiritual paths, or we will do without a science of the soul altogether. But humanity will never do the latter.

[ 75 ] Therefore, anyone who is familiar with the spiritual path referred to here has the awareness and the hope that this spiritual path does not arise from mere imaginary, subjective arbitrariness, but rather from the social progress of the human race in our present time, and that it will therefore be followed.