The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. Questions during the First Anthroposophical University Course III

Preliminary Note: At the beginning of the discussion evening, a question was asked about the third Copernican law. Rudolf Steiner’s detailed answer is published in the volume *The Fourth Dimension*, GA 324a, pp. 177–189.

[ 1 ] Rudolf Steiner: Now a number of other questions have been raised, which—since some of them are nonsensical—I would like to address only briefly. Here, for example, is this question:

For someone who is not a clairvoyant, what criterion can be used to distinguish whether a clairvoyant’s messages stem from spiritual insights or from illusions?

[ 2 ] Ladies and gentlemen, I would actually most like to eradicate the term “clairvoyance” altogether—a term that so many people use to spout nonsense, as Count Keyserling did just recently. If such words do not give rise to nonsense, then it doesn’t matter if they appear in our literature, but given everything that such people call “clairvoyance”—people who would rather do anything than set out on the path I have also characterized in my lecture series on the “Limits of Knowledge of Nature”—I would prefer to use a different word for the true seeing of the spirit: seeing in the light, that is, seeing clearly. That is why, in the more recent editions of my books, I have tried throughout to gradually eliminate this word, which repeatedly gives rise to confusion with all sorts of amateurish and charlatanish nonsense.

[ 3 ] Well, if it’s a single case—someone comes before you who claims to be a clairvoyant and tells you something he has seen—then there is absolutely no criterion by which you can distinguish whether he is feeding you some kind of illusion or whether what he says is based on truth. You can’t do that in an individual case—there’s no universal guide for it. As a reasonable person, you can only form a judgment based on the context of their entire life, but it can be a judgment that’s almost entirely certain. You see, if some so-called clairvoyant tells you all sorts of things and, moreover, when he speaks about matters of ordinary life, he talks nonsense, then you can be fairly certain that what he tells you about the higher worlds is also nonsense. But if you find that a person has a sound grasp of external, physical reality—that he views external reality with a sound mind, just as other reasonable people do, finds his way within it, and orients himself by it—then when he speaks of matters of the spiritual world, that in itself speaks in his favor, that is, not for him as a person, but for the accuracy of his views. If, in addition, he frames what he presents about the spiritual worlds in such a way that there is logic to it, then one can verify the truth of his statements based on those contexts, even without being a clairvoyant. As I said, one cannot draw any conclusions from a single statement, but from the context of an entire series of statements, one will—simply through an ability that every human being possesses, even without being a clairvoyant—come to understand what someone is saying. Furthermore, a person who today deserves to be called a clairvoyant—but now in a higher sense— if, that is, a person speaks about the spiritual world as one must here in this place, then, my esteemed audience, they do not stop at merely recounting things from the higher worlds, but always speak at the same time about the things of this world, into which the higher worlds, after all, interplay. For example, he speaks to you about how what one has experienced in the spiritual realm can be applied to medicine—to the medicine that truly deserves to be studied. He does not speak of medical charlatanism, where a person is simply chosen by some Luciferic or Ahrimanic spirits, and this chosen one then dabs on some substances and heals. That cannot be what is meant. It can only be a matter of penetrating precisely with the spirit that which is truly physical, but within which the spirit always lives. For materialism never understands the physical. And I believe that, for example, working in the social sphere could be one of the external proofs of the inner validity of what is asserted here in spiritual science.

[ 4 ] So there is no criterion that can be grasped abstractly from the outside; rather, it is only by considering the whole context of life that one can know whether the claims of the spiritual researcher deal with illusions or with realities. His spiritual research is certainly not an illusion if it enables him to descend into reality, if, through his spiritual science, he is able to contribute something to the life that is allotted to human beings here between birth and death. For example, when I have presented research findings about higher worlds, people have often objected to me—starting from abstractions—saying: “Yes, but all of that could just be autosuggestion, just as there are people who experience a lemon taste in their mouths simply by thinking of lemonade, even if they aren’t given any lemonade at all.” — All I could ever say to such people was: Certainly, it is true that one can evoke all sorts of illusory hallucinations or visions through thought, but these are, after all, merely illusions. You may, through suggestion, have the illusion that you taste lemonade, but I doubt that the lemonade you’re merely imagining will quench your thirst; for that, you’d still need the real lemonade.

[ 5 ] Whoever is fully immersed in things—not standing outside of them—can distinguish between what is reality and what is merely imagined, and it is clear to such a person that there are just as many differences in the nature of life when looking into the higher worlds as there are here in the physical world. I can even reveal to you, my esteemed audience, that the criteria for determining whether something is a lie or the truth apply just as much to the clairvoyant as to anyone else. The clairvoyant is no better or worse at verifying whether his observations are based on reality than the person to whom they are communicated, for he, too, must examine them within the broader context of life—a context that can be discerned simply through common sense, provided one possesses common sense in everyday life as well. Anyone else, provided they possess common sense, can always verify the clairvoyant’s findings.

[ 6 ] Here, too, we are by no means afraid of scholarly criticism of the humanities, especially not when such scholarly criticism is conducted with the utmost precision and accuracy. What actually harms us is only the criticism of the superficial, of those people with empty thoughts, with empty shells of thought. Such people, who are afflicted with mere empty shells of thought—like Count Hermann Keyserling, who has no intention whatsoever of engaging with the subject matter—end up simply telling lies. In his latest book, you will find the very charming assertion that the entire Steinerian anthroposophy is actually nothing more than materialistic natural science elevated to the spiritual realm; this, he claims, is evident from the fact that Steiner drew on Haeckel.

[ 7 ] Now let’s examine this utterly dishonest claim in light of what I wrote as a starting point in the introduction to Goethe’s Scientific Writings. You see, the height of intellectual dullness is, in fact, always dishonesty.

[ 8 ] These things really do need to be said, my esteemed audience. I always wait quite a long time before I am forced to say something like this myself, and I actually only speak about these matters when they have not been highlighted by others for quite some time. After all, these things do not affect me personally at all. I actually find Count Keyserling’s books unreadable because I can’t find any real thoughts in them. And I’m used to people complaining. But today it’s about something else. Today it’s about the fact that we are indeed rapidly sailing toward ruin unless complete and courageous clarity is established in this area. Today it is a matter of the salvation or the downfall of humanity, and we must sharply point out the pests who are trying to drive out the necessary thoughts from people’s minds with such filth, by claiming that it is not necessary to undergo spiritual development, because what one can learn through such things, as described in the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* , is not needed by anyone who is a gentleman and has been well-bred.

[ 9 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when such claims can already be made, the fire is burning, and it must be put out!

[ 10 ] I'd like to quickly address one more question now:

What is the anthroposophical view on the use of hypnosis in medicine?

[ 11 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, all these things—hypnosis, suggestion, and the like in therapy—always lead into a realm that lies beneath the one we perceive with our ordinary everyday consciousness. If I were to quickly sketch out a diagram for you, it would look like this: (diagram missing)

[ 12 ] While ordinary consciousness prevails here, anthroposophical science—which is the subject at hand—strives toward a higher form of consciousness: imaginative, inspired, and intuitive consciousness. But one can also lower consciousness to a deeper level. This is already the case in ordinary dreaming, where consciousness has been lowered; in deep sleep, in dreamless sleep, it has been lowered even further. Now, there are, of course, all manner of intermediate states, and such a lowering of consciousness actually transforms a person into a subhuman being, in that their spiritual-soul aspect is so detached that it cannot fully engage with the physical body, nor can it be conscious of itself or of the world—because the person is not yet developed enough to possess consciousness outside the body. What we are dealing with here, then, is a lowering of the spiritual-soul aspect to the etheric-physical body, and all the influences that can be brought about—which you are, of course, familiar with—actually take place within a subhuman sphere. One lowers the entire constitution of the human being—the spiritual-soul-physical constitution of the human being. And for this reason, such methods should only be applied in a therapeutic context. But even in a therapeutic context, the point is that they may only be applied by someone who understands these things—by which I do not mean to claim that modern medicine, as it is practiced today, is a good guide to understanding these things. But once these things are understood, they can of course be applied to the human organism just as other poisons are—for they are poisons.

[ 13 ] So, in all these matters, we are dealing with the fact that, from a therapeutic standpoint, we can make use of anything that can improve a person’s state of health in a desirable way. However, we should not imagine that we are leading a person up into a higher sphere when we induce a state in which their consciousness—their ordinary consciousness—is completely shut down; rather, we are leading them down into the subhuman realm, into the etheric-animal realm, so to speak, not into the physical-animal realm, but into the etheric-animal realm, when we place them in a state such as hypnosis and when they are receptive to such a state. This lowering of consciousness is, after all, particularly favored today precisely because people perceive the ascent into the spiritual worlds as something uncomfortable.

Here's another question: What is the anthroposophical view on therapeutic magnetism?

[ 14 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, one can only discuss this if one is truly able to address these matters seriously. Such matters cannot be dealt with by a simple “yes” or “no” or with a single sentence if one possesses a scientific conscience. Modern therapeutic magnetism—indeed, one need not have studied it to know that it involves a great many people who have sought employment everywhere else, and when they ultimately found none, they became therapeutic magnetists. To demand spiritual-scientific explanations for such matters on top of that is really asking too much. But I would like to point out to you that all these things must ultimately be traced back to their fundamental premises. Take, for example, the fact that for certain mental and physical states of being, even the mere act of speaking lovingly to the patient contributes to the healing process. Just consider how much genuine therapeutic effect stems from treating the patient with genuine love, whether in one direction or another. Now imagine these things intensified; imagine this loving treatment intensified into a caressing treatment—then you have something that already leads very strongly into what is known as healing magnetism. However, these are such imponderable things that one should not try to capture them in crude terms. It is entirely possible—depending on the circumstances, since it really comes down to the “how” rather than the “what”—that the person speaking about these matters, depending on whether or not they are keeping these imponderables in mind, may just as well be saying something truly important or talking nonsense. So it is more important to approach these matters with a truly scientific mindset. And that is why I have always been cautious about discussing these matters publicly, for example, because many things become extremely distorted when they are passed on.

[ 15 ] Well, personally, I wouldn’t mind that either, but anthroposophy must be something that truly meets the necessary demands of our time, and we must not do anything that could in any way put us at risk of finding ourselves in the company of amateurs. Of course, it is very easy to end up in this amateurish realm when it comes to these matters. One could say that therapeutic magnetism is beneficial, depending on whether it is practiced by knowledgeable—though now, to be frank, imponderable—genuine healers, or by people who are mere charlatans, who, having tried their hand at other fields, are now simply trying their hand at the field of healing as well. We’re all familiar with this, aren’t we? As soon as there’s talk of magnetic healing—and before that, of suggestion—“Christian Science” is bound to follow, which is what’s being asked about here:

How is it that Christian Science can heal simply by suggesting it to the mind?

[ 16 ] Isn’t it true that with Christian Science, one has to say roughly the same thing as with therapeutic magnetism, just in a slightly different field? Whether something works or not doesn’t depend on what we think about it. Just think about it: if you slap someone and believe that it involves forces that don’t actually exist, the slap on the person’s cheek will still be exactly the same, [regardless of] whether you hold a false theory, a self-suggested theory, or something similar. When we speak of Christian Science, we’re talking about similar phenomena; you can also observe these very similar phenomena in the field of education.

[ 17 ] I have repeatedly spoken of the imponderables that influence people and have also applied them to the field of education. Suppose you want to explain to a child the immortality of the soul—the soul’s passage through human death—and you point to a butterfly chrysalis: that, in a sense, is the human body. The butterfly emerges: that is the soul. And you then apply this to the supersensible realm. You may now encounter two possibilities. In your own state of mind, you may be a very intelligent, wise person who, of course, in this day and age does not believe that what you are describing with the butterfly chrysalis really has any connection to immortality other than that of a symbol. The intelligent person invents this; he himself does not believe in any connection, but tells the child this because the child is foolish and he is intelligent—because he devises something to serve as a comparison. That is one state of mind. The other state of mind is that of the spiritual researcher. He sees everywhere stages of an existence characterized by polarity and progression—terms that Goethe himself used. He looks at the butterfly chrysalis from which the butterfly emerges, and for him the belief arises that the emerging butterfly is an image drawn for him by the spiritual worlds. He may not be, in today’s sense, a clever person or a smart person—he is not that—but he is a person with a sense of reality. For in reality, the deeds of the spirit are present everywhere.

[ 18 ] Now, there is a difference in teaching: If you are a very clever person and try to make the concept understandable to the child through a contrived symbol, you will generally achieve nothing. But if the image itself lives within us—if we are imbued with the realization that here the spirit of nature itself has sketched the image of the immortal soul in the emerging butterfly—then intangible forces flow from your soul to the child’s soul, and then the child, because it receives something of life, also has something to offer life.

[ 19 ] There are, however, forces at work between people that cannot be weighed on a scale or measured with a ruler, even though everything is organized according to measure, number, and weight. And these things will make a substantial contribution to what is meant to enrich our lives—things that will certainly be more significant for the salvation of humanity than many applications of natural science. When one delves into these matters, one will see that there are entirely different forces that will come into humanity precisely through the practice of spiritual science. This, however, requires, on the one hand, that true natural science teach scientific rigor, and, on the other hand, that the will arise to penetrate the spiritual worlds with this scientific rigor.

[ 20 ] I would like to conclude for today. Tomorrow evening, before you depart, my esteemed audience, we will try to present a summary in the form of a lecture—not so much a question-and-answer session, but rather a concluding lecture—as a farewell.