The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Debate Evening on Scientific Issues

on the occasion of the Anthroposophical University Course in Zurich

Jakob Hugentobler opens the debate evening.

[ 1 ] A student: A young, enthusiastic person wants to study astronomy; he wants to learn what Kepler, Newton, and all those men up to Einstein have achieved. He wants to gain a clear picture of what is happening in this field. This person wants to delve into things objectively. He is directed toward the field of mathematics; he must either make the effort to penetrate the very complicated states of consciousness involved in higher mathematics, pushing through to what a Gauss or Beyer has produced, or he will stop halfway. A person of the present day may have worked through everything, may have read Plato, Feuerbach, and Averroes, and yet he lacks certain spiritual dispositions that could make a certain kind of insight accessible to him. He will have to admit to himself that he has not yet experienced anything of those spiritual worlds mentioned in anthroposophy. If one tells him that he must prepare himself in a certain direction, he will either be inspired or not, since from an epistemological or purely psychological standpoint, the most manifold variations and laws of life can occur. He believes he has no right to doubt this or that. He does not wish to offend anyone present, but he believes that an aesthetic outlook on life is not suited to perceiving anything essential. A person who must struggle through hardship and the like is much closer to the entire movement than those who devote themselves to these things merely as a pastime, because they have nothing else to do.

[ 2 ] Rudolf Steiner: I would like to make a few comments on what the previous speaker has said. It has just been rightly emphasized that hardship and suffering do indeed lead the way into the world characterized by anthroposophy. Well, I would like to begin by picking up on this last remark. I have often made a similar remark in the course of my lectures, though always—I might say—taken out of some broader context. For I have often said: Human beings live out their existence in alternating states of joy and pleasure, of pain, hardship, and suffering. If one believes—in all modesty—to have attained a certain higher level of insight, then one must still tell oneself that one—perhaps for a very understandable reason—places far too much emphasis on the joy and pleasure one has experienced in life, for which one is, of course, grateful to the world forces. But one does not actually owe one’s insight to that. Insight is actually owed only to the sum of the pain one has endured. And when one speaks of insight in the true sense, it is indeed something that emerges from the sum of one’s pain.

[ 3 ] However, it is certainly true that in one’s outward life one can endure the most varied kinds of pain and hardship—hardships that weigh one down, that at times, I might say, can take away one’s spiritual breath. But there is also what constitutes the true pain of one’s worldview—a pain about which, without wishing to offend anyone, I would say that perhaps a large portion of people do not know all that much. Those experiences one can have on the path of knowledge are of such a nature that they can sometimes take more than just one’s spiritual breath, and it was not without reason that in earlier times, along paths no longer accessible to us, the ancient—as I would call them, just as they called themselves—the ancient Initiates, that is, the ancient sages, were trained. It was certainly the case that they were guided through pain and suffering, because this is necessary as the proper preparation for knowledge. And indeed, all the hopelessness that arises precisely on the path to knowledge gives rise to pains and hardships that a person might—with a certain degree of detachment in living through them—be able to come to terms with within themselves.

[ 4 ] Well, it is nevertheless necessary for human beings to position themselves within existence in a way that is demanded by the times. It has already been emphasized repeatedly in earlier lectures here in Zurich over the past few years that the suffering caused by time, the pressure of time, is ultimately connected to what people have failed to do in the realm of knowledge in recent times. Precisely these insights—which have, after all, celebrated their greatest triumphs in recent times and from which all manner of technological advancements can arise, have arisen, and will continue to arise—were, however, because they sought to operate only within the realm of necessity and not within the realm of freedom, which I alluded to today, unsuited to generating sociological and social thought.

[ 5 ] This is the great task of our time: We must become capable not only of thinking about nature—which, through its fixed structure of necessities, provides us with guidance—but we must also become capable of thinking free thoughts that possess power because they, in turn, are rooted in those necessities; for without such free thoughts, we will face decline in the new civilization. We cannot discover social ideas if we rely solely on the epistemological foundation we have in modern times. It is quite true that human beings enter into certain complex developments of consciousness when they follow the mathematical-naturalistic endeavors from Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton up to Einstein. But we must not forget that, even though mathematics has already been pushed beyond the realm of mathematics—as Gauss did, for example—all of this has initially opened up only one-sided paths, and that none of this provides the starting points for ideas capable of addressing social needs—any more than the epistemological positions that, in my view, extend from Descartes to Mach and Avenarius. It is, after all, a thoroughly different path that is opened up by what anthroposophical spiritual science seeks! And it is already intimately connected with what is significant as the very kind of knowledge that has brought about the great triumphs in the natural sciences, but which, as I have tried to show today, leads directly into what anthroposophical research and anthroposophical contemplation are.

[ 6 ] What the esteemed speaker before me said regarding the aesthetic worldview is correct. But perhaps we need to consider this term, “aesthetic worldview,” a little more in the context of contemporary history. If one considers the thinking that has developed out of the endeavors of the natural sciences, one must indeed say that it does not take root in social necessities; it does not penetrate to the spiritual foundations of existence. This has given rise to a certain mood that ran exceptionally deep, particularly in the last third of the 19th century and in the first decade of the 20th century. Anyone who observed how people began to take an interest in certain higher questions could see that, across the broadest circles, people began to take a keen interest in these higher questions. I would simply like to point out how widespread the discussions were that arose, for example, in connection with Björnson’s On Our Strength and so on; many examples along these lines could be cited. One can certainly say that a certain interest in the supersensible world took hold precisely in this era.

[ 7 ] But how? People preferred to accept things when they were presented to them—yes, one might say—in an aesthetic form, when they didn’t have to engage with their understanding—if I may put it that way—when they could enter into them as they would a play or a novella and say to themselves: Well, one can let one’s imagination run wild with something like that for a change.”—But they didn’t feel compelled in any way to reconcile these things with reality. People were glad when they didn’t have to reconcile these things with reality! There was a certain craving for sensation—in fact, a very strong one. This craving developed at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, but people absolutely did not want such things to be connected in any way to real life. This flight from real life is something that has emerged more and more—this refusal to connect, this refusal to take entirely seriously what one is actually interested in, but for which one has only a certain craving for sensation. That is what, above all, must be taken away from humanity—I would say—if civilization is to continue, if one does not wish to fall into the kind of conditions described by Oswald Spengler in his The Decline of the West; that must happen. At the end of the day, it is really nothing more than an escape from the painful aspects of existence—in a certain sense, a disregard for the painful side of existence.

[ 8 ] It is, I would say, an immensely tragic phenomenon that emerged in Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly in the last third of the 19th century. There is no need to go into what Friedrich Nietzsche says or what he means; one need only consider his life. Consider, my esteemed audience, the suffering this soul endured through a succession of three stages of development, and place that in the context of the entire history of the time!

[ 9 ] You see, Nietzsche emerged from a true philologist’s life, except that—unlike other philologists—he did not devote himself to philology out of a certain external sense of duty, but rather because he sensed early on the constricting nature of this philological method. And from this constricting framework, he then selected that which, initially in the 1860s, and even into the early 1870s—indeed, well into the 1870s—was still flourishing in the circles in which Nietzsche lived. He immersed himself in what had originated with Schopenhauer and which, in wide circles, was nothing other than pessimistic discourse—a discourse on misery, intended to numb oneself, in a certain way, to the misery of life. And Nietzsche suffered from all of this. And it was really nothing more than a longing to inwardly overcome this mood of the “unideal” in the course of historical development through a certain kind of insight. So Nietzsche suffered, roughly until the year 1866, from what was then the prevailing scholarly conception of history. He initially sought to counter this scholarly conception of history in his The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music and in his Untimely Meditations . These works were written out of deep pain. But around the year 1876, he had reached the point where he had to tell himself: This, too, is merely a form of self-deception; one must delve much deeper into human nature. And so he came to realize that, in truth, human beings indulge in many thoughts—many of which are untruthful. And now he wanted, first and foremost, to overcome insincerity through knowledge. After all, people have preserved ideals from ancient times. In the early days of his career, Nietzsche also believed in these ideals, but eventually he saw the instincts behind them. And so he wrote something like Human, All Too Human. It was, in turn, a second stage of historical development from which he suffered, before finally arriving at the third, where he experienced the problem, so to speak, most deeply in his soul—where he felt the emergence of the human from the subordinate natural being weighing heavily upon his soul. Because he was unable to penetrate to the level of the spirit, the problem remained for him: Man is merely a transition from the worm to the Übermensch. And so, in his Zarathustra, he could only express this journey of the human soul lyrically; in his grand conception of the “Return of the Same,” he could only dimly sense from afar what anthroposophy is meant to represent: repeated earthly lives and also the successive metamorphoses of the world system. He was the figure who suffered most deeply from modern education and who was shattered by modern education.

[ 10 ] Nietzsche has undoubtedly—for me, there is no doubt! —proved that the soul can shatter the body, for it is, after all, telling that an outstanding psychiatrist could offer no judgment on Nietzsche’s illness other than that it was an atypical case of paralysis. And whatever was later concocted from ordinary medical formulas regarding Nietzsche’s illness—for anyone who truly looks into what was suffered there, what was endured under that tension—it all leads to a grasp of the supersensible — for anyone who can view this impartially, there is no doubt that this strain could shatter the body. I would say that one can grasp immediately how this organism was truly destroyed from within by the soul. And the external symptoms correspond to this as well.

[ 11 ] Just think about this tragic situation as it unfolded. I’ll describe it. Nietzsche studied at the Schulpforta Gymnasium in Thuringia alongside Paul Deussen, who would later become a scholar of ancient India and Indian philosophy, and the two were very close friends. When Nietzsche was already quite ill in the 1890s, Deussen visited him once. So Deussen stood before Nietzsche and spoke with him; Nietzsche did not engage with what Deussen was saying. Then Deussen began to talk about the old days, recounting all sorts of things from the past. Then Nietzsche said: “Yes, you know, I can tell you that there was also a person involved whom you don’t know at all; the good, dear Deussen was indeed involved.” — He said this to Deussen himself, who was standing right there in front of him! What he had experienced in his youth was still present in Nietzsche, but what was affecting him in his immediate surroundings in the present moment had been erased.

[ 12 ] I cite this one scene—and there are many others like it—to highlight a point. What manifested itself there in a clearly pathological way can actually be traced back to Nietzsche’s very early writings. Twenty years ago, I wrote a treatise titled “The Psychopathological in Nietzsche’s Writings,” and was able to go back to his earliest writings—which are brilliant and magnificent—but in which one can demonstrate that the dissociation of ideas was already present. But these were ideas that arose entirely from the fragmentation of the spirit of the age for someone who, from the very center of human existence, sought to bring this spirit of the age into harmony with the transcendent. And one might say: It is precisely in such a personality—one shattered by the spirit of the age—for that is Nietzsche’s true problem—that one sees what struggle, inner struggle with inner distress and suffering, truly means. And in fact, the path to knowledge lies in overcoming such suffering.

[ 13 ] And it was already difficult to navigate in the old days, precisely because the aesthetic worldview—which is certainly entirely justified in its own domain, but which refuses to take seriously the reality of that for which it has a certain sensibility, a certain thirst for sensation— because this aesthetic worldview had become so widespread at a time when, on the one hand, people were quite willing to push through from Newton to Einstein, from Descartes to Mach or Avenarius. But for our time, it has now become necessary to bring oneself to the other—which is precisely what the anthroposophical path attempts to do—to bring oneself to that which every human being can, in fact, bring themselves to do. When people say that not everyone can bring themselves to do this, it can really only be said “cum grano salis,” for after all, not everyone brings themselves to study advanced mathematics either. And I believe that anyone who not only brings themselves to study advanced mathematics but also attains a certain inner understanding—for example, of the transition from ordinary geometry and mathematics to synthetic geometry—is, in terms of their spiritual state, on just as good a path to finding their way into imaginative knowledge, just as one must find one’s way into the theory of functions.

[ 14 ] And progress could be made much more quickly along this path if only the prejudices of the times did not constantly work against it. Thus, the belief that one needs very special intellectual aptitudes to make progress in anthroposophy is actually much more widespread than it should be. For the truth is this: every person can make progress on this path just as well as they can on other scientific paths. And I would like to emphasize this because it is absolutely true: hardship and misery lead people to the gateway to knowledge, but the point is not merely—I would say—to find a certain inner disposition, but rather to find the real spiritual world. Only through knowledge of the real spiritual world can one then, in a social context, bring into material life what is particularly necessary in the present day—provided one finds understanding, for that is, of course, what matters above all else. Therefore, on the one hand, one must have an understanding of the significance of pain and suffering; on the other hand, however, one must also gain an understanding of how to translate spiritual insights into concrete reality.

[ 15 ] Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve actually had enough of this general talk about a “spiritual” realm in the pantheistic sense—it really doesn’t get us anywhere. Anyone who speaks only in general terms about a spiritual world and tries to justify it epistemologically is like a person walking across a meadow and saying: “Oh, come on, I’m not interested in what people say—that this is a colchicum, that one is a lily, that one is a tulip, and so on. None of that interests me, because everything is unified life; everything is a plant.” — That is how people with more pantheistic ideas always want to say: Spirit, Spirit, Spirit! — One can already be satisfied simply by acknowledging the Spirit. One can satisfy a certain inner craving with this pantheism in what I call “modern mysticism.” But what the world needs today is concrete knowledge of the supersensible worlds. And that is what anthroposophy is still most resented for today: that it strives for this concrete knowledge. And so people would like to accuse it of proceeding in the same way as other mystical movements. But anyone who wishes to approach this anthroposophy will see that—even if in realms that one must first open up to oneself—it truly treads paths that present themselves in such a way that anthroposophy can stand up to the scrutiny of the strictest science.

[ 16 ] This is simply in response to the very interesting remarks made by the previous speaker.

[ 17 ] Another speaker: When I first heard about spiritual science, I took the whole thing—I would say—seriously. Today, during the lecture, one had the feeling of simply listening to a lecture on the natural sciences. A scientist could have come to such a lecture on the natural sciences, but I am a painter or musician and must work productively in my own field. Someone could have come who says to himself: I want to acquire knowledge of the natural sciences in a higher scientific sense. My question now is: Shouldn’t anthroposophy be understood in a much broader sense?

[ 18 ] Now I would like to know how one should practically relate to anthroposophy. Is it enough to have any kind of profession, any kind of mission—is it enough simply to acquire this knowledge? Or is it necessary to walk this path oneself—the path into the spiritual worlds that Dr. Steiner described? I would like to ask how one should approach this.

[ 19 ] Rudolf Steiner: May I just make a preliminary remark: In the last lecture announced here, I will be speaking about the building in Dornach—not merely from an external perspective, but in a way that will certainly be of great interest to a painter or sculptor, though it may also be of interest to everyone.

[ 20 ] It is true—I would like to compare what one can gain through anthroposophy to climbing a high mountain. One can start from a wide variety of points at the bottom, and one always reaches the summit. In the same way, one can also begin one’s development from a wide variety of starting points. And one still enjoys doing so even after having started from a particular point. We built this Dornach building precisely because we wanted to create something—including artistically—that is an expression of this anthroposophical worldview, just as the nut shell is an expression of the nut itself. Anyone with a certain sense for morphology will say to themselves: Actually, the nut cannot have any other shell than the one it has. The same formative forces are contained in the shell as in the edible part of the nut itself.

[ 21 ] Well, if the anthroposophical worldview is represented in our Goetheanum in Dornach, then for me that is the actual nut; the rest is just the shell. So it had to be built out of the same impulse from which the teachings are presented there, and so on. It is true that one can start from a wide variety of points. For example, one can further explore the ideas that Dr. Kolisko presented today regarding the threefold human being. The peculiar thing about this is: If you pursue the matter further—after all, as Dr. Kolisko said, in a lecture one can only ever hint at things—you will see that, fundamentally speaking, you ultimately enter into a completely different state of mind than the one from which you started. The principles expounded here are so deeply rooted in real life that they not only lead a person, through logical progression, to all manner of conclusions, but actually work within their soul. And when one explores these things—which are, after all, real principles—real forces are brought to life within the soul. And in this way, one ultimately gains an insight into the human form. What initially appears to be a theory transforms quite of its own accord into a vivid insight into the human form, and one comes to know and understand the human form from within. This is how we have sought to work in the sculpture studio at the Goetheanum in Dornach—to understand the human form from within.

[ 22 ] Yes, it goes even further! Attempts were also made to work with the material itself. It is only then that the principles of spatial design become clear. It is particularly interesting, for example, when, through working by hand, one comes to realize what a great difference there is when working on a human head—for instance, when carving out an eye—between a material like clay or marble and a material like wood. You come to realize: With wood, you have to scrape, and it’s crucial that you work into the concave. What is shaped in clay must be worked into the convex; when working with a solid material, you must always focus on working into the convex. With soft wood, on the other hand, it’s a matter of scraping things out.

[ 23 ] In this way, I would say, what at first appears theoretical transforms quite of its own accord into a certain artistic creation, into a living-into of those formative forces of which one might say: They are the formative forces of nature itself. And this is the inner transition between what we take as our starting point and what we ultimately arrive at—for example, the transition to the artistic. This is what is distinctive about anthroposophy: it does not remain static at a particular state of mind, but rather leads us into other states of mind. And it is the case that, in understanding the human being, one first finds the transition from anatomy and physiology—which operate abstractly or, at most, through sensory perception—to the inner formative forces of the human being. Science becomes artistic intuition. This transition is precisely what has given rise to the notion that nature itself is an artist, not only in a metaphorical sense, but actually in the genuine, true sense.

[ 24 ] Well, that’s how one finds one’s way into the artistic realm. “Fine,” say the epistemologists—knowledge must proceed logically! Knowledge must not operate in any intuitive way, as is meant here, but must be based on conclusions—one must, so to speak, proceed along the thread of logic. Fine, but that is merely a subjective demand. If nature does not create in the way we prescribe for it, then our logic causes us to miss precisely what is the deeper meaning of nature. And so we come close to nature only by entering into this metamorphosis of the soul’s state with complete impartiality. That is one thing.

[ 25 ] The other aspect, for example, is the transition to practical application. You see, I wrote these “Key Points on the Social Question,” and they are, of course, widely read today. But understanding of them has not yet progressed very far; otherwise, people would have to admit to themselves: This book isn’t really meant to be read—forgive me for saying something so paradoxical—but rather, it was written so that people would do what is written in it, that they would put it into practice in some way, each person individually according to their own situation. The book is actually written purely from a practical perspective, in a very practical way. Of course, one must express oneself through words and sentences, but that is only to point out what is actually meant. And there, again, lies the transition to immediate practice.

[ 26 ] And that is precisely what anthroposophy actually aims to be: Anthroposophy leads just as naturally into the most practical areas of life as it does into the artistic realm. It leads into manual dexterity. And ultimately, one arrives at things that, of course, some people find quite questionable. I have often said in my lectures—because one feels compelled to express certain truths differently—that I cannot imagine anyone being a good philosopher who is not also a good chemist or potato harvester when it comes down to it. It’s actually impossible to “logicize” concepts and ideas if one cannot also chop wood when it matters—or perhaps even when it doesn’t. I believe that, for example, when chopping wood or digging up potatoes—if one is fully present with one’s whole personality—one might do it more wisely or at least learn just as much logic as one sometimes does in logic seminars. You may find this paradoxical, but it is true. And this is precisely what anthroposophy seeks to emphasize: that in everything there is a unity, a concrete unity.

[ 27 ] Therefore, I would like to answer your question—in a very positive way—as follows: If you take a look at what we already have available today in a wide variety of fields, you are sure to find points of connection somewhere. And starting from there, you can go anywhere. Anthroposophy does not seek to be one-sided; rather, you can begin at the opposite end, and through what you strive for as a human being, you will ultimately arrive at the right path, even if you tell yourself at first that it really has nothing to do with you. The main thing is the will—if there is to be any point in starting at all—to keep going. And here is the opening to get right to my point. And because anthroposophy is far removed from any pedantry, it should actually be understood in such a way that one can start wherever one wishes, and one will reach a goal. One can start more from reflections such as those given in the book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, and if one goes far enough, one can reach any field from there. Or, you can start more from a scientific perspective, as explained, for example, in Dr. Kolisko’s lecture; you can begin there and, from there, arrive at what you need.

[ 28 ] The previous speaker explains that he means something very specific. He finds it very logical that one can reach the summit from any point. One could take an example from artistic circles. It could be a sculptor or a painter: From both could arise what we already have today in the realm of profound art, for example, Expressionism and Futurism. He has found, however, that no universal human being like Goethe, for example, emerges—even if one immerses oneself in and lives what the anthroposophist or the true Rosicrucian possesses: the ascent to the Devachan plane. He wondered whether it is necessary to follow precisely this one path, to work one’s way up through these realms—purely soulfully or intellectually—or whether one could also approach it from a different philosophical perspective.

[ 29 ] Rudolf Steiner: If we take the examples you just mentioned—Expressionism, Futurism, and so on—I would say that today they can sometimes strike one as a bit childish, quite paradoxical, and so on. Nevertheless, I would certainly maintain that in all of this there lies an impulse—I won’t say always a healthy one, but certainly a justified one—toward a turn toward the spiritual from a more materialistic worldview. I don’t want to speak merely of theoretical materialism, but rather of the materialistic worldview. And from this point of view, I can still find, in the many attempts—which, measured against Goethe’s multifaceted genius, may indeed seem very one-sided—things that have a future. One just has to give it time. These things, in my opinion, have a future. You see, I have to look at it this way: Take a contemporary Expressionist; if he is a painter, he might paint a picture in such a way that you won’t know whether it’s a house or a tree stump, or whether it’s supposed to be an elephant or something similar. But that, after all, is never really a question of artistry, if I may put it paradoxically. It really isn’t an artistic question what it’s supposed to depict—at least not the primary question—but rather the question of why one is dealing with this color on this surface, and so on. And that’s where you start to get into questions where you see: there’s something here that, of course, isn’t as universal as with Goethe, but which nonetheless has a future. Perhaps I may draw your attention to the following.

[ 30 ] If I may make this personal remark: I have been thoroughly engaged with Goethe for forty years; my first literary endeavors were focused on Goethe, and I have not strayed from this field since. Well, you see, at a very specific time, very specific problems related to Goethe began to interest me. These are the problems where Goethe was unable to come to terms with something—and, in fact, there was much he was unable to come to terms with. Think of Pandora, think of The Natural Daughter, and so on, or something like Nausicaa. So, there is a great deal that Goethe actually never quite managed to finish. Goethe was an inwardly honest soul, and for him, failing to finish something almost always meant struggling through to a certain point, where he then had to leave things as they were. He didn’t find his way through; he couldn’t break through! It’s very interesting to see how, with “Pandora” for example, he got only so far. After that, there were only sketches. He had wanted to continue writing “Pandora,” to carry out what we find hinted at in the sketches. One might say he could have left it as is and then fleshed out the sketch later. But that wouldn’t have worked, because if he had written it eight days later, it would have turned out to be something completely different. And there is no reason to say that Goethe should have worked from such a sketch; he would have rewritten the whole thing anyway. Yes, he reached the point where he simply couldn’t go any further, and one can quite clearly see why that was the case.

[ 31 ] It was precisely for this reason: because Goethe went very far in his contemplation of a certain external metamorphosis. It is truly magnificent to see how Goethe develops this idea of metamorphosis in The Italian Journey, and how he applies it to human beings. But he cannot really penetrate into the shaping of the spiritual. And why not? Why can he not penetrate to the point where the spiritual shapes the material itself? It lies, for example, entirely in the direct line of Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis—I never shy away from speaking these things aloud; they are simply part of what I call not only my conviction but also my insight, however that may be understood— it follows directly from this idea to conclude that the formative forces underlying the human head today—the metamorphosed formative forces of the organism, apart from the head—stem from a previous earthly life. Thus, the entire peculiar shape of the skull, in relation to the rest of the human organism, can be understood as arising from a very far-reaching metamorphosis. But Goethe simply could not break through to the spiritual realm! And this is also evident in the fact that he had to stop right where he should have become spiritual. He was entirely honest—he stopped there. Take the second part of Faust yourself: It is simply not quite finished! The fact is that it simply isn’t quite finished, because the final scenes are such that Goethe took the Catholic-influenced concepts and forced the story into them. As a result, it has become something grandiose, but still something artificially imposed from the outside. And when one compares this conclusion with certain other elements, one sees the effort Goethe expended to bring it to completion.

[ 32 ] And I was just saying that it is precisely in this most questionable, abstract final stage that the very moment lies when one achieves a breakthrough into the spiritual realm. No matter how little people may be able to do this, it is a beginning, and that is why it is justified to say these things. And so I believe one can already say: What really matters today is that people, starting from the most diverse points that are close to them today, could accomplish something if they are honest with themselves. I believe, for example, that the most natural way would be for people to start from the things they are currently involved in and then come together to do something productive. People should start from the areas they’re currently involved in; they’ll find their way together from there. It’s not so bad if they don’t understand each other at first—at a certain point, they’ll come to understand one another. It’s also a matter, for example, of waiting for the right moments and so on, and those moments are already determined by fate. But I cannot see—and I have, after all, experienced quite a bit in this regard—that this abstract climbing—forgive me if I put it a bit bluntly—this climbing from “plan” to “plan” is particularly promising for a person. In most cases, this is really something that does not spring from complete inner honesty. Certainly, one can achieve something this way, but one generally becomes out of touch with reality in the process. And that is precisely what is least needed in our time, in these difficult times we live in today. Isn’t that right? I don’t mean it frivolously, but that’s how it is. Let me put it this way: This climbing from “plan” to “plan” involves so much affectation, so much inner insincerity, that I do believe we should strive for everyone to start from the point where they stand firmly, and then people will find one another. In a certain sense, this has proven itself in practice.

[ 33 ] You see, some of us are artists or physicians, such as Dr. Kolisko; another is a philologist—perhaps you will even hear from one here during the course—or a mathematician; and yet another is a complete practitioner. We have practitioners among us who simply strive to establish institutions that are as practical as possible, in which the anthroposophical spirit lives. Mr. Molt, a Commercial Councilor, is sitting among us today; he has, above all, worked toward this goal. Isn’t it true that today it is indeed a matter of timing, and that is why it is necessary to start from where we stand today and then seek mutual understanding? This is something that has already proven to be practical, and in which I see some promise, whereas in a world-renouncing striving to ascend to the higher worlds, I cannot see anything that is truly honest. It is certainly true that one can only see through the world if one strives for it, but it is also true that one must say: The higher vision is attained much more reliably by those who start from a specific area of life. Above all, they attain it in a much more concrete way. They can then say something about the higher worlds; they know what the higher worlds are like. It works to their advantage to start from a specific area of life, whereas an otherworldly ascent does not really lead to anything worthwhile—at least not for humanity; for the individual, it may indeed lead to something. This is simply spoken from the perspective of what corresponds to the course of time. I am certainly not opposed to the further development of supersensory powers of perception—I have, after all, described myself how this should be done. But I believe that in doing so, a person must not neglect the sphere of life in which he or she is actually living. This is true everywhere.

[ 34 ] A participant in the discussion: In his lecture, Mr. Heisler spoke about how Dr. Steiner presumes to gain insights into the higher worlds, and he may even have cited Goethe as evidence. I must preface this by saying that I have not yet read any of Steiner’s writings. I would now like to ask whether, if one had news from the deceased—for example, whether they are suffering—this would not also constitute a certain proof of God’s existence. Anyone who has studied Nietzsche and who may have lost their faith in God for a long time might find it easier from within if, through Dr. Steiner’s way of speaking about God, they could regain their faith. After all, this occult field has been taken up again from various quarters, for example by Schrenck-Notzing in Munich and so on.

[ 35 ] Rudolf Steiner: I was only able to touch on a few points in today’s lecture, but I would like to say the following on this subject. You see, we are living in an age in which some people strive to create a veritable chasm between knowledge and faith. Some see something wholesome only in a science that relates to the purely factual—to recording, systematizing, and penetrating with laws—in other words, the purely factual. In contrast, others believe that in the realm of religion, they can only survive by demanding faith.

[ 36 ] Well, this is nevertheless only a characteristic of a passing age. Just as in earlier times the human soul was divided into the most varied spiritual powers, so today it is divided into a realm of knowledge and a realm of faith. But if the soul is completely sincere with itself, it cannot truly endure this division. One comes to understand what is at stake here when one recognizes the reason for this division. You see, even today you can still speak to a relatively large number of people from a position of faith about life after death or about the divine worldview. You can do this without appealing in any way—and this kind of appeal is, after all, least common in religious creeds—to those inner forces of conviction that lead to proof. After all, when you speak of life after death, you are appealing to people’s desires, their fears, and so on. The situation is quite different when you speak of what I have also spoken about today: pre-existence, the human life—the soul-spiritual life of the human being—before birth, or let us say before conception. This, in turn, is done through anthroposophy in the broadest sense. We speak more of the pre-birth period—that is, of life before conception—which is to say, of pre-existent life, which naturally implies life after death.

[ 37 ] We speak more about this pre-existent life precisely because human selfishness has less hold on it. Out of their selfishness, people are by no means indifferent to whether they continue to live after death; but out of their selfishness, they are far less interested in whether they had already lived before descending here to Earth. However, if one opens up the sources of knowledge regarding this life beyond, in which we existed before coming to Earth, then the other aspect becomes clear. If you study my writings, you will find this described in detail there. We regard this more or less as a matter of course. But at the same time, something else comes into play. One can speak of life after death out of a certain faith, but, as I said, this caters to selfishness and arises from selfish knowledge. By speaking of the pre-existent life, the human being is simultaneously led, through the path of knowledge, into the spiritual-supersensible world. And thus, when one turns once more to the pre-existent life, that abyss between faith and knowledge—which is actually destructive to the human soul—is overcome.

[ 38 ] You see, in older worldviews we certainly had an understanding of these things based on a certain instinctive knowledge—which we cannot strive for again; we must strive for conscious knowledge. I must emphasize again and again that anthroposophy speaks in a profound way of pre-existing life, even of repeated earthly lives. And when Lessing took up this idea—the concept of repeated earthly lives—in his The Education of the Human Race, he said: This view of repeated earthly lives arose in the most ancient times—should it therefore be less valuable simply because it arose in the most ancient times, before it was corrupted for humanity by all manner of schools?—You see, those who are literary scholars or the like today take it—well, let’s say—aesthetically. They do not hold it in high regard; they do not wish to regard it as reality. That is why they say: Lessing was a great man, but The Education of the Human Race was a work of old age. Lessing was a great man. But if one reads between the lines, it turns out that he actually always held fast to the idea of repeated earthly lives. And it is indeed the case that knowledge of the supersensory worlds—as well as knowledge of the concrete content of the spiritual realm, of spiritual world governance in general—is developed through engaging with pre-birth life, not merely with life after death. But this has gradually been lost entirely in recent historical developments. We can see this in one external manifestation.

[ 39 ] You see, we have a word called “immortal.” When we are properly prepared for it, we speak of “immortality.” We use the word “immortality,” but we do not speak of a word that means “unbornness, being unborn.” For just as truly as we live on after death and are immortal, so too are we unborn. And we should have a separate word for being unborn—a word just as natural as “immortality.” But we do not have one. Because people in civilization have completely lost the ability to understand the immortal, it will only be understood again when one can look toward the state of being unborn just as one looks toward immortality, for just as, at one pole of life, the soul is released upon death and ascends into the spiritual world, so birth—or conception—is the other pole through which the soul re-enters the physical world. And just as the soul does not die, so too is it not born. Faith opens itself to true knowledge only when one truly comes to understand this pre-existent life. That is what leads the way forward. This supersensible life must once again engage with the pre-existent; it must guide us onto the path that truly leads to the goal.

[ 40 ] As for the remark that anthroposophy is supposedly presumptuous—well, that depends on how one views the matter, doesn’t it? Well, until 1827, the Catholic Church considered it highly inappropriate to admit that a man named Copernicus had once come along and said that the Earth revolves around the Sun. So it was not until 1827 that Catholics were allowed to believe this. Today, official science still does not grant permission to believe in repeated earthly lives, just as people were not allowed to believe in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun back then. We can, of course, wait until these people allow us to believe in and hold fast to those things that are given to us precisely through anthroposophy. Until then, we must first endure the accusation of presumption, for that is simply how things are in the world.

[ 41 ] Question: What is the anthroposophical view on vaccination as a means of protection against epidemics?

[ 42 ] Rudolf Steiner: In terms of content, this question does not quite fit with what was said earlier. But I will try to say a few things nonetheless. The fact is: Of course, as has already been explained today, one must by no means believe that anthroposophy is polemicizing against the legitimate achievements that have been made in the newer fields of natural science and medicine. In some cases, it can be shown that such an achievement—as is intended to be achieved through vaccination—for example, through smallpox vaccination—has in fact been realized. It remains a fact, after all, that infectious diseases have been largely curtailed through the more external, more hygienic measures that have become necessary, and through preventive vaccination. Admittedly, many vaccinations have not been such that one could say they have had a similar success with other diseases. But one must certainly acknowledge the effectiveness of this principle.

[ 43 ] On the other hand, however, this question is something that can be viewed from a more psychological perspective. There are a great many anti-vaxxers today. These anti-vaxxers are, in fact, groups that cannot be reasoned with through a rational approach to their psychology. They are people who act out of an inner aversion to the way these efforts are being made. And based on their understanding, they cannot say that vaccination methods are ineffective, because there are indeed effects. And those who resist are doing so from a certain unconscious level against this method of vaccination.

[ 44 ] Anthroposophy must proceed from deeper perspectives. If one considers the nature of illness in conjunction with what has been explained to you here today—namely, regarding repeated earthly lives—and if one is convinced that repeated earthly lives exist, then one must also connect what a person experiences in terms of illness in their present life with what they experienced in a previous earthly life. Once one comes to understand this—if one has the will to understand it, quite regardless of what may be said in epidemiology or the science of infectious diseases—one must recognize that a certain connection exists between what a person has gone through in a previous earthly life and what happens when they are now exposed to a specific infection. People say that something happens by chance. But they do not acknowledge that, from the subconscious, a person is driven to the very place where they then come into contact with the infectious agent. Regardless of what they may experience as a result, one can still arrive at many other perspectives on what is connected with a disease.

[ 45 ] When one realizes that certain illnesses have something to do with a person’s soul characteristics, that in a certain sense they represent an overcoming of what the person was unable to achieve in a previous earthly life, and that these physical disease processes—which one must endure—serve as a form of compensation—the disease process is also linked to psychological phenomena— then one can also understand why, out of a certain unconscious, instinctive impulse, some people feel a reluctance toward this healing elixir. They tell themselves—actually unconsciously—that what is present as illness should be accompanied, in parallel with the external healing, by an inner spiritual development upward toward the spirit. And even if the vaccination being used makes it possible for things to turn out exactly as intended, one would still have to say: Even if one manages, through appropriate methods, to eradicate all epidemics and to limit diseases, the question still arises as to whether something else is not also necessary—something that must, so to speak, complement this process by ensuring that, at the same time, an inner spiritual development toward the spiritual takes place. People must recognize that such a process is possible. One can acknowledge everything that science says, but one must be clear about the necessity that, alongside what exists as external healing methods, there must also be something that advances the soul along an inner path and points to earlier spiritual connections—to past lives. Anthroposophy will never object to what natural science brings.

[ 46 ] Question: How can one form an imagination on one’s own? Where can one draw its content from, if it is not to be linked to a sensory or mnemonic representation?

[ 47 ] Rudolf Steiner: That is based on a misunderstanding! I said that what is to be used for meditation—and what then leads to imagination—should be manageable; one should have a complete overview of it so that no reminiscences arise and so that the subconscious does not become involved in the corresponding soul process. You see, if, for example, you take some experience from the past and then meditate on it, many elements live within the image of that experience that you have more or less left unaccounted for. These elements emerge from the subconscious, and as a result, you are not fully engaged in what you set out to do. What matters is that it be manageable. For example, one can meditate by visualizing a circle with a triangle inscribed within it. What matters is that the soul practices with something so manageable. These can also be qualitative things. If one allows such manageable things to rest within the soul in order to meditate on them, then there is no danger of reminiscences rising up from the subconscious. It is not a matter of avoiding the use of anything that can be sensually imagined or recalled from memory for meditation—one can use both, but it must be manageable; it must not be something that subsequently triggers all sorts of conscious or unconscious processes. What matters is that it be manageable, not that one imagine just anything that encompasses many things.

[ 48 ] For example, when someone meditates on the concept of “city,” they have gone through so much in life, and so much has accumulated within the concept of “city,” that they cannot now know everything that will emerge from it. Here’s an example that’s also recorded in literature: A learned naturalist is walking down a street in the city and comes to a store window. He stops, looks inside the window, and sees the title page of a treatise on earthworms—something that must certainly interest him, right? But as he looks at it and sees the book on the anatomy of earthworms, he suddenly has to smile. A naturalist who suddenly has to smile while looking at a book about earthworms! It seems quite improbable even to him that he should be smiling at this, and yet he wants to figure out how it happened. So he turns away—completely away—closes his eyes, and tries to figure it out in the dark. And lo and behold, he hears the sounds of a barrel organ in the distance. He hadn’t paid any attention to it at all—neither unconsciously as he was walking there, nor consciously as he was looking at the book. But the sounds had reached his ears after all; in a certain sense, they lived within him and even made him smile, quite unconsciously. So now he hears the sounds of the barrel organ, and he realizes it is the same melody to which he once learned to dance thirty years ago. He had never thought about it again—that significant event when he learned to dance to that melody. Yet that event had lived on in his soul to such an extent that he now had to smile—even as a natural scientist. So, a great deal lies in the human subconscious. And I can tell you: There are mystics who hear angels—which may well be a reality—but for some mystics who suppose they hear something from the angelic world, it is actually the case—because these things do not merely remain as memories in the subconscious but also undergo metamorphoses—that such supposed angels are sometimes transformed barrel organ tunes! And many things that seem to us like significant revelations—they are merely transformed barrel organ tunes.

[ 49 ] This is what one must know above all else. The anthroposophical method is an absolutely reliable method. The more one ascends into the spiritual world, the more one resists everything that—because it arises from the material world—can bring all manner of misleading and absurd ideas. So, it is not a matter of meditating on things that one cannot grasp, but rather on things that have been put together by someone who understands such things, or that one has chosen oneself as things that one can grasp. It depends on how one looks at a triangle, knowing that it has three sides and three angles totaling 180 degrees—one can look at it, and not much can rise up from the subconscious in the process. Meditations must be so comprehensible that one does not descend from the arbitrary into the involuntary, into the unconscious; that nothing merely memory-based arises, nor anything that was once a sensory perception—like the distant sounds of a barrel organ—but rather something must be present in consciousness that is as comprehensible as a mathematical concept. This is how one can practice imaginative cognition. Of course, one must conceive of everything that arises from memory in materialistic terms. It does not matter that it arises from memory, but the matter must be fully grasped. A panelist: Dr. Kolisko mentioned something today that interests me greatly. When he spoke of the three centers, he mentioned, in a sense, that the head consumes everything that flows upward from the lower organs as vital life force. The lower organs, then, are constantly creating something living, which the head, in a sense, devours again. I would like to know how anthroposophy views the actual physical body.

[ 50 ] Dr. Steiner mentioned today, in reference to Nietzsche, that the physical body had broken the soul—in other words, the soul had not been strong enough to overcome the body. From a general point of view, without having a physical body, I heard something about this from one perspective—I became familiar with Dr. Hanish’s method: What good does it do me to know about higher worlds if I have a toothache? If I can’t help myself when I have a toothache, what good does it do me to know something about the spiritual world? Must one deal with the physical body from the material or the spiritual side?

[ 51 ] Eugen Kolisko: One must first gain a clear understanding of the nature of the human being. Only then can one understand what human health and illness actually consist of. If one says: “What good does it do me to know something about the interconnectedness of the world if I still have a toothache and am at the mercy of all kinds of illnesses?”—then one must conclude that this is a very one-sided way of looking at things. What was said earlier applies particularly well here: That the human egoistic element is present to an extraordinarily strong degree when one says, “I want nothing to do with the spiritual, because it won’t relieve my toothache.” Insight is something one must go through, something that simply drives one not to let go, something one simply must continue with—including continuing in the process of overcoming the toothache.

[ 52 ] So, such a point of view—which is, after all, thoroughly permeated by a kind of materialistic-egoistic striving, even if it were to speak of supernatural realms—simply cannot be accepted. But what is important is that we must first grasp the nature of the human being in order to move beyond a purely materialistic conception of caring for the body; for one cannot care for the body, nor can one provide therapeutic treatment, without insight into the entire interplay of forces that constitute the nature of the human body.

[ 53 ] Rudolf Steiner: I would like to take the liberty of making a few additional remarks on this and illustrating them with examples. You are probably all familiar with a very commonly used proverb that says: There are many, countless illnesses, but only one state of health. — I believe there is nothing more false than such a saying. Indeed: There are countless illnesses, but there are also countless forms of health; every person, no matter how healthy they may be, has their own unique state of health, and such empty rhetoric is unacceptable under any circumstances. It is entirely correct to say, even from the most spiritual standpoint, that a person must take care of the health of their organism in every way. Through my spiritual research, I myself have come to view the life of the imagination, for example, in such a way that I see a radical error in the belief that brain activity as such could in any way serve as the foundation for spiritual activity. I see this as a mistake, which I would like to illustrate with the following example: Suppose you have a road that has just been softened by rain. People walk across it; their footsteps have carved out ruts. And now someone might come along and say: Yes, this road has a pattern; you can see all kinds of lines and so on. This must be caused by forces coming up from below; it is caused by something that is inside, beneath the ground. — When you hear something like that, you will readily say: That is nonsense; the footprints are imprinted from the outside, not from below. In the same way, spiritual research naturally leads me to see something entirely correct in the brain configurations—and indeed in the nerve configurations—that the physiologists demonstrate; but these are things that are imprinted by the life of the soul and spirit and can be sensed within as an imprint. But at the same time, the point is that this entire physical existence between birth and death is the solid ground upon which consciousness develops; the counterpoint simply must exist. Otherwise, one could not develop the life of the imagination in this way; in order for it to be reflected back, it must have that counterpoint. The mirror needs a surface. Therefore, even from the most spiritual point of view, the physical organization of the human being must be shaped as healthily as possible. But now the point is to develop genuine insights into a healthy physical constitution—and that is precisely what is meant when one has acquired a more comprehensive way of viewing the world through spiritual science. A few examples of this—truly not to boast, but merely to hint at what forms the very foundation of my view of life, which is grounded in spiritual knowledge.

[ 54 ] About 36 years ago, when I had been recommended to a family as a private tutor, I was assigned a boy to look after. Among the family’s four boys was one—he was about eleven years old at the time—who was considered a jinx by everyone—including, of course, the family, whose views were clouded by prejudice. They were unhappy with the boy because, when he was supposed to take an exam at school at age eleven, all he could do was make a huge hole by erasing his way through the paper. And that was the state of this eleven-year-old boy’s knowledge in all subjects. The mother was terribly unhappy; the father was somewhat skeptical. The family doctor, who was one of the most outstanding general practitioners I have ever known—he was truly an exceptional man—had already given up on the boy. Well, I came to the house to take charge of the education of the other three boys. I looked at the boy and said to his mother—who, as the last member of the entire family, still had some understanding, driven solely by her maternal heart—that I couldn’t promise her anything, but I wanted to use all my strength, to the best of my ability, to still make something decent out of the boy. —“But the family doctor has given up on him,” said the other family members, looking at me as if to ask whether they could still entrust the other three boys to me—after hearing my opinion about the fourth boy! But the mother insisted—it took some effort to get the boy into my care. I said I absolutely had to have free rein; I had to be able to do whatever I thought was best. The boy suffered from hydrocephalus in the most severe form. He was really in very bad shape.

[ 55 ] Well, methodologically speaking, I basically just practiced mental hygiene. In fact, I really only applied what I would like to call “economy” in teaching concepts, skills, and so on. I made it a rule that the boy was allowed to listen to the piano as much as I determined at the time, and so on—that he was allowed to do other things only to the extent that I wanted him to. I must say, I sometimes studied for three hours just so I could spend a quarter of an hour with the boy! But through this kind of mental and pedagogical hygiene, the boy was brought to the point within two years where he could move on to high school. His head had truly become smaller. Well, you might say that things might have turned out just as well anyway. — But truly, that’s not the point; it’s not that things could have turned out well on their own; the boy was truly hydrocephalic through and through; before that, his head simply would not get any smaller, no matter what. If he had survived despite this, he certainly would not have entered high school after two years—given the progress he had made up to that point. The point was really that, through two years of intensive work—precisely through this individualized care, through the hygienic approach to this organism, which was completely out of balance and needed to be treated—the boy could be brought to this point. So, it was not a matter of general rules—even though the general principle may well be correct—but rather of an intimate knowledge of the human being as such.

[ 56 ] As for the saying that only a healthy body can be the expression of a healthy soul—if one were to apply this saying to real life, it would be completely untrue. Another example: A prominent doctor came to see me one day and said he now had a special case that interested him greatly. A patient had come to him who had once fallen—some time ago—and broken his nasal bone, so that his nose was now somewhat narrowed as a result. He wanted to operate on him, but he would very much like us to discuss it further. With a certain deeper understanding of human nature, one does indeed view things differently than one necessarily does from a merely external perspective on health. I could say nothing other than to advise the doctor: Do not operate, for this is a stroke of luck that rarely occurs, since the man is now getting exactly as much air as his lungs can tolerate. He has precisely the width of the nasal passage that he needs for his particular case, for his constitution. That is precisely what one should allow him to keep. After all, it has become clear that the man is actually doing well with this slight narrowing. One could cite many other examples. The general principle is quite correct: one must work toward a healthy body, but always in quite different ways.

[ 57 ] It can certainly make a strange impression—I’ve often observed this among naturopaths, too, who always come up to you and say: “Yes, this person has a problem; there’s something irregular about their heartbeat, and it needs to be treated.” — In such cases, when you take a closer look, you often have to tell yourself: Just leave it be! Let the man keep his heart defect; that might actually be just what he needs; if you try to cure him, he’ll only get sicker. — Because people have a very specific template in mind, a lot of unnecessary things are often done along those lines. One often sees that people apply general methods that aren’t much different—at least in terms of the logic of the matter, the factual logic of the matter—from what happened, for example, with a lady who was a faith healer. A terrible thing! She said all sorts of things that one had to imagine; one would then become strong and healthy if one believed in them. “You’ll become hardened,” she said. But I have never seen a person who looked as wretched as this faith healer, who was very careful to ensure there wasn’t even the slightest breeze, because even the tiniest draft caused her the most terrible symptoms.

[ 58 ] Isn't it true that these are sometimes matters that must be viewed in their true reality and not merely from a certain—I would say—stereotypical perspective? On the other hand, it is certainly true that one must strive as much as possible for physical health; but the understanding of what is healthy must arise from spiritual insights. A person should not focus so much solely on their own health; rather, they must also realize: I am, in fact, a part of the cosmos. And isn’t it true that the air that is now inside me was, just a short time ago, out there in the cosmos? — And so it is with everything else as well. As a part of the cosmos—that is how a person must truly view the world.

[ 59 ] One can, of course, only interpret such general matters in this way, and that is precisely what I intended to suggest with these remarks.

Jakob Hugentobler expresses his gratitude and closes the event.