The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Essence of Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Even today, many people still view anthroposophy as a more or less fanciful attempt to use knowledge to penetrate areas of the world that serious science is supposed to avoid. Yet even today there are scientists who must be taken seriously, who argue that we must strive to go beyond the usual methods of the natural sciences in order to gain insight into realms to which these methods do not lead; and in this context, people often speak of all sorts of abilities that one person or another may possess to penetrate such realms. Efforts are then made to investigate what is revealed through such “abnormal” abilities, and this is incorporated into mainstream scientific practice. But even such serious scientists will generally want nothing to do with anthroposophy, because they refuse to recognize the path by which anthroposophy attempts to penetrate into supersensible worlds as a scientific one; rather, they regard it at best as a kind of fantasy, as a particular form of impossible mysticism, or perhaps even as a specific kind of superstition. Now—my esteemed audience—those people who seek fanciful musings, nebulous mysticism, or even superstition may indeed sometimes come into contact with what, as anthroposophical knowledge, seeks to become part of our spiritual life; yet in the long run, they will hardly find what they are looking for. For those who rush wherever there is talk of some “Sophie” or some “occult” will very soon see that anthroposophy, in particular, strives to work entirely from the spirit of modern scientific thinking, indeed, to carry this spirit of modern scientific rigor to its very furthest consequences—but that, above all, anthroposophy requires a thoroughly sound and as far-reaching a mode of thinking as possible. And that is precisely what the adherents of fanciful notions and nebulous mysticism do not particularly appreciate. The fact that anthroposophy has such aspirations, however, cannot prevent those who would dismiss it with a wave of the hand from repeatedly claiming that only neurasthenics or hysterical individuals are drawn to anthroposophy.

[ 2 ] Now—my esteemed audience—this evening I will take the liberty of addressing the essence of anthroposophy in response to the distorted image that is often presented of it from various perspectives, as it is intended by those individuals who, in the spirit of this serious scientific approach and this serious thinking, strive to expand our knowledge, because they recognize that, in two respects, modern humanity must remain unsatisfied—both by our current scientific culture and by that which opposes it. When it comes to scientific research, anthroposophy first and foremost stands firmly on the ground of that scientific research, and—along with all those who proceed as cautiously as, for example, the famous du Bois-Reymond—it clearly sees the limits of that scientific research. It recognizes how human thinking—which has celebrated such great triumphs in recent times and is rightly so proud of its methods—can nevertheless, in the context of scientific research, only operate by adhering to external, sensually given facts, by more or less synthesizing these sensually given facts, and by arriving at laws of nature. If one clearly recognizes that our present mode of thinking—which is applied with such meticulousness in science—is entirely trained to deal with external, sensually given facts, and that it can have only methods that correspond entirely to the course of these sensually given facts, then one must speak of the limits of scientific knowledge and admit that all philosophical speculation which seeks to go beyond through pure thought—through thought left to its own devices—into those realms where the true essence of the human being is rooted in its immortal foundation, that all such thought left to its own devices descends into uncertainty. That is why there is so much debate about various philosophical systems that seek to speak of the immortality of the soul and the divine-spiritual foundations of the world. One senses how thinking that breaks away from sensory facts and seeks to construct on its own terms falls absolutely into uncertainty, so that one can actually have the feeling: This thinking, outside the facts given by the senses, deals with nothing at all. On the other hand, there are numerous people today who, with a more or less clear sense, feel that they nevertheless wish to penetrate to what constitutes the deepest human longing—to gain insight into those foundations of the world with which human beings are connected in their innermost being, and through the knowledge of which they might gain insight into their immortal nature. Such people then tend to turn to one or the other branch of mysticism—that is, they turn their backs on all knowledge. They immerse themselves in their own inner being. They believe that if they immerse themselves in this inner being, if they delve deeper and deeper into the depths of their own human soul, then the eternal essence of the human being must also be found.

[ 3 ] In this field, I would say, anthroposophy follows precisely the methods of scientific observation. And by engaging with what some mystics present as the true essence of the human being, it sees that there is nothing there but transformed perceptions of the external sensory world, which, so to speak, retreat into memory, into the faculty of recollection. And anyone who knows how, over the course of years, decades, what this mysticism has perhaps half-consciously taken into memory can be transformed within the human soul, and how this is brought forth by mystics as something entirely different—believing that it speaks to them of a certain divine-spiritual being within the human being, whereas one is dealing only with the transformed memories of external perceptions. Anyone who has insight into these matters will see precisely in these mystical endeavors—however well-intentioned they may be—a stumbling block to a truly scientific penetration into a spiritual world to which human beings, in their very essence, belong.

[ 4 ] And so, my esteemed audience, there are two obstacles that anthroposophical research must first overcome. One is philosophical speculation about the supernatural and the paranormal, based solely on intellectual work that seeks to be left to its own devices, leading into uncertainty—indeed, into nothingness. The other is mysticism, which, although it believes it can penetrate to the divine-spiritual through immersion in one’s own inner being, nevertheless has nothing to do with anything other than what the human being has first brought down into his soul through observation of nature, through observation of the external sensory world, and what he then later brings back up again.

[ 5 ] These two obstacles stand out in complete clarity right before anthroposophical research. Therefore, anthroposophical research simply tries to say to itself: The paths of knowledge that one must take in the realm of the external natural sciences do not lead into the spiritual, supersensible realm at all. Other paths of research must be taken. And since the customary paths of research make use of precisely those cognitive faculties that human beings possess in ordinary life, anthroposophical research must seek out other cognitive faculties. It should be stated right from the outset: The anthroposophical research referred to here is not based on any abnormal abilities that the individual might claim to possess through grace or illness, but rather on the fact that there are abilities slumbering within every human soul—to put it in scientific terms—latent abilities that can be brought to the surface through certain methods; so that when a person is in full possession of the cognitive faculties applied in ordinary life and in ordinary science, only then does he begin—I would say—to emulate the child once more. We see the child entering the world with only limited abilities to gain insight into its surroundings; we see how these abilities lead ever deeper and deeper into the outer and inner worlds, and how they develop. In ordinary life, we bring this development to a close at a certain point. And having acquired a certain way of thinking, a certain way of feeling, and a certain way of willing as adults, we remain with these, using them to conduct our daily lives and our ordinary science. Anyone who wishes to engage in anthroposophical research must continue this development. At a certain point in their life, they must tell themselves: The faculties present in the soul are not fully developed in this way; more can be brought up from the depths of the soul. And this process of bringing them up then leads to those faculties of knowledge that can guide us into the supersensible worlds. I have—my esteemed audience—described in detail what a person must do to bring forth the abilities slumbering within their soul. I have described this in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds?*, in the second part of my *Secret Science*, and in other writings. I would now like to summarize the principles of what is described there in detail.

[ 6 ] What a person must do to attain their higher, supersensible powers of cognition are not external measures, but rather measures that take place in the innermost depths of the soul itself. These are certain soul exercises—soul exercises that lead in two directions. One direction involves a certain cultivation of thinking and imagination, and the other direction involves a certain cultivation of the human will. Just as imagination exists in every human being, so too can it be transformed and developed through certain spiritual exercises—and the same applies to the human will. What is to be achieved through thinking is, first and foremost, a certain inner strengthening, a certain inner fortification of the life of thought itself. This is not achieved through mere arbitrariness, through a haphazard inner contemplation or the like, but rather, in the spirit of anthroposophical research, by subjecting thinking itself to a kind of inner training—a training that, I would say, operates according to the same principle by which we otherwise strengthen people in life. If I may use a very trivial example, I can say: When a person repeatedly exerts a particular group of muscles in work, that group becomes especially powerful. Exactly the same thing can now be achieved with regard to imagination itself. For example, one can do the following—and many such exercises have been described by me in the books mentioned—one can place any single image or a series of images at the center of one’s entire soul life. I call this meditation and concentration of thought. This is truly not a matter of any kind of magic, but rather a further development of entirely ordinary, normal human abilities. So one places at the center of one’s inner life some image that one can easily grasp. It is often recommended—and rightly so—that one look for such an image in a book or elsewhere so that it is new to one, or that one have it provided by an experienced anthroposophical researcher so that it is new. Why should it be new?

[ 7 ] Because when we focus our attention on an idea—whether we’ve held it for a long time or just briefly—that idea brings up all sorts of fragments of memory. Much of this remains in the subconscious and the unconscious. We do not fully grasp what we bring into our soul when we draw such an idea or series of ideas from our store of knowledge. But if we take something that is entirely new to us, or anything we allow ourselves to receive, then there can be no question of any reminiscences surfacing; rather, we then surrender our entire soul life to a new—but now inner—impression, an impression that we can grasp only through thought. We first surrender our entire soul life as intensely as possible to such an idea, and we try to bring it to such a level of vividness in grasping this idea as we otherwise experience when faced with an external sensory impression. This engagement of the soul with an external sensory impression must, in every respect, serve as the model for every exercise that the anthroposophical researcher initially undertakes within his or her own soul.

[ 8 ] This clearly points out—my esteemed audience—that it is not something that is brought forth in a pathological manner from within the human organism, so that what I am now describing to you can by no means lead to hallucinations, visions, or the like; on the contrary, it leads precisely to the other pole of human soul life. It is not that which can be achieved through some kind of pathological brooding, isolated from external perception, that is sought as an ideal; rather, the ideal is, so to speak, that healthy devotion of the human soul which one develops when one faces external sensory impressions with full consciousness and with the most absolute mastery of the will. And by applying this vitality to that which one places at the center of one’s inner life in the manner described, one arrives at a point where one actually strengthens the life of imagination and thought, making it more powerful, just as one strengthens a muscle by constantly using it.

[ 9 ] If one continues such exercises—which require a great deal of patience and perseverance, for anthroposophical research is no easier than research in any field of external science—one eventually notices how one’s thinking has become more intense, more vigorous, and more powerful. And one comes to develop within oneself what can be described as a kind of first step on the path to supersensible knowledge, and what I have called—names are necessary here; one must simply not take offense at them—“imagination.” One gradually learns to live entirely, as one otherwise does in the sensory world, within a thought process that has been made more intense from within.

[ 10 ] What is needed above all else right now, however, is to be clear about the following: If one concentrates one’s entire inner life on such a complex of mental images, then—I would say—the inner life gradually sinks into a realm in which it does indeed become adept at vividly imagining things, becomes adept at having an abundance of such mental images that arise with an inner intensity otherwise found only in external sensory perceptions; but unless one develops another capacity, one would ultimately, in a certain sense, fall under the power of these images. They would overwhelm one; they would be ever-present; one would be at their mercy. It would come to pass that the images would possess the person, rather than the person possessing the images. What is therefore necessary is that these exercises—modified in a wide variety of ways—be supplemented by others, exercises that consist in suppressing such images and banishing them from consciousness; so that, on the one hand, one acquires the ability to make one’s consciousness as intense as possible through these ideas, and on the other hand, to dispel these ideas at will and transition into the state that can be described as empty consciousness. But one notices that, once such exercises have been continued for some time, one’s entire thought life has been freed from that which the body contributes to ordinary thought life.

[ 11 ] This—my esteemed audience—can only be realized, I would say, through experience itself. In the practice of thinking, as I have described it to you—that is, thinking carried out with full force—it becomes clear how one moves freely through thoughts and then regards those thoughts as something like an external table or any other object. And just as it would never occur to one to transfer an external object into the interior of the soul or the human body, so too, once one has entered into such a modified mode of imagination, one will not transfer what then appears in consciousness merely into the interior of the organism. This is an experience through which one arrives at a life of the soul that takes place outside the body. It is important—my esteemed audience—that this first stage, the stage of imaginative cognition, be transcended before proceeding to higher stages.

[ 12 ] However, one must be clear about one thing: that everything that appears in this way first takes on a pictorial character. The usual, abstract way in which we otherwise observe natural phenomena, carefully stringing together one element after another—which the researcher of the spiritual realm can certainly evaluate in the proper way, and which must also remain, because common sense must run entirely parallel to what I describe as supersensible research—this kind of abstract thinking that strings elements together one by one ceases within the realm of supersensible research itself, and an inwardly intense, pictorial imagination takes its place. One lives in images and comes to remove these images from consciousness once more, in order to be able to remain with an empty consciousness.

[ 13 ] Ladies and gentlemen, it actually sounds quite easy when one says: “remain in a state of empty consciousness.” But most people who have not undergone this training immediately fall into a kind of sleep when there is no content of consciousness, when the content of consciousness is suppressed. This is precisely what must be achieved in anthroposophical research: that, after first bringing the life of thought to its fullest expression of power, one can then immediately suppress it again and, so to speak, face the void of one’s own accord. Yet one does not simply stand there facing the void, for we shall soon see that when one empties consciousness from within in this way—after first having worked through it with full force—and when one has become free of the body through one’s imagination, one enters the supersensible world; this is the path not to remain in a state of sleeping consciousness, but rather for this consciousness to fill itself with the content of the supersensible world. But the human being’s imagination must still—I would say—undergo a transition. For when one succeeds in entering ever more deeply into this world of images through intensified imagination, one comes to realize, simply from the facts one experiences inwardly: You no longer possess within yourself that lightness of thought you once had, which you reserve for ordinary life; in imaginative thinking, you do not possess this lightness. You now live within these images in such a way that you are devoted to them. You know that you can no longer simply link one image to another as you did before; rather, the images link themselves together. Through their very nature, they demand the form they are to take, and you feel yourself to be in a world that is a reality.

[ 14 ] One enters this imaginative world and, from a certain point onward, experiences how one—I would say—weaves spiritually within a reality. And the first experience one now has, having advanced in this way to such imaginative contemplation, is that one’s earthly life since birth now lives before the soul as in a great tableau. Otherwise, a person has, of course, the stream of memories from this earthly life, from which this or that emerges, arbitrarily or involuntarily. This is not the case with what I am now describing; rather, what emerges from a certain point of imaginative insight onward is that the person has before them, as in a grand overview, the workings of their inner being. They survey how, out of certain forces, this or that disposition arose within them, and how, of their own volition, they arrived at this or that heroic or unheroic resolution. One gains insight not so much into the individual facts of life as into the forces behind them—the forces that have shaped us, that have given our thoughts their direction and content, that have guided our feelings from within when they were stimulated by the external world, and that have impelled our will. One surveys everything that has [flowed into] one’s being since birth.

[ 15 ] One comes to experience what is not the result of fanciful arbitrariness, but rather of the insight gained from the experience of anthroposophical research just described: the form-body, or, to use an older term, the etheric body. One experiences that which the human being carries within, which is not merely of a spatial character, but of a spatio-temporal character. What stands as a unity above the span of time since birth is experienced as something that one could not depict in detail, any more than one could depict a flash of lightning. One can sketch this form-forming body in a single moment; but it is in motion—it is that which works within us, that which flows through and pulses through our entire soul life. It is in this that one lives, to begin with.

[ 16 ] But — my esteemed audience — once one has acquired the ability to repeatedly erase the images that arise in the imagination, just as I have described, so as to reach a state of empty consciousness, then one has also gradually gathered the power to suppress this entire body of image forces, to dispel it, so to speak. Just as one otherwise dispels only the individual images one has managed to create, so does one dispel this body of image forces—that is, one empties one’s consciousness of this content, which now contains not abstract ideas and images, but the forces of inner growth. When one dispels it, one has not only stepped out of one’s body; one does not merely perceive spiritually from outside one’s body; one has stepped out of one’s earthly existence. Then one perceives within that in which the essence of the soul lived before birth—or, let us say, before conception—and in which it will live after the human being has passed through the gate of death.

[ 17 ] As you can see—my esteemed audience—the anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here is not a matter of philosophical speculation, but rather something that is attained as a human capacity through gradual, truly systematic inner methods. One does not advance toward the human immortal through mere thoughts, but rather advances toward that which precedes birth and follows death—I would say—through an inner method of experimentation—though I ask that you not misunderstand this term—but one must continually make the attempt. Once one has reached the point where one succeeds in bodyless visualization and can suppress the images that arise in the imagination—so that one can step out of the life between birth and death and enter into the essence of the human being, which is the human immortal—and once one has strengthened the soul to the point where it can reach a state of emptiness, then an empty consciousness does not set in. Rather, this consciousness fills with realities that one can otherwise never perceive—realities from a purely spiritual, supersensible world, from a world that is indeed always around us, that permeates all sensibility, and in which the human being lives—without a physical body—before birth or, let us say, before conception, as in a spiritual world. And in this way, one actually enters concretely into spiritual concepts that cannot otherwise be attained except through inner experience. One arrives at the experience of human immortality.

[ 18 ] As you can see—my esteemed audience— one may initially doubt the results of anthroposophical research—after all, one not only has the right to do so, but it is even understandable as a first reaction in human beings—but if one looks at what underlies the anthroposophical researcher’s work, at the mindset with which he sets out to arrive at these results, then one must concede: His attitude is one that is in keeping with true scientific rigor and scientific conscientiousness. He strives to transform his soul, but does so not arbitrarily, but out of a sense of inner conscientiousness such as is found in a laboratory or a clinic.

[ 19 ] Because, once a person has established an empty consciousness, when they now perceive something, they no longer perceive with the body in the most eminent sense—as they otherwise always do in ordinary and scientific consciousness—but rather perceive with the soul freed from the body. And when a person, as I have just indicated, perceives that which is not contained within the sensory world—that which constitutes the essence of the human being before entering embryonic life—then one can speak of the second stage of higher knowledge: knowledge through inspiration. That which penetrates the soul in this way, once consciousness has learned to empty itself, is inspired into this consciousness. And it is only through such inspiration that a person can, based on experience, gain insight into immortality. But once it is presented as a result, anyone can follow what anthroposophical research does purely with sound common sense. What anthroposophical research does does not lead into visions or pathological states, but can be followed at every stage using common sense. Therefore, one can always verify whether the paths taken by the spiritual researcher are reasonable and whether, consequently, there can also be reason in the results he presents.

[ 20 ] And when one now advances to such inspired insights, the first step is indeed the recognition of the supersensible nature of the soul as it was before birth or—let us say—before conception, as it will be after death; the recognition of the immortal nature of the soul, but one can only penetrate to this immortal essence of the soul by the soul having attained a body-free state of cognition, by its exercising—purely as a soul—the transparent cognitive activity that it otherwise exercises with the aid of the brain and nervous system. This is independent of brain and nervous activity. And just as true as it is that, for ordinary consciousness, a human being must in fact be more or less a materialist—just as materialism is correct for ordinary consciousness in that it is bound to the physical organism, and that the physical organism must underlie human activity—so too is it true, on the other hand, that by developing the abilities I have described here, a human being then comes to make free use of the soul as an organ of cognition. Through this, he penetrates not only the supersensible world just described, but also the one that is constantly around us, of which the ordinary sensory world is merely a manifestation. That is to say, human beings can now penetrate a world that lies beyond sensory phenomena—not merely through philosophical speculation, but by using purely soul-based faculties that they have first—I would almost say, if it did not sound philistine—laboriously acquired. And there one does indeed enter into realms that are still very much frowned upon by the ways of thinking common today.

[ 21 ] But before one can develop insight into these areas, one must supplement the described methods of imagination and concentration with others. These others are oriented toward the will. Just as, for ordinary consciousness, thought depends on the brain and nervous system—I cannot go into the details here, but for anyone truly familiar with modern scientific developments, this will be beyond question—so, too, the human will, as it unfolds in everything that leads a person to act, depends first and foremost on the human physical constitution. Just as one must free the life of thought from the physical organism for the sake of supersensible research, so too must one free the life of the will from the physical organism. Now, however, even that intense effort of the will which one must develop in imaginative cognition leads to the gradual application of the will in a way that is independent of the body.

[ 22 ] Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps I may make a remark here that may seem personal, but which is entirely relevant to the subject at hand. I published my *Philosophy of Freedom* in the early 1990s and attempted to show what human freedom is actually based on. People usually ask: Is the human being free, or is he subject to absolute necessity? Does everything that leads him to a decision of the will, to action, flow from the necessary conditions of his organism, or does the human being possess the capacity to decide freely of his own accord, without any necessity? At that time, I attempted to show that, while it is true that for the vast majority of human actions we must speak of necessity—that the life of instincts, the life of drives, the emotional life, and everything else bound to the human organism forms the basis for the vast majority of our actions, but that human beings can also rise above this to have pure thoughts as the motives of their will—pure thoughts that find their inner expression in moral ideals.

[ 23 ] When a person bases his or her volitional impulses on such pure thoughts as moral ideals, he or she gradually comes to be a truly free being as a personality. And at that time, I called the sum of moral ideals—which can find a place within a human being and which then find their outward expression in the entire way in which the human being lives morally—I called this sum of moral ideals “moral intuition.” And I said that the truly free life of the human being is based on such an intuition, an intuition of which I said: Its content does not originate in the human organism; it is drawn from a spiritual world, and it is from this spiritual world that the free human being derives his or her identity. And when one pursues a philosophy of freedom in this way, then this philosophy of freedom is indeed a preparation for insight into such cognitive faculties as I have described today.

[ 24 ] For when one discerns the very essence of these moral ideals that are to be realized here, one is led to expand this essence further and further. And when one adds to this the kind of inner exercises I have described today in principle, one realizes: What is granted to human beings—as earthly beings—in the form of free actions can participate in a spiritual world. This can fill one’s entire soul; it can lead one to imagination, through which one surveys one’s body of formative forces; it can lead one to inspiration, through which one surveys the soul life that one was before entering earthly existence through birth or—let us say—conception, and that one will be once one has passed through the gate of death. But that which is inherent in human beings as such supersensible knowledge must also be developed in relation to the will.

[ 25 ] However, one can bear the best fruit by striving to make one’s will ever stronger and stronger in relation to one’s purely inner life. This can be achieved in many different ways.

[ 26 ] I will cite the following. We are accustomed to thinking in accordance with the sequence of external facts. We treat what comes first as the cause and what comes later as the effect. And when we are immersed in everyday life, we think along the thread of external events. Anyone who thinks solely along the thread of external events—that is, who, in a sense, passively surrenders to the course of external events—cannot achieve the unfolding of the will that is necessary for supersensory knowledge. But the person who, for example, practices—and practices again and again—the exercise of, [instead of] thinking along the thread of external events, imagining these external events in reverse order—the most recent first, then the second-most recent, and so on and so forth—let’s say, for example, the course of a drama from the final act to the penultimate, the third-to-last, and so on, tracking them backward in as small segments as possible—or who, in the evening, looks back on the experiences he had during the day—then, if this is to be done seriously, a different exertion of will is required than that used when he allows his thinking to follow the thread of external facts.

[ 27 ] This effort of the will that one arrives at ultimately leads to grasping, in a deeper sense, that which otherwise—I would say, although this may not be popular, especially among those people who always speak only of objective knowledge— this effort of the will leads to grasping, in a deeper sense, that which in ordinary life is precisely bound to the organism as the most beautiful and best expression of the human will: the development of love. I know—my esteemed audience—that love is not readily regarded as a faculty of cognition. As it exists in ordinary life, it should not be claimed by anthroposophy in that sense. But when an unfolding of the will takes place in the manner I have described, then the human being comes to discover, precisely in the capacity for love, one of the most significant faculties of cognition.

[ 28 ] Through this capacity for insight—which he can further enhance by, once he has, as it were, grasped this capacity for love within himself and become aware of it, observing external facts in such a way that he truly immerses himself lovingly in the individual kingdoms of nature — I have described this in detail — just as a person, when developing such powers of perception, lovingly follows the life of a plant from seed to fruit, so that he relives how leaf after leaf unfolds. In the same way, one can — I would say — with such a developed capacity for love, immerse oneself in the animal organism and so on. If, in this way, one also strengthens one’s life of the will and begins to observe oneself as an acting human being more seriously than usual—if one observes oneself in one’s actions as objectively as one would otherwise observe external objects, if one gets into the habit of walking alongside oneself as if one were a second person and constantly watching oneself in the unfolding of one’s will— then the will is able not only to allow inspiration to unfold within the human being, but also to experience through imagination that which speaks into the human soul from a spiritual world; then the human being is able to make his own soul a living organ of knowledge for the spiritual. In inspiration, the spiritual world does not yet penetrate the soul in a clear, self-revealing way. In the third stage, which I have called intuition—true intuition, not that vague kind of which one also speaks in outer consciousness—in this intuition, the human being truly penetrates the spiritual world.

[ 29 ] This, however, is what one must achieve if one wishes to penetrate the spiritual world that always surrounds us—of which the external sensory world is merely the manifestation, merely the outward expression. But then one comes to see this sensory world in a completely different way than before—in such a way that one must inevitably face the accusation of being a fantasist, because people are so quick to regard the unfamiliar as fantastical. Nevertheless, I will not hesitate to use at least one example to show how what previously presented itself to our sensory perception in a certain form now appears in a completely new form—for imagination, inspiration, and intuition.

[ 30 ] Just so I am not misunderstood, I would like to preface this by saying: When a person enters abnormal, pathological states of visionary life—when they are in a hypnotic state or are being influenced by others—they are immersed in this abnormal mental state, and the other state is, so to speak, suppressed. The person is completely absorbed in this abnormal perception or experience. Those who truly follow the anthroposophy referred to here will see that there is not the slightest reason to confuse what is called the anthroposophical method of knowledge with anything hallucinatory, visionary, or pathological. The latter points in an entirely different direction. This is recognized primarily by the fact that in all hypnotic, hallucinatory, visionary, and pathological states, the individual is absorbed in these states, and their ordinary soul life is temporarily or permanently extinguished. In what is described here as a supersensible mode of cognition, we do indeed enter into an entirely different way of perceiving—a perception of the world of the spirit that has nothing in common with the world of the senses— yet at every moment one surrenders to this supersensory cognition, ordinary cognition, the ordinary state of consciousness, and perfectly normal, sound common sense remain present alongside it. At every moment, in a genuine perception of spiritual life, this sound state that has been maintained controls the other, unusual—but no less sound—state.

[ 31 ] I must preface this before I describe how things appear under the influence of supersensible knowledge. Let us first take something cosmic: the sun. To ordinary perception, we see it in the way you are familiar with: as a disk within the cosmos. Using the physical methods at our disposal, we determine its true size, shape, and so on. For the kind of insight I have described here, the image we have of the Sun through ordinary science is completely transformed. The solar entity that appears with fixed contours and emits rays ceases to exist in that form before supersensible insight. In a sense, the solar essence fills the entire space for supersensible knowledge. The solar essence is everywhere, and we become aware that this solar essence, which is everywhere, is merely concentrated, so to speak, in the physical sun; that this physical sun is only the physical manifestation of a spiritual reality that fills the entire space. Then one becomes aware of how this solar nature is a process, an event—namely, an event that one is now [coming to know], since one has, after all, come to know the human form-forming body, which is the creative force within the human being, the creative power that gives us our abilities and shapes our organs plastically.

[ 32 ] By coming to know and continuing to learn about this human body of formative forces, and by understanding how the forces of this body are connected to the forces of the solar realm, one recognizes that the solar realm contains everything that constitutes constructive forces of growth—forces of progressive flourishing, increase, and becoming. In short—I would say—the world space that has now been transformed into spirituality is permeated by the power of becoming and growing that unfolds out there in nature, that underlies nature, and one sees this solar aspect penetrating everywhere as that which is becoming and growing; one sees it penetrating into the very constitution of the body of formative forces. One learns to recognize how the human being, with his or her intimate spiritual-soul and physical organization, is integrated into a cosmic principle of becoming. The world of facts is truly enriched by a sum of spiritual processes.

[ 33 ] Just as one comes to know the solar aspect, so one comes to know the lunar aspect. One becomes aware of it as the process that manifests itself in everything as that which dies away, as that which diminishes, as that which causes withering—a process that also extends into human beings and constantly ensures that there are not only ascending forces of growth within us, which guide us from youth, becoming fewer and fewer as we approach old age—forces that nevertheless accompany us until death—but that there are not only forces of growth within us, but also the others: those of destruction, of decline, of aging; that these are the lunar forces.

[ 34 ] Human beings learn to attune themselves to the processes of the sun and the moon. And in this way—I would say—human beings come to see themselves as a part of the entire cosmos. Just as our hand appears as a part of our organism—which, as we know, ceases to be what it is as a part of our organism if we cut it off— it has meaning only through the whole organism—so, when we observe the human being using the means of knowledge described, we perceive how, although the human being is separated from the other things of the sensory world by his or her outer sensory form, there lie behind this sensory form the forces that shape it, yet at the same time make it a part of the entire cosmos.

[ 35 ] Here lies the opportunity to show that coming to know the cosmos as the sum of spiritual beings is not based on fantasy, but rather on the fact that only by grasping within oneself what enables one to perceive the processes and events of the cosmos in their spiritual nature can one truly understand them. By following this path, one progresses further and further, eventually coming to recognize the cosmos as a spiritual world. And once one has risen to the point of truly beholding the spiritual within the soul in this way, only then does one truly ascend to that which now stands above the forces of growth and destruction—that which, in a sense, triumphs over the solar and lunar forces within the human being through an inner struggle. There one attains, in the most perfect way, the true knowledge of the human “I,” and one now learns to recognize that this “I” is not limited to a single earthly life.

[ 36 ] Once one has recognized through inspiration what passes through birth and death, and what the soul is like outside the body, and once one has recognized how that which is outside the body unites, through conception, with that which is given to it through the forces of heredity—then, when one can perceive these things together, one realizes that there is still something at work in the soul that is purely spiritual, yet which acts within our “I.” Without this spiritual element, the “I” in human beings would be a completely powerless entity. This spiritual element reveals itself, when one attains intuition, as the repetition of previous earthly lives. Human beings have lived through previous earthly lives—and, time and again, lives between death and a new incarnation. And that which is active in an earthly life—for ordinary life and ordinary science, with the aid of the ordinary organism, and which finds its expression through this ordinary organism—passes through the gate of death and through the spiritual worlds. Having passed through the spiritual worlds, having absorbed within itself everything it had previously worked and experienced in the world solely through the body, it enters a new earthly life.

[ 37 ] What one experiences in this realm belongs to the most intimate experiences of the soul—those experiences in which one becomes aware that, even beyond the spiritual-soul aspect that works upon the organism, there lies something else: something that has already gathered earthly experiences, that brings something into this life, and that is not contained within the two worlds one has already come to know. It is not contained in the sensory world, nor in the spiritual-soul world. One learns to recognize that which is now elevated above the sensory and the spiritual-soul realm precisely because it has already undergone the experience of a sensory world. Because one has first become acquainted with those two other worlds, one also comes to know that world in which the repetitive aspect of the human being reveals itself.

[ 38 ] This can be said about the world outside of human beings in relation to human beings themselves.

[ 39 ] With this, I have given you a rough outline of the essence of anthroposophy—how it allows one to penetrate the immortal part of the human being, and how one can penetrate the cosmos and the connection between the human being and the cosmos. But when one comes to know the human being in and of themselves and in their relationship to the world in this way, one gradually advances into the realms where anthroposophy is not merely a form of knowledge—which it certainly intends to be at first, and from which it entirely proceeds—but one advances to that which anthroposophy is already capable of today, in a certain sense, namely, the application of anthroposophy to the most diverse fields of science and practical life. I can only make brief remarks on these matters here, but I would like to base them on the principles I have just expounded regarding the nature of anthroposophy.

[ 40 ] First, we come to know the human being as a sensory being, as a being that, as a natural entity, exists within the facts of nature, natural forces, and natural substances. When we come to understand through physiology and biology how the substances of the external natural world penetrate the human being, what paths they take, and what forces continue to act thereafter, we become aware of how the human being—I would say—stands before us as a physical-sensory whole. But if we come to know the human being in the way I have just described, then the human being does not stand before us in this way as a physical-sensory whole; for then we become aware, above all, of how the human being is shaped from the cosmos in the most diverse ways with regard to its various members. Thus, for the kind of supersensible knowledge I have described, it becomes evident that the solar force, which acts upon the human being from the cosmos and continues to act within the human being, exerts its influence on everything that I would like to call the human being’s primary, or head, organization—that is, the organization which is primarily the nervous-sensory system. This, then, is what has to do with the human being’s development and growth—what is most strongly at work internally, even in the very young child.

[ 41 ] Over the course of life, the lunar forces—the [dulling] forces that lead to physical death—become increasingly active. These forces are primarily at work at the opposite pole of the human organism, in the system of the limbs, the organs of movement, and the internal organs of movement—the metabolic organs. In short, we now learn not only to perceive the human being as a whole, but also to integrate him or her into the external world. This can then be further specialized. What appears to us as a closed entity in the human being—as it does to ordinary consciousness—becomes an event, a process, for supersensible knowledge. Through supersensible knowledge, we learn to speak not only of the brain and its parts, but of the brain process, the lung-like process, the heart process—in short, of the human being as a being that is in motion within itself, a form permeated even in its physical organization by the form-forming forces, which set it in motion—and we come to understand what the etheric body accomplishes with the physical body as a sum of processes. Through this, however, we penetrate more deeply into the human being.

[ 42 ] We come to understand the connections between the human being and its surroundings—in the broadest sense, the cosmos. In this way, we arrive at a true and genuine understanding of the human being. And as you have seen, we gain not only an understanding of the human being but also an understanding of the external world. We come to understand the solar and lunar aspects, as well as all that else lives in the cosmos, in the worlds of plants, animals, and minerals. Through this, as we come to know the human being as a part of the cosmos, we understand their relationship to the cosmos; we come to understand the processes that unfold in healthy and sick human beings. We learn to recognize external processes that, in a certain sense, are the opposites of these processes. We come to know the plants and minerals that contain these opposing processes. We thereby gain access to a pathology and therapy—to a medical science—that does not rely solely on trial and error, but which, like any rational natural science, learns to investigate health and illness based on an understanding of humanity and the world, and to trace how a particular medicinal substance aids a process within the human being that deviates from what is beneficial to that person. Thus one can see how it came to be that anthroposophical research was made fruitful through the founding in Stuttgart of our Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, where new remedies and new therapies are being sought. The experiments have already progressed so far that they can now be presented to the world as proof of how it was possible to make anthroposophy fruitful in this field of practical scientific life.

[ 43 ] Likewise—my esteemed audience—by allowing anthroposophy to guide us into the shaping of the world, leading us out of what simply is and into that which is formative, we have likewise been able to find a path of which it may be said that, in a certain sense, it is precisely the fulfillment of Goethe’s artistic path, for example, through our building in Dornach, through the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science, which is not merely, so to speak, an external framework for anthroposophical activity, but which, in its architectural style, is as artistically expressed as anthroposophy itself is in the way it presents itself to humanity as a worldview. If another spiritual movement had needed its own building, it would have turned to one architect or another who would have created a setting for it in the Romanesque, Gothic, or some other architectural style.

[ 44 ] Anthroposophy does not seek to be abstract knowledge, nor merely theory; it cannot merely enrich the individual sciences, but rather it moves from the formed world to the world in the process of formation. And let us take a statement through which Goethe himself characterized his own artistic sensibility. He says: Art is a manifestation of secret laws of nature that could never be revealed without art. — Through his artistic creation, Goethe does not seek to impose human arbitrariness upon the material, but rather to express that which is perceived in the spiritual realm—or, as we might say today, beheld in the spiritual realm—from within the cosmos itself. A building could be created whose forms express to the external observer exactly what is expressed in words when, based on the idea, one represents the anthroposophical perspective—the vision of the spiritual world. And in this way, anthroposophy will also be able to have a fruitful influence on artistic life.

[ 45 ] Emil Molt founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart in 1919, and I am its director. This Waldorf School is by no means a school based on a particular worldview, and those who believe that anthroposophy is introduced into it as a worldview are entirely mistaken. That is not the case. It has even reached the point where religious worldviews are taught there by representatives of the various religious denominations. The Catholic worldview is taught by priests of the Catholic Church, and the Protestant worldview by pastors of the Protestant Church. We have introduced a special religious education program only for those children who would otherwise have no religious instruction at all; however, this program does not seek to impose an anthroposophical worldview on the children. The pedagogical method of the Waldorf school—its didactics—is intended to express what anthroposophy can offer in this most important area of practical life.

[ 46 ] And—my esteemed audience—anthroposophical knowledge is, in fact, knowledge of the human being. With it, one can observe how the spiritual-soul aspect of a child unfolds from the very first moment of life, with that which is spiritual-soul-related increasingly shaping the outer physical form. One can identify certain laws that are different in a child until the child learns to speak, then different again until about the age of nine, and then different once more until sexual maturity. One can come to know the child thoroughly; there is no need to become a revolutionary with regard to the fundamental laws of life. What we need is practical knowledge of human nature. Anthroposophy does not seek to create revolutionary new principles at any cost; rather, it seeks to understand the child in such a way that those involved in education can, in a sense, derive everything that is developed in the curriculum and educational goals from the understanding of the spiritual, soul, and physical aspects that anthroposophy can provide, as I have taken the liberty of describing.

[ 47 ] Ladies and gentlemen, it is safe to say: If anything in any other field had been able to have such a fruitful impact as, for example, what unfolded at the Anthroposophical Congress in Stuttgart this past summer, the world would have viewed such an event differently. After all, at this Congress, for example, we witnessed how external, experimental psychology and pedagogy were the subject of such an excellent discussion as in Dr. von Heydebrand’s lecture. Had this been the case in other fields as well, it would have been the talk of the town for a long time among all those involved in education and teaching. Anthroposophy, which must still fight to establish its place—in the field of education as well as in other fields—[will then also bear fruit in other fields].

[ 48 ] We have seen in modern culture that thinking—the entire mode of conception that arises simply from the scientific way of thinking—has led us into a social worldview and outlook on life that is now bearing its terribly destructive fruits, above all in Eastern Europe. We have seen what a purely scientific way of life—one that does not seek to penetrate to the spirit—brings about in the social sphere. What is to be revealed through anthroposophy is not merely to view the human being as a natural being and to conceive of him in social life as such, but to grasp him as a being of body, soul, and spirit. And in this way, anthroposophy can enrich social life. Of course, this can only become apparent little by little; it must gradually take shape in specific practical matters, some of which have already been pursued. I do not wish to speak of that, but rather of the fact that political economy—which arose from purely external perspectives—has undergone an excellent critique by Emil Leinhas, so that here, in his lecture “The Bankruptcy of Political Economy,” which is now also available in print, a path has been shown for how spirituality can be introduced into social life. But social life is not guided toward its proper directions merely in this way—as if one were speaking to a stove: “Dear stove, your task is to warm the room, so warm it up.” As is well known, that does not help; rather, one must supply the stove with fuel, and then the warming will follow of its own accord. Social life is not guided toward its proper course through persuasion or a categorical imperative. This can be achieved solely by making use of the forces that can truly be introduced into practical life.

[ 49 ] And finally, one area where anthroposophy can have a fruitful influence—though this is perhaps the most important of all, it does not fall within the scope of our topic—is the realm of religious life. It is precisely here that anthroposophy is misunderstood, in that people believe it seeks to incorporate something sectarian into life; yet it shows how knowledge—which is as rigorous as ordinary science—penetrates the spiritual-soul realm in the world and, at the very core of the human being, imbues the human soul with religious depth. In a sense, as a person matures religiously, they learn to recognize this—illuminated by the light that can come only through contemplation of the spiritual worlds to which human beings ultimately belong.

[ 50 ] Anthroposophy aims to be nothing more for religious life than that which, in accordance with the needs and longings of modern human beings, can be lived in such a way that it offers inner security, provides a foundation for life, and can also be integrated into the practice of daily life. For that is, after all, what ultimately matters most: the practical aspects of life. If we were to ascend to a spiritual world that we could only glimpse half-dreaming from a cloud cuckoo land, and if the rest of life were to unfold without the influence of this spiritual world, then this spiritual world would be of highly questionable value to human beings. Anthroposophy does not present itself to people in such a way that they are expected to follow the example of certain mystics for whom the sensory world is always too inferior. It also seeks to ascend to the higher worlds, but it knows that the higher spiritual worlds are precisely those that reveal themselves through the fact that the physical-material realm is their creation.

[ 51 ] And so anthroposophy seeks to become the foundation for a true way of life. We immerse ourselves in what can be perceived in spiritual life, but we strive to carry it into all areas of life and practical living. For the true spiritual world is not one into which one must take refuge, but one in which one can actively immerse oneself in life. And so anthroposophy does not wish to be something that opposes the great advances in the understanding of nature and what arises from that understanding, but rather something that further develops this very understanding of nature—in the sense of a spiritual understanding, but also in the sense of a true, spiritually grounded, and dignified way of life. No one more than those who stand on the foundation of this spiritual science of anthroposophy will recognize the great significance of modern natural science and reject any form of dilettantism in any field, should it seek to set the tone for spiritual life. But what ultimately aims to be anthroposophy must nevertheless spring from the deepest longings of the human heart and from all human striving for knowledge.

[ 52 ] Just as we can only truly see the whole, complete human being when we do not merely focus on the human being’s external nature—that is, the external, physical organization—but when we perceive the human being as imbued with soul and spirit, so, too, do we have true knowledge of the world and of the human being—and a way of life that is in keeping with the spirit and worthy of humanity—only when we seek to imbue our practice of nature and our knowledge of nature with that which comes from the spirit, from the soul. And so anthroposophy does not wish to oppose advances in the natural sciences, but rather wishes to possess a genuine scientific spirit itself; it wishes to be that which, for the whole human being, the soul is—the spirit within the physical body. It wishes to be this for external knowledge of nature and for external practice in nature. In a sense, it seeks to perceive a soul and a spirit within the magnificent, powerful view of and practice with nature in modern times; and the anthroposophy referred to here wishes to emerge and be understood as the center—the spiritual and soulful center—for knowledge of and practice with nature.