The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Findings of the Humanities and Their Relationship to Art and Religion

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! For many years now, I have had the privilege of speaking here at this venue about anthroposophical spiritual science, its nature, and its significance for humanity’s present spiritual life. Since I last had the privilege of doing so, the School of Spiritual Science courses took place at the Goetheanum in Dornach in September and October of this year. These courses were also intended to demonstrate, in a practical and tangible way, the role that anthroposophical spiritual science—as understood here—seeks to fulfill in relation to the other sciences and to practical life. Approximately thirty individuals from various scientific disciplines, figures from the arts, as well as individuals from practical life—including those in industry and commerce—[contributed to this effort]; through them, it was intended to demonstrate how spiritual science can have a fruitful influence on the various scientific disciplines, on artistic creation, but above all on practical life. Spiritual science should by no means limit itself to engaging in theoretical debates or offering pleasant descriptions; rather, it should demonstrate how it actually possesses the means and methods to do precisely what, in many respects, cannot be done by other fields in the present and for the near future, but which it can undertake.

[ 2 ] Anyone who is more familiar with the current state of intellectual life knows how, throughout the various branches of science, the view and sentiment are widespread that the individual sciences reach certain limits that they cannot possibly transcend. It is often even suggested that it is impossible for human beings to go beyond such limits at all.

[ 3 ] But on the other hand, science is also confronted with practical life. Science should and does seek to intervene in practical life. And surely no one who is deeply involved in the world of science can deny that the boundaries against which the various sciences find themselves —I need only point to medicine—cannot be resolved simply by engaging in philosophical-theoretical debates intended to justify these boundaries; rather, the point is that life often demands human action precisely where science encounters such boundaries. That, in fact, the specific method of the humanities makes it possible to enter precisely those areas that the modern sciences point to as boundaries—this was to be demonstrated, on the one hand, in the Dornach College Courses. This was to be demonstrated not by individual figures immersed solely in the humanities, but precisely by all people—by individuals who have thoroughly mastered their respective disciplines just as others have and who are deeply engaged in them, yet who are at the same time capable of showing how these disciplines can be inspired and enriched by the humanities. Thus, it was also of particular importance that individuals from practical life demonstrate that this specific way of thinking—which is, after all, directed toward reality, toward full, total reality, to which the spiritual forces of the world certainly belong—is capable of accomplishing in practical life what has often had to remain unaccomplished in recent times, and which has indeed been objectively documented as unaccomplished by the social and other hardships of our present time.

[ 4 ] Of course, it is still too early to say to what extent this anthroposophical spiritual science will succeed, through such practical measures, in demonstrating its validity in contemporary spiritual life from this perspective as well. On the other hand, however, it can be said that despite the attacks—which were mentioned in the introductory remarks—it is now being recognized, even by serious observers, that what many believe—namely, that anthroposophy is [like] the activity of some [random] fringe sect or the like.

[ 5 ] I would like to cite just one example to show you how, despite all opposition—which is not always well-intentioned and, above all, not always well-meaning—how, despite all opposition, and indeed precisely because of that opposition, spiritual science is nevertheless slowly arriving at what it must arrive at: at least the recognition of its earnest striving and its keen awareness of the cultural needs of the present.

[ 6 ] I would like to cite this very example. The opposing writings are gradually expanding into books, and a book titled *Modern Theosophy* has been published in recent weeks. For a reason that is, admittedly, rather strange, the author states that he is concerned with nothing other than spiritual science. He says in the following remarks: Whenever there is talk of theosophy and theosophists—this is always the terminology used, as it is more common than the terms anthroposophy and anthroposophists.

[ 7 ] Well, one cannot say—my esteemed audience—that the author of this work, Kurt Leese, who holds a licentiate in theology, views anthroposophy favorably. On the contrary, the entire book is written as a refutation. Nor can one say that the author of the book has an exceptionally deep understanding of anthroposophy. But what he puts forward right on the first page—and repeats many times throughout the book—is something that shows that even from a position of opposition, the seriousness of anthroposophy’s intentions can gradually no longer be denied. Here, an opponent is quoted as saying:

“If theosophy were merely a collection of random ideas from some obscure sect fishing in murky waters, it would not be worth the effort to pay it much attention.”

[ 8 ] And then he says that we are dealing with something that reveals the foundations of a comprehensive worldview powerfully interwoven with an ethical spirit. The author of this book candidly admits that this ethical spirit would remain even if one were to reject everything else in anthroposophy:

“Its most active contemporary advocate, Rudolf Steiner, has drawn upon his vast erudition and undeniable acumen to compile a wealth of material on the history of religion, the natural sciences, and philosophy, in order to lay the foundations for a comprehensive worldview powerfully imbued with an ethical spirit.”

[ 9 ] Nevertheless—and now I come to the positive part of my discussion—this opponent, who strives to be objective, seeks to find the grounds for refuting anthroposophy within anthroposophy itself; he wants, so to speak, to take up what the anthroposophist says and point out contradictions and the like, specifically to demonstrate its unscientific character. But at one point he gives himself away in a most curious way. There, at a particularly telling passage, he says that anthroposophy comes across as provocative and “unbearable.”

Such feats of intricate distinctions, which from the outset serve the ideological purposes of a preconceived schema, make reading Steiner’s writings not only difficult—a process in which the uninitiated might easily fall prey to numerous misunderstandings—but also frustrating and unbearable.

[ 10 ] So it is not merely a challenge to logical judgment or scientific judgment, but a challenge to feelings and emotions—that is how one views anthroposophy! And why is this so? It is, of course, connected to the very special way in which anthroposophy—precisely by striving to be as scientific as any other science—relates to humanity’s path of knowledge.

[ 11 ] Anthroposophy—as I have, of course, stated here very often—would certainly not be taken seriously if it were to adopt a foolishly dismissive attitude toward the great, significant achievements of the scientific method in modern times. Nor would it be taken seriously if it were to adopt a dilettantish attitude toward the spirit—the entire inner ethos—of scientific research. It is based entirely—and therein lies its scientific orientation—on a recognition of modern scientific endeavor. It does so by seeking to delve deeply into the scientific methods, while at the same time seeking a path from an understanding of the external sensory world into an understanding of the spiritual world. And it seeks to answer the crucial questions—the questions concerning the path to knowledge—in such a way that the spiritual realm is given its due just as the sensory realm is through scientific research. As a result, however, it feels compelled—not to remain confined to the scientific method as it is commonly understood, when one applies it solely within the sensory world—but rather not to stop at this scientific method as it is generally practiced. It devotes itself more to education and the inner discipline of research than to scientific methods; for this reason, it cannot accept what is often dogmatically asserted today regarding the necessity of remaining within the realm of the senses and the world of phenomena through the intellect.

[ 12 ] And from this perspective, spiritual science does indeed seem provocative, as this critic says, and “unpleasant.” For, on the whole, people today are not inclined to accept any method of knowledge that does not arise from the ordinary characteristics of human nature—those one encounters in the world, those one has acquired through education, or those that simply follow from the course of ordinary life. It is precisely the great, the most marvelous achievements of modern natural science that are based on remaining at a certain standpoint of sensory observation, experimentation, and intellectual synthesis; on carrying out this kind of research further and further, conscientiously further and further; but on wanting to remain at the standpoint once adopted in this way.

[ 13 ] The humanities, as understood here, cannot remain confined to this perspective; rather, they must—and indeed feel compelled, precisely because of the rigorous training in the natural sciences that researchers in the humanities must undergo— it feels compelled—not only to expand the knowledge applied in the natural sciences and to make it more precise through various aids—but it feels compelled to develop within the soul an entirely different kind of knowledge, a different mode of knowing, than that which is applied in the natural sciences today. It therefore feels compelled to extend the natural scientist’s approach into the spiritual realm, so that the emergence of this spiritual-scientific method can be characterized more as a growth—but a completely natural growth—out of the methods of natural science than as a mere extension of the natural-scientific method. And this brings us precisely to what I have expressed over the years from a wide variety of perspectives.

[ 14 ] One comes to discover certain forces in the life of the human soul that are initially hidden from ordinary perception—and even from ordinary scientific perception—just as the soul forces in a ten-year-old child remain hidden until they emerge five or ten years later. One must consider the genuine growth of the human being—the sprouting forth of that which is not yet present at age ten and continues into the fifteenth or twentieth year. And this is what the anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here discovers: that even when one has developed to the point of employing methods that allow for the most conscientious scientific research, it is still possible—in a way that can be compared to the actual growth of the human being—to further develop the human soul forces; it is possible to to draw out powers from the human soul that can see the world not merely—I would say—with greater microscopic precision or telescopic closeness, but that see the world in an entirely different way, namely, through a spiritual-soul perspective as opposed to mere sensory perception.

[ 15 ] And no attempt is made—my esteemed audience—to investigate the spiritual realm in any way through external measures or external experiments. How, indeed, could one come to know the supersensible through laboratory experiments! That is what those inclined toward spiritualism want; that is what people who gather around Schrenck-Notzing, for example, or others, want. The anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here takes precisely the opposite view: that whatever can be pursued externally through methods modeled on external scientific experimentation—no matter how astonishing it may seem that by deepening or refining the sensory world in any way, or by allowing it to act more toward the ethereal realm in some way—that by remaining within the sensory world, one can by no means arrive at knowledge of the supersensory world. Yet modern people often find it unreasonable that they must first do something with their soul forces, that they must first develop these soul forces themselves, before they can explore the spiritual world.

[ 16 ] [Here,] however, it is necessary to develop a certain intellectual humility, which consists in telling oneself: With those faculties that are so eminently suited to the sensory world—such as those employed by modern natural science—it is simply not possible to enter the spiritual world. A person must first awaken his or her own supersensible faculties if he or she wishes to explore the supersensible in the external environment—to which, as a spiritual-soul being, he or she belongs just as much as he or she belongs to the physical world through his or her sensory nature.

[ 17 ] It is certainly not for everyone, my esteemed audience, to become a researcher of the spirit; however, even if one does not wish to become a spiritual researcher, that is no reason to say that spiritual science is idle, simply because it opens up a realm into which, after all, only those who have developed their soul powers in a certain sense can gain insight.

[ 18 ] Modern humanity, taken as a whole, does not, strictly speaking, follow the path of the scientific method itself; but modern life is permeated by the ideas that we bring into it through the natural sciences. Simply through common sense, one feels compelled to accept and incorporate into life—and to apply in other ways as well, with regard to the nature of human existence—what emanates from the natural sciences. Just as the researcher conducts experiments in the laboratory that then find their way out into the world, so too will there be a new spiritual science. But humanity at large wants to be able to relate to the findings of spiritual science in the same way it relates to those of the natural sciences, without having to face the accusation that something has been accepted on the basis of mere faith or authority.

[ 19 ] What is described as this particular inner, intimate spiritual method is to be found in the direct development of human spiritual powers that already exist in ordinary life and in ordinary science. One arrives—I would say intellectually—at the conclusion that such a thing must exist when one brings the true epistemological significance of modern scientific life before one’s soul.

[ 20 ] I am certainly no Kantian, my esteemed audience. Everything that emerges for me from the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is, in essence, anti-Kantian. But I must nevertheless refer here to a statement by Kant, for what is contained in this statement has, in essence, been [verified], confirmed by the entire recent scientific development, insofar as this entire recent scientific development truly strives to be knowledge of the world—comprehensible knowledge of the world. It is Kant’s statement: “In every science, there is actually only as much real science to be found as there is mathematics present in it.”

[ 20 ] I am certainly no Kantian, my esteemed audience. Everything that emerges for me from the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is, in essence, anti-Kantian. But I must nevertheless refer here to a statement by Kant, for what is contained in this statement has, in essence, been [verified], confirmed by the entire recent scientific development, insofar as this entire recent scientific development truly strives to be knowledge of the world—comprehensible knowledge of the world. It is Kant’s statement: “In every science, there is actually only as much real science to be found as there is mathematics present in it.”

[ 22 ] Yes, it means that one only feels, so to speak, that one is shedding intellectual light on what one can observe in the external world once one has [verified] the observations mathematically. And how does that come about? Well, it is because one grasps mathematical insights through one’s own understanding—one does not come to know them through external observation. Anyone who, through inner intuition, knows that the three angles of a triangle add up to 180°—anyone who can grasp this through their own intuition in ordinary Euclidean geometry—knows it. They know it clearly through their own intuition, and even if millions of people were to contradict them, they still know it. They can certainly affirm it as a truth based on their inner intuition. It is therefore the inner work of contemplation through which one arrives at mathematical truths—through which one, so to speak, experiences mathematical truths inwardly. And external observation becomes scientific precisely because one carries this inwardly observed insight into these external observations and connects it with them.

[ 23 ] Precisely when one has experienced within oneself this whole impulse of the modern scientific approach through mathematics—that is, through an inwardly clear, luminous pursuit of certain insights to arrive at scientific paths that also satisfy the human need for knowledge—one is driven further. And then something else emerges. This other thing arises, I would say, from the depths of life. From the depths of our soul well up all manner of needs for knowledge in the face of the great mysteries of existence.

[ 24 ] At first, in a very vague way, human beings want to know something about what constitutes the very core of their being. They want to know something—or at least, one might say, they assume that there is something to be known about that which lies beyond birth and death. They also assume that, even if their path is still obscure with regard to what they call their destiny, there may nevertheless be a path of knowledge that allows them to somehow discern the seemingly tangled threads of human fate. It is precisely by experiencing what wells up from the soul in this way that a person— I would say, through inner spiritual practice, increasingly aware of how he is prompted—when he seeks to view his inner spiritual life, this thinking, feeling, and willing within him, in a transparent way—in a manner similar to how he already succeeds to a certain degree today in penetrating the outer world with mathematical concepts. And from what one experiences there as a drive toward knowledge—the starting point for the spiritual researcher—one comes to realize that certain soul forces, which are absolutely necessary for a healthy human existence in ordinary life, can be developed further than they are in ordinary life.

[ 25 ] Well, one of these ordinary mental faculties—without the normal functioning of which we cannot be mentally healthy—is the ability to remember. Ladies and gentlemen! We are all familiar with this capacity for memory; but we also know how essential it is for a healthy, normal soul life. We are familiar with pathological cases in which the thread of memory is severed at the point of childhood—the furthest back we can recall in our lives—where we cannot look back on the life we have lived since our birth. When a person has severed the thread of their memory—the flow of their recollections—in this way, they feel, as it were, hollowed out from within. Their inner life is not healthy, and they cannot find a healthy place for themselves in external life—neither in social life nor in life in nature. The ability to remember is therefore something that is, so to speak, inextricably intertwined with normal human life. Memory is linked to what we experience through our senses—to everything we go through in our interaction with the external world. How does this memory present itself to us?

[ 26 ] We can quite easily summon them to our soul within our being when we do so through an image. In a sense, our life lies behind us at every moment, initially like an indeterminate stream. But we live within our soul in such a way that indeterminate streams can emerge from this state—images of individual experiences—and that through more or less arbitrary inner acts we can bring these images to the surface, and that they also come to us involuntarily, and so on. It is as if there were a stream of our being, and from this stream these images of our memories could emerge like waves.

[ 27 ] Anyone who thinks not with prejudice but truly in the spirit of modern science knows how closely this capacity for memory is connected to human physicality, to the physical nature of human beings. We can—indeed, we need only—point to what physiology and biology have to say in this regard, namely, how the capacity for memory is in some way connected to the physicality of the body. And we will see how all of this points to the fact that a truly healthy body is necessary for a person to maintain a healthy capacity for memory.

[ 28 ] This capacity for memory is, in fact, such that—in the right way, I would say—it must, in a certain sense, [diminish] the vividness of the external sensory perceptions we experience in our interaction with the external world. We can only recall the images of our experiences in a subdued state, and we must recall these images in such a way that we can participate in this recall with our will in an appropriate manner. These images must emerge in our inner soul life in a subdued manner and with a certain degree of arbitrariness. And it is, of course, well known that when these images of memory emerge with a certain vividness and intensity, and when the human will—when the structure of the “I”—must yield to these images, when the human being cannot firmly maintain his “I” in the face of these images, then pathological states of mind arise, hallucinations arise, visions—in short, everything that causes a person to be, in a sense, more deeply rooted in their physical body than they are when engaged in ordinary perception and memory.

[ 29 ] This must be taken for granted so that the humanities are not misunderstood—particularly with regard to their method—namely, that the humanities are perfectly clear about the fact that, at the very moment when what is what is called a vision, what is called a hallucination, or what one might even call more intense images of the imagination—that at that very moment, the human being is not, as it were, freer from his physical life, but rather, due to certain pathological conditions, is more dependent on physical life than he is in ordinary, external existence. We must resolutely combat the belief that spiritual science has anything to do with such pathological states of the soul. On the contrary, it emphasizes even more strongly than ordinary external life that those who believe one can gain insight into the spiritual world by indulging in such abnormal soul phenomena—which are caused solely by pathological physical conditions, such as those that occur in mediumship and manifest as hallucinations, visions, and the like—are completely on the wrong track.

[ 30 ] Rather—my esteemed audience—it is what the spiritual researcher undertakes as inner activities of the soul. This is brought into a state of mind that is entirely modeled after the way this soul proceeds when it devotes itself to mathematical thinking. Just as mathematical thinking is entirely permeated by the “I,” which continually maintains control of itself. And just as every transition is made in such a way that one is, so to speak, present throughout the process and knows how one thing flows into the next, so too must what the spiritual researcher undergoes as his method in his inner soul life proceed within such a state of mind. By taking the capacity for memory as his starting point, he draws upon the most important characteristic of this capacity. It consists in the fact that memory makes permanent that which we otherwise experience only in the moment. What we have experienced in the moment remains permanent for our lives. But by what means does it remain permanent for us?

[ 31 ] If we take what I have already said—namely, the dependence of normal human soul life on physicality—then we must conclude that we maintain memory normally when it is based on our body enabling us to have this capacity for memory. It is based on the fact that we do not operate within the soul alone when we wish to remember. We know, after all, that what later surfaces as memory plunges down into the indeterminate depths of bodily life. And in turn, it also surfaces from the indeterminate depths of life. We, so to speak, entrust to our bodily life that which is brought about within us by sensory impressions and by the intellectual processing of those impressions as well. We then bring it back up again by lifting what is physically experienced in the interval between physical life and memory into our imagination. Thus, when our ideas become memories, we borrow them from the clear perception to which we surrender ourselves in mathematical thinking.

[ 32 ] The spiritual researcher, however, focuses precisely on this persistence of mental images in memory. And this then leads him to what I have called “proper meditation” in my writings, above all in the book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds* and in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*. There it becomes evident—as I have characterized it many times before—and you will find it discussed in greater detail in the books mentioned. Here one brings a thoroughly individual mental image or a complex of individual mental images into one’s consciousness and—as I said—does not thereby surrender mere reminiscences [that] surface from the subconscious into what one is to do solely through human will, just as one performs mathematical combination and analysis through human will. So one places certain ideas—which one is prompted to consider or otherwise acquires—at the center of one’s consciousness for an extended period—and this within the same completely clear, mathematically clear waking consciousness—such ideas that one, in a sense, engages in the activity, performs it psychically: resting on ideas, as can otherwise only be achieved through the assistance our physicality provides us in this process.

[ 33 ] And then one sees that, indeed, this reliance on certain ideas does bear fruit. Then one sees that one becomes aware of how forces lie dormant within our soul that have nothing to do with physicality, that by no means lead into the realm of hallucination or the visionary, but remain entirely within the realm in which the soul moves when it engages in mathematics. But it is also an inner development of concepts; it is a spiritual experience of concepts. All that is needed is for ideas other than mathematical ones to be brought into the center of our soul life; then a capacity other than the mathematical one will also develop.

[ 34 ] And one must not imagine that this is particularly easy or comfortable. Anyone who wishes to become a true spiritual researcher must continue such exercises for years on end. But then it also becomes clear how certain powers were previously latent and hidden within the soul, powers that are now being brought to the fore. The individual then feels that he possesses certain powers. Above all: the soul’s capacity for spiritual and psychological perception is added to the capacity for perception—both sensory and intellectual—that he previously possessed. The person becomes capable, as it were, of truly developing from within that which Goethe more symbolically called the “spiritual eye” and the “spiritual ear.” The person becomes capable of seeing differently than before, and above all, it first becomes apparent that he or she sees his or her own soul life differently.

[ 35 ] I have, after all, pointed out that we have experienced this inner life—insofar as we have lived through it since birth—as a stream that initially seems indefinite, one that we actually perceive only very vaguely and from which our memories then emerge. But it must also be said: We ourselves are actually this stream. Just try, for once, to apply the saying “Know thyself” correctly. You will see that in ordinary life you are actually nothing other than this stream—this stream that is so indefinite, yet from which all manner of things we have experienced can emerge again and again. One is the Self. Yet in a certain sense, one ceases to be this Self when one meditates in the way I have just described. I have just referred to this resting on certain ideas as meditation, although in practice it is necessary to develop the previously hidden powers of the soul within the human being. And the first result of this is that what we are otherwise always immersed in—what we are, in fact, always—the web of our memories—for in ordinary states of consciousness we are, after all, nothing but the stream of our memories—becomes more objective to us, becomes something external to us, and we learn to observe it.

[ 36 ] So we have detached ourselves from it with complete mathematical clarity, and we are looking at it. That is the first experience we have. At a certain moment in our consciousness, as a result of meditation, our life unfolds before us—like a tableau of memories—in a certain way, at least almost back to birth, as a unified whole, as a totality, as a panorama. However, it is not exactly what we have before us as memories; rather, what we have before us is actually our inner self, insofar as we experience what existence has made of us, as if in a unity. I would say that the entire stream that we otherwise are lies before us. We have detached ourselves from this stream.

[ 37 ] This is the first experience we have within ourselves—the realization, over time and duration, that through a practical, inner act of the soul, we do not merely remain in the moment, but rather that we perceive life as such.

[ 38 ] But we learn something else from this as well. By objectifying our inner life in this way, we learn to gain insight into processes that we actually go through every day, that we also observe from the outside, but that we are completely unable to observe from within in our everyday lives. This is the process of falling asleep and the process of waking up in ordinary life. One would indeed be succumbing to a bitter contradiction if one were to believe that the content of the soul dies with every falling asleep and is reborn with every waking up. This content of the soul is present from the moment of falling asleep until waking up. But since in ordinary life a person can have consciousness only through the interaction of the soul with the body, whereas in the state of sleep the soul has detached itself from the body, a person can know nothing of themselves within ordinary consciousness from the moment of falling asleep until waking up.

[ 39 ] But by having risen to a level of insight such as I have just described—by having one’s life as a continuum present alongside oneself—one can also gain insight into the process of falling asleep and waking up. For when a person steps out of their ordinary experience—when they learn to observe themselves—they are, in fact, in the same state—they come to recognize that they are in the same state; they learn to recognize this from direct experience—as they are otherwise, unconsciously, when they are between falling asleep and waking up. Through this, one learns to recognize the process of falling asleep and waking up. Through this, one learns to recognize that one knows: Now you have placed yourself in a state where you can survey your life. But this is only a fleeting state of awareness. Then you return to ordinary life. So you have this state of the soul outside of ordinary experience and the ordinary state in which you usually find yourself—where you are immersed within your experiences. This re-entry into the state of ordinary life is exactly the same as waking up. And this “stepping out of oneself”—one learns to recognize this through direct observation; this stepping out and objectifying life is, when viewed inwardly, exactly the same as falling asleep. So one learns to observe these two processes inwardly. Through this, however, one gains the elements needed to observe something else as well.

[ 40 ] However, this must then be supplemented by a certain expansion of what I have described. I have said—dear friends here today—that I can only point out how the spiritual researcher brings certain ideas into the center of his consciousness. But he must actually place particular emphasis not merely on being able to rest his consciousness on such ideas, but he must also—and this, in turn, must be achieved through entirely different exercises, which you can read about in the books I mentioned—he must come to suppress these ideas entirely through his will, to encompass them with his consciousness. He must thus become the inner master—if I may use this expression again and again—of these ideas, which are essentially like images, visualized images, colorful, visualized images. People may laugh all they want at what Goethe called—and what I have also described in my *Theosophy*—as “contemplating images in the imagination,” which Goethe termed “sensory-supersensory vision.” Just as one can speak of colored vision—colored vision in the same way one speaks of colored vision in relation to the external world—so too can one speak of colored vision of the inner images. This arises when something becomes objective. And the life of the soul becomes objective, as I have described, through meditation.

[ 41 ] But a person must also be capable of clearing all of this away again. As you know, this is not the case when a person is in a pathological mental state. A person must proceed with mathematical clarity in both bringing these ideas to the surface and clearing them away again. By oscillating in this way, as it were, in their consciousness between ideas—which they bring into their consciousness [for a certain duration] of their own volition and then remove again—they practice a kind of systole and diastole, a kind of exhalation and inhalation. The inner, mentally and psychologically active force takes hold of the person in this way.

[ 42 ] This, my esteemed audience, is the method of entering the spiritual worlds that is entirely appropriate for our age. It is appropriate to enter the spiritual worlds with consciousness. Whereas in ancient times, when people instinctively immersed themselves in the spiritual worlds—particularly through the Eastern method— people sought to raise the act of breathing into full consciousness—that is, to engage in an inner activity by striving to observe the breathing process inwardly and to perceive within it the inner essence of the human being. This process does not lead people into the spiritual world in an appropriate way in the present age. Those who wish to revive it—to revive old practices—are actually acting against the development of humanity. Today, it is appropriate for humanity to replace this method of physical breathing with another form of systole and diastole—namely, what I have just characterized as the will-driven setting aside of mental images and their subsequent voluntary retrieval from consciousness.

[ 43 ] On the one hand, by entering into imagination—and thereby tracing the reverse path—and on the other hand, by continually pushing further and further beyond what I have described here as a conscious back-and-forth oscillation in the meditative life, human beings then learn to recognize how to expand upon what they fundamentally grasp in the act of inhaling and exhaling. And one comes to know this as a soul process that essentially rests on a kind of longing gaze toward the body after having been outside the body for a time. And one comes to recognize what one experiences soulfully with the body from birth to death, and how this brings the soul into an inner state in which one feels compelled to surrender once again, for a time, to an [antipathy] toward life.

[ 44 ] One then expands these concepts, not through philosophical speculation, but by expanding one’s inner capacity for insight. And through this one arrives—just as one otherwise progresses from a simpler category to a more complex one—at the point where, through the comprehension of [awakening], through the inner, contemplative comprehension of [awakening], one is able to contemplate inwardly the complex process that takes place when the enduring essence of the human being enters the physical body from the spiritual world through birth or conception, when it develops the greater desire not merely to return to the existing body as in waking, but to incarnate into a new body, having spent some time in the spiritual world and now having incarnated once more.

[ 45 ] And one comes to understand this through falling asleep, by experiencing the moment of death in an incarnation; one comes to understand: Through the gate of death, the soul—which outlives the course of human life—passes on to continue living in the spiritual world. One does not come to know these processes—such as birth and death—through a logical or elementary force, nor by observing them in the acts of falling asleep and waking up or in nature, but rather by proceeding, with ever-increasing mathematical clarity, from one element to the next within one’s inner experience.

[ 46 ] But through this—my esteemed audience—one enters the second stage of a higher consciousness, which I—please do not take offense at the term; it is merely terminology that must be used—have always called “Ins[piration]”—through which one looks back upon the enduring aspects of ordinary physical life as if upon a flowing panorama. One comes to truly comprehend the eternal in the human being through inner contemplation and spiritual scholarship. And it is possible to comprehend this eternal aspect in the human being. It is possible for a person to recognize their connection to the supersensible-eternal just as fully when they awaken the supersensible within themselves as they recognize their connection to the sensory world when they awaken within themselves the consciousness through which they perceive their connection to the physical world.

[ 47 ] These things, however—my esteemed audience—are making their way into our present consciousness just as the Copernican worldview, or something similar, once made its way in, contradicting everything that came before. But even if what I have just mentioned still seems thoroughly paradoxical to so many people today, we must remember that the Copernican worldview also seemed thoroughly paradoxical to people at the time it first emerged.

[ 48 ] And then—my dear friends here today—one also learns how to develop another human soul force: that of memory, which is, after all, formed in the way I have just described. One learns not only to recognize this, but also another human soul force that now leads—and I would say leads, even though its origin is physical—into ordinary, normal life, yet in a more moral way into the higher life. One learns to recognize how this soul power is capable of a different kind of development than the one it undergoes in ordinary life. One learns to recognize how love can become a power of knowledge.

[ 49 ] I am well aware—my esteemed audience—that opposition must arise from today’s worldview when one says: Love will be transformed into a power of knowledge. After all, it is regarded as the subjective, as that which must be excluded from all scientific inquiry. Nevertheless, anyone who experiences this in their soul, as I have described to you, as they develop into a spiritual researcher, knows that what develops as love in ordinary life is a human capacity connected with the human being—one that can be experienced not only when a person faces some beloved external object, but also inwardly as a general human characteristic. There it can be elevated in the soul, and it can—I would say—be elevated quite intimately [in the soul] by cultivating that which one, after all, also applies in ordinary life. Precisely when we extend the capacity for memory, the concentration on any single content of consciousness, any object—just as in the past we repeatedly and arbitrarily prolonged mental images over time [by singling out the object in concentration, initially arbitrarily]—by standing in a certain interaction with the external world. By developing our will into the act of concentration, we learn to recognize how that which otherwise manifests itself through the physical aspect of the human being as love can be grasped by the soul, and how it can be detached from the physical body in a soulful way, just as with the ability characterized earlier.

[ 50 ] But through this—my esteemed audience—by coming to recognize how the human being is constituted inwardly as a loving being—which otherwise is kindled only in interaction with external beings—and by elevating these inner qualities, this inner impulsivity of the human being, into the realm of the soul—the specific exercises for this can be found in the books I mentioned— through this one comes to not only contemplate inwardly what I characterized earlier—this being born and dying as physical waking and falling asleep—but also to penetrate it inwardly. Through this, however, human life is placed within an entirely different sphere of meaning.

[ 51 ] Let us take a look at this human life as it touches us through fate. We face this human life, encountering hundreds and hundreds of people. In a place where life has brought us, this or that aspect of one person or another is kindled, drawing us into a significant connection of destiny for ourselves. The person who views life only with ordinary consciousness speaks of coincidence here, of the fact that this person has simply come to them from the inexplicable depths of life. But the one who has drawn the soul forces—which are otherwise hidden—from within his own soul to the degree I have described so far, he indeed sees how, in the depths of the subconscious—not illuminated by ideas accessible to ordinary consciousness, but in the subconscious depths of the human being—there lies that which is akin to desire, that which drives one in life.

[ 52 ] When one gains insight—after having prepared oneself to survey one’s life like a panorama, after having become aware of the enduring, the eternal, that which passes through birth and death, and after having developed the faculties capable of perceiving this—then, my esteemed audience, then these faculties—while still warmed by a special training in the capacity for love—will turn our attention to life in such a way that we learn how, strangely enough, we have shaped our lives to bring them—let us say—in each individual case, to the point at which this or that stroke of fate has struck us.

[ 53 ] We come to recognize, with regard to that which otherwise lies in the subconscious depths, how life is interconnected. And from there arises the realization of how that which now underlies this interconnectedness of life’s destiny points to repeated earthly lives. Just as what we can perceive with our developed spiritual powers—a process in the course of our destiny, warmed by the power of love—brings us the awareness that we have passed through many earthly lives and will yet pass through many more. And that between earthly lives there are always periods of sojourn in the purely spiritual-soul world, during which precisely what takes place in the soul is the imaginative element derived from earlier earthly lives—that which we have, above all, elevated into thought—and how this is transformed into an inner soul metamorphosis, into a longing that then propels us toward a new earthly life. This new earthly life is thus shaped. It becomes transparent in terms of the fateful interconnection of life.

[ 54 ] Well—my esteemed audience—I have been able to present only a rough outline of the conclusions reached by spiritual science, which is grounded in scientific education but also further develops that education, and of the conclusions to which this spiritual science arrives. That this spiritual science is not merely a theory, nor a mere sum of thoughts and ideas, becomes clear when one considers its value for human life. At the same time, however, one must point out what this spiritual science can be, particularly for people of the present and the near future, and for humanity throughout the ages.

[ 55 ] It is very strange how precisely the critic I mentioned to you earlier—who speaks solely from a contemporary perspective and thoroughly criticizes spiritual science, even though he acknowledges the value I spoke of earlier—how this man speaks of the evaluation of life. This man is completely imbued with what he conceives of as the scientific nature of the present. In seeking to evaluate spiritual science—which he has barely come to know, having read only what has been published—he cites those works. But then he is able to pose the following question:

What is all this talk of the divine service [of knowledge, of life’s mysteries and their solutions]? What is the point of all this enthusiasm, when—despite all this enthusiasm—we delve into the primordial foundations and primordial distances, when the theosophist]

[ 56 ] — as I said, he’s referring to anthroposophists —

[cannot say] why it is better to be a self than a non-self.

[ 57 ] Now—my esteemed audience—imagine a person standing there who states: What is the point of all this talk about spiritual worlds if we cannot ultimately know why it is better to “be an ‘I’ rather than a ‘not-I’”? The answer to this question, however, cannot be given theoretically. And the science of which this man speaks can really only satisfy theorists. The science of which this man speaks—what, fundamentally, is its stance toward everything? As I said, it is precisely from the perspective of spiritual science that the full value of the modern scientific method for external sensory practice must be fully acknowledged. It would certainly be foolish not to acknowledge what the X-ray method, microscopy, the telescope, and numerous other [methods and instruments] have accomplished in recent times for our understanding of the external sensory world. And it would be foolish—but above all, amateurish—not to recognize what scientifically rigorous methods mean for the discipline of human cognitive faculties. But everything that is at work in external experimentation, in external observation, and in the mathematical processing of external observations is, in essence, merely something that acts upon the human intellect. And as paradoxical as it sounds, anyone who does not experience these things—I would say not merely as a profession, but as a way of life—will find themselves asking: What can the ordinary scientific method, when it develops a worldview, actually offer human life? One can see this in such results. People who use this method then ask: Why is it more valuable to “be an ‘I’ rather than a ‘not-I’”? Why doesn’t one live as an unconscious [atom] in the universe? Why does one live as a conscious ‘I’?

[ 58 ] The humanities must, precisely by looking deeper, ask: What is it that the science—which has indeed achieved such great triumphs—actually gives you in terms of inner spiritual and human life? Does this science offer anything more than knowledge of digestive processes and the nutritional content of food to satisfy hunger? It provides the intellectual; it provides what can be described. It does, however, also offer guidance on how what is done instinctively can be made rational in a certain way. But science as such can indeed tell us how hunger should be satisfied and what is contained in the foods that satisfy hunger. Yet it could never satisfy hunger itself with its descriptions.

[ 59 ] We must, however, translate this from the physical realm into the spiritual-psychic realm. And here it must certainly be said: That which exists as a result of spiritual science—even if it must initially, of course, be presented in ideas and concepts—whoever immerses themselves in these concepts, whoever immerses themselves in what the spiritual researcher is able to convey from the spiritual worlds—whoever immerses themselves at all by coming to recognize the enduring in physical human life, the eternal, the repeated earthly lives, the fateful connections, and thus also a worldview such as that presented in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*, in the spirit-scientific manner—whoever immerses themselves in all of this does not bring forth concepts that merely describe something about the human being, as the various scientific concepts do. Rather, they give rise to genuine concepts which, when experienced, have the power to affect the whole human being, to stir the feelings and impulses of the will of this entire human being, and are, in a sense, simply spiritual nourishment—spiritual and soul nourishment—it is not merely a matter of discussing the subject—and which therefore also have an effect on the spiritual and soul realms. So that the “I” does not have to answer the question theoretically as to why it would be better “to be an ‘I’ rather than a ‘non-I’,” but rather feels—by surrendering itself to what radiates from this spiritual science with all the warmth and light of the spiritual—it does not merely have the opportunity to provide an external description, but lives within the concept the very essence of the matter itself. The concepts are merely the vehicles of the thing itself.

[ 60 ] This is the peculiar thing that goes completely unnoticed in the literature on the humanities: that language is used differently there—words are not merely spoken about something, but are embedded within real experience and serve as the vehicles of living experience. And indeed, anyone who listens attentively—if they have a sense of perceiving all of this in the words—will find that they are not merely receiving descriptions of spiritual and psychological processes, but these spiritual and psychological processes themselves.

[ 61 ] This—my dear friends here today—shows us that this spiritual science can indeed be of use in our immediate, practical lives. And it has, in fact, already sought to find practical application in a wide variety of fields—as I mentioned at the beginning—and it has done so in one particularly important area. We—my dear friends here today—have founded the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart. It is founded entirely in the spirit of those schools that will one day exist when the threefold social order—as I have described it in my *Key Points of the Social Question*, as I have already presented it here, and as I have repeatedly presented it in Bern—becomes a reality.

[ 62 ] This Free Waldorf School is a truly free school. That is to say, it operates—and this has only been made possible by a “loophole” in the Württemberg school laws—under the sole administration of its teaching staff. The teachers are absolutely sovereign as a teaching body, as a collective of teachers. Everything that takes place in the school is managed by the teachers. And the administration of the school itself is just as much a consequence of pedagogical and didactic impulses as what is taught is a consequence of those same impulses.

[ 63 ] Of course, this is no longer the time to describe to you in detail what the principles of this Waldorf school are. I just want to say that the intention was not to establish a school based on a particular worldview. Catholic priests teach Catholic religious education there, and Protestant pastors teach Protestant religious education. Children who, by their own choice or that of their parents, do not follow such a religion are taught in a non-denominational religious education class. But the aim is by no means to impose any particular worldview on the children. The Waldorf School is not a school based on a particular worldview! What is to prevail within it, stemming from the roots of anthroposophical spiritual science, is merely the art of pedagogy and didactics—the way in which teaching is carried out. Anthroposophy does not seek to be a theory; anthroposophy seeks to translate into the practical application of life. It has already proven itself in this way—although, of course, after just one year, nothing definitive can be said yet—and particularly in the pedagogical and didactic art of the Waldorf School.

[ 64 ] I’d just like to mention one thing to you regarding the end of the previous school year and the beginning of this school year. At the end of the previous school year, we saw how it affects the children when they are given report cards like the ones we gave them at the Waldorf School, which was founded by Emil Molt in Stuttgart and which I established. At the Waldorf School, there are sometimes classes in which fifty—or even, in some cases, more than fifty—children were enrolled last school year. Nevertheless, it was possible to move away from the way teachers usually assess students. All those categories like “sufficient,” “almost sufficient,” “halfway, almost satisfactory,” and so on and so forth—one simply doesn’t know how to grade them or where to draw the line. All these things were omitted at the Waldorf School. Each individual child was simply described in their own terms: how they were received at school, how they behaved—so that they were described in an individualized way—not according to a formula—and one could see from the report cards what the child had gone through during that particular school year. And each child was given—which has truly proven its worth—a saying tailored entirely to their inner life. Despite having fifty students in each class, it was possible—through the way the teachers practiced the art of education and teaching in the spirit of the anthroposophical worldview—to formulate for each individual child a motto for life, a motto of life force, which is included in the report card and which the child will keep in mind in their soul. And we have seen—for we seek the art of education in a living psychology, in a living science of the soul—how this affected the child, as the child, so to speak, saw itself reflected in the mirror. And if I may mention one more thing: When the children returned from their vacation, it was truly the case that they came back with a different state of mind than is usually observed in children returning to school after a break. They longed to return to school.

[ 65 ] And there is something else I would like to tell you. Every time I have returned to this school for an inspection—ladies and gentlemen— I have never failed to ask a certain question quite systematically, either in individual classes or to the entire student body, time and again, among other things: Do you love your teachers? And one can tell—my esteemed audience—whether something comes wholeheartedly from the depths of the human soul or whether it is merely some conventional answer. When that “Yes!” rang out in unison, springing directly and instinctively from the soul, then one could see how effective the pedagogical and didactic approach—based on anthroposophical spiritual science—had indeed proven to be.

[ 66 ] After all, we are not yet permitted to act freely in many areas of life. But where it is possible, it must also be the case that, on the one hand, we have what can be derived from spiritual science—as understood here—and, on the other hand, what truly corresponds to the needs, longings, and hardships of our time in the truest sense of the word. For example, one may indeed point out how numerous historical figures devoted to artistic creation are seeking new paths—instinctively seeking new paths.

[ 67 ] Such a new artistic path—but one not based on any theory, not on ideas, not through symbolism or flimsy allegory, but through a living sense of feeling—was also sought in Dornach itself through the construction of the Goetheanum. Spiritual science, as it is understood here, was by no means in a position to simply hire an architect and say: “Build me a structure here in such-and-such a style, and then we will practice spiritual science inside that building.” No—my esteemed audience—spiritual science is something that brings life into being, because it is life itself. And so spiritual science, as understood here, as I said, cannot do so in an allegorical or symbolic way, but rather by looking at the human being as a whole, by acting upon the whole human being, thereby stimulating the artistic process—the forces of artistic creation and the forces of artistic appreciation. In this way, just as it otherwise looks toward new paths in spiritual life that meet the needs of people today, it can also point the way toward an ever more artistic future.

[ 68 ] We need not only—my esteemed audience—to see how art has developed in the course of human evolution, how this art, which in the course of human evolution has indeed reached such heights as in Raphael, in Michelangelo, and in Leonardo da Vinci—but also how this artistic expression presupposes, by always being drawn from the supersensible, that the sensible—the outwardly sensible—truly aspires toward what one seeks to experience in the idealized. And this idealization is precisely what, in essence, defined the fundamental character of that artistic epoch which artistic personalities today feel has passed, and in light of which new paths must be sought. When one stands before the miracle of the Sistine Madonna, one is dealing with something that is entirely within the realm of the sensory. But at the same time, one is faced with something about which one must say: The artist experienced it in such a way that the spiritual emerged directly from the sensory. He rose from the sensory to the spiritual; he idealized the sensory.

[ 69 ] We are now entering a phase of human development in which, in spiritual life and in the life of knowledge, we must truly look—as I have indicated—at the spiritual as such, so that the spiritual can be perceived directly. We are thus also facing the path that is most appropriate, artistically speaking, for humanity in the present and the near future. Just as an old art idealized, so a new art must realize.

[ 70 ] Intellectual contemplation thirsts for realization just as much as sensory contemplation thirsts for idealization. And just as one does not arrive at a true or dominant form of artistic creation merely by idealizing through one’s artistic spirit, so too does one not arrive at an allegorical or symbolic form of artistic creation by realizing what has been spiritually perceived. Those who—I would say—theoretically slander what can be seen in Dornach find all sorts of symbols and allegories, but they project them there themselves. There is not a single symbol, not a single allegory, in the entire Dornach building, the Goetheanum. What is to be found there has been perceived in the spiritual world and realized from within the spiritual world. Just as it was once idealized, so the architecture of the building, so the sculptural elements—what was perceived in the realization of the spiritual—are present there. What has been perceived in the spiritual world is not shaped into ideas or concepts, but has truly been perceived. It has been perceived in full, living concreteness. And it is only vividly incorporated into the material. It has been perceived in full concreteness.

[ 71 ] This shows—my esteemed audience—how spiritual science can indeed have a stimulating effect on artistic creation and appreciation. And in that spiritual science, through its findings, leads human beings to live in harmony with the spirit from which they themselves originate—the spirit toward which they seek their way out of the sensory world, the spirit they hope to find after death, the spirit from which they know they were born, if only they view existence correctly; by bringing people together precisely in relation to that which seeks to develop within them most clearly, most brightly, and most radiantly through the life of the imagination—which otherwise remains confined to abstractions alien to life—spiritual science deepens within people that feeling which is the true religious feeling. And this should be seen in its proper light. The various denominations should not seek to block the path of this spiritual science. For one can demonstrate, using the example of Christianity itself, what spiritual science can mean for religious feeling and for religious life as a whole.

[ 72 ] On what, then, does Christianity depend, my esteemed audience? Christianity depends on a correct understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. If one does not understand how, through the Mystery of Golgotha, that which we call Christ united itself from extra-earthly worlds with earthly life; if one does not understand that the Mystery of Golgotha contains something that cannot be fully grasped through observation from the sensory world alone, but must be comprehended through spiritual insight, then one cannot do justice to the Mystery of Golgotha. For this reason, even the most modern theology has come to omit from the Mystery of Golgotha that which can only be grasped spiritually, and to speak—in a sense, naturalistically—only of the simple man from Nazareth. Modern theology speaks of a human being—no matter how outstanding he may be—who, at most, possessed a sense of God within himself. Spiritual science, on the other hand, will restore Christian consciousness to the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha as a supersensible event in and of itself, as an event through which there stands, in the course of human evolution, not merely a human being who developed a sense of God within himself in a certain way, but one who was the bearer of a being that truly came from extraterrestrial worlds at a specific point in Earth’s evolution in order to continue to exist henceforth, renewing human life.

[ 73 ] The Christ Event is, in turn, understood by spiritual science as an impact from the extraterrestrial realm—from the spiritual-supernatural realm—into earthly life. And the entire development of the Earth is understood as a preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha—a convergence of everything that has preceded it toward the Mystery of Golgotha, and a continued flow of the impulse of this Mystery of Golgotha through the events that follow.

[ 74 ] But one also comes to understand the difference between the event at Golgotha—which stands there and can be understood by everyone according to their abilities—and that which, at any given time, constitutes the teaching about this mystery of Golgotha.

[ 75 ] The early Christian centuries drew their concepts from an Eastern worldview and used these concepts to make the mystery of Golgotha vivid and comprehensible. Then, gradually, a different world emerged in the spiritual life of Western humanity. The natural sciences then emerged. The human spirit became accustomed to different ways of thinking. Today we see how these ways of thinking also took hold of theology in the nineteenth century—where it sought to become progressive—and how they transformed the essence of Christ Jesus into the “simple man from Nazareth.” And no matter how vigorously one might assail what is coming from this direction, one will not prevail in this struggle unless the Mystery of Golgotha is understood anew from the perspective of spiritual science, unless it can once again be expressed from the spirit how an extraterrestrial spirit entered earthly life through the human being Jesus of Nazareth. The explanation must be a new one in light of humanity’s progress; it must become a new experience.

[ 76 ] Spiritual science does not seek to establish a new religion; it merely seeks to inspire the consciousness of the modern age in accordance with spiritual insight. It seeks to present, in the light that humanity needs, that which once gave meaning to the Earth’s evolution, for the culture of humanity in the present and the future. Thus, as I can demonstrate with this Christian example, spiritual science in particular can deepen people’s religious experience. It can give them back that which, according to modern consciousness, cannot be given to them in any other way.

[ 77 ] Oh, anyone who believes that spiritual science can destroy Christianity is timid in the face of Christianity. No, on the contrary, only those who have the courage to acknowledge that spiritual discoveries are made in the same way as physical ones are viewing Christianity correctly. That which is the Christian impulse cannot thereby appear in any lesser or weaker light, but rather in an ever-stronger and stronger light. One would prove oneself to be truly Christian who, out of a deep longing, would accept the affirmations that—precisely on the basis of spiritual science—can lead to the knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 78 ] It truly seems, however, that humanity today needs a deeper understanding of religion, my esteemed audience. For we are indeed witnessing strange things today. And I would like to conclude by sharing one more example.

[ 79 ] In Dornach, at the Goetheanum, in a prominent location, precisely that which relates to the Mystery of Golgotha is to be installed. A nine-and-a-half-meter-tall wooden sculpture is to be erected. We have been working on this sculpture for several years now. At the center of this sculpture stands a figure of Christ. The head and chest are complete, while the lower part is still a block of wood. The head is thoroughly idealized. Those who have been able to see it will certainly attest to everyone that I have said: From the perspective of spiritual science, this image of Christ as he walked in Palestine arises within me. I do not impose this on anyone, but it has evolved from humanity itself when one projects into a human being what one projects—when one seeks the soul in the whole human being, not merely the soul in individual physiognomic features of the face, but in the entire human face. Yet things are said and seen without people knowing what is actually being done in Dornach.

[ 80 ] Now, among the many counter-arguments, there is one that is quite peculiar. In it you will find the following sentence—I won’t keep you waiting long—you will find the following sentence:

Anthroposophy takes the human being as its starting point, and its goal is the ideal human being. This ideal and God apparently coincide. A nine-and-a-half-meter-tall statue is currently being built in Dornach ... with animal features toward the bottom.

[ 81 ] Well—my esteemed audience—I have told you about people who have been there and know what work has been done on this group so far. Anyone who wants to see such things in a wooden figure—which has an idealized human head at the top and is really just a block of wood at the bottom, not yet finished—who sees Luciferic features up top and animalistic traits below—I can’t help but be reminded of the oft-told anecdote about how to tell in the evening whether one is sober or drunk. You place a top hat on the bed. If you see it as a single hat, you’re still sober; if you see it as two hats, you’re drunk.

[ 82 ] Now—my esteemed audience—anyone who, in Dornach, sees in the wooden sculpture a human being with “Luciferic features” at the top and “animal characteristics” at the bottom—such a person, in all sincerity, has no right to complain about the fantasies or illusions of the anthroposophists! For the one who is genuinely devoted to anthroposophy will certainly not be given over to the very same illusions and fantasies—which are, at the same time, objective untruths. But this is how someone works with the truth—my esteemed audience—who can write the capital “D” before his name on the title page, that is, a Doctor of Theology.

[ 83 ] Yes—my esteemed audience—we need a deepening and refinement of religious consciousness. Those who are appointed as guardians handle the truth in this way. From this, we can see that we need a deepening of our sense of truth. After all, what is the science of a person who possesses just enough scientific rigor to present an objective untruth in this manner in a single case?

[ 84 ] Now—my esteemed audience—as I have said, what is needed is precisely that inner transformation of the human being, which will also be linked to a refinement of religious feeling, and in turn to a deepening of religious feeling. Spiritual science will be able to radiate its impulses into the most diverse branches of life. It aims to be thoroughly practical, but it also has no intention of departing from scientific education. It seeks to be scientifically grounded in that it arises from a mindset and methodological rigor, just as any mathematical method, combined with external observation, can emerge from the human soul with full scientific rigor.

[ 85 ] Well, to conclude, just this personal remark in a few words. If it has been pointed out today—as, for example, by Christian luminaries—that this anthroposophical spiritual science in Dornach is not directed at scholars but at educated laypeople, then one thing may well be said. In a sense, that is still its fate today. I myself—if I may make a personal remark—began in the 1880s to develop, building on Goethe’s ideas about the worldview, what is certainly already in line with the entire direction of anthroposophical spiritual science, even if it was present only in its elements at the time and was only later elaborated in detail. What set the direction back then is already contained within it. I wasn’t always as vilified as I am today. I wasn’t always treated as badly by the sciences as I am today—or by religious denominations—but the writings I composed about Goethe at that time have, after all, already become known to a certain extent.

[ 86 ] People simply assume that I have become a fool and a dreamer ever since I realized that what emerged from that period was bound to find its way into well-founded anthroposophical spiritual science. But what I actually often called for in my writings on Goethe—and which was not achieved even back then—such as *Goethe’s Worldview*, *Truth and Science*, “Philosophy of Freedom”—which are specifically included in my “Introductions to Goethe’s Scientific Writings”—anyone who takes this into account will see that my concern was not merely that Goethe held this or that worldview, but rather to fully champion this worldview itself, to assert it, to establish its rightful place, and to develop it further.

[ 87 ] The aim should not be to develop a form of Goetheanism that died in 1832 and is merely historical, but rather to demonstrate the living Goetheanism that has remained capable of development right up to the present day. Some have admitted that Goethe’s ideas were, to a certain extent, accurate. But that is precisely what is done out of habit in our time. People were quite happy to point out: Yes, Goethe, Kant, and so on had this or that idea. But to champion an idea with the full force of one’s personality and help it triumph—that is not what lives in the habits of thought, and certainly not in the intellectual habits of the present. And so I must say that, although I have been largely vindicated regarding the explanation of Goethe’s worldview, I wanted something else: to advocate for what can emerge from the further development of Goethe’s worldview—namely, spiritual science, specifically anthroposophical spiritual science.

[ 88 ] And what I wrote back then was written entirely in a scholarly style. I also spoke of it in this way; on the contrary, it was deemed too remote from ordinary life. At that time, those in the scientific community would have had the opportunity to address the matter. They did not make use of this opportunity. Hence the necessity arose to turn to the educated lay public and speak to the hearts and intellects of educated laypeople. For—my esteemed audience—that which is to be incorporated as truth into the development of humanity must indeed be incorporated into it. Therefore, spiritual science must not be accused—as its critics often do today—of not initially presenting itself as a science in its own right—which, incidentally, it has done sufficiently in Dornach—but in a genuine sense, for that is precisely what it has done. And it only turned to the educated lay public when the academic establishment refused to do so. But such a thing must happen! Why? Well, anyone who is imbued with the impulse—the impulse toward truth—of spiritual science, who knows the hardships of our time, who knows the longings of our time, or at least believes they know them, will have to say to themselves: The truth must go out into the world, and if it does not succeed in penetrating the world through the one path—which might outwardly seem the right one—then other paths must simply be sought. If scientists are not willing of their own accord, they may yet be willing if spiritual science takes root in the hearts of educated laypeople out of a natural, elementary sense of truth—and then compels those who have lagged behind, even if they are scientists, to follow suit. Truth must go out into the world. And if it cannot be achieved by one path, then another must simply be sought.