The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science and the Major Civilizational Questions of Our Time

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Anyone who wishes to speak seriously about topics such as those underlying tonight’s evening lecture and that of February 28 must be aware that there are, in fact, quite a number of souls today who, on the one hand, are striving for new paths of inner spiritual seeking and, on the other hand, are striving for new directions in our entire public and social life. For the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which will underlie these two meditations, seeks to lay the foundation for a new spiritual quest and for new directions in social life.

[ 2 ] Over the course of the last three to four centuries, humanity has, on the one hand, undergone a significant intellectual development in the realm of science, particularly in the natural sciences; and anyone who speaks today of a new spiritual quest must not overlook the great, the tremendous triumphs that have resulted from scientific inquiry. This scientific quest, however, has also produced tremendous results in practical life. Everything that surrounds us today as magnificent technical achievements—which we encounter at every turn in life—has, in essence, emerged from scientific thinking.

[ 3 ] On the other hand, however, we must not overlook the fact—and as I said, many souls are already aware of this today—that in contrast to these great achievements of scientific inquiry, in contrast to the tremendous technological advances, a deep dissatisfaction pervades modern spiritual life, and that it is quite clear to see—as is evident from the catastrophic events of recent years—how humanity needs new directions. And so there are indeed many people today who wish to look up toward spiritual knowledge, toward spiritual insight, now that natural science has told them so much about the world and about human beings. And there are many who realize that, while these scientific views and these significant technical achievements have indeed permeated external life in a profound way, there is a need for something that can permeate our moral and spiritual life in a similar way across the broadest circles of humanity. And so some would like to look up from the wealth of the individual sciences toward a comprehensive spiritual worldview. And so some appeal to that which can find its home only in the deepest moral core of the human soul, in order to gain those social impulses which—as must already be clear to many today—cannot be gained without the deepest inner—spiritual and moral—impulses.

[ 4 ] But on the other hand, we also see how, amid the abundance of modern spiritual life and the catastrophic chaos that has set in in recent times, the inner courage is still lacking for an inwardly active spiritual life, for a new creation in spiritual life. Therefore, we must note how numerous are the people today who, for the time being, cannot yet rise to enthusiasm for such a new creation and who look back to ancient times of humanity, in which the human soul still possessed a knowledge that may now seem childlike to us, but which was nevertheless still intimately connected with the whole of human nature—a knowledge that could still build bridges, above all, to artistic creation and to religious feeling and action. Art, religion, and science have fallen apart for modern humanity, yet it wishes to build bridges between these three spheres of life—which, after all, must unite within the human being to form a harmonious whole if humanity is to find lasting fulfillment, if it is to achieve fruitful social creativity, and if it is to be capable of living a meaningful life at all.

[ 5 ] But we also see many looking back with great respect—and certainly, from a certain point of view, quite rightly—on ancient Eastern wisdom, as if we could today, through the mysticism of the East or similar spiritual currents, regain that depth and elevation of the spirit which the breadth of scientific and technical thinking cannot grant us. When one develops such a longing for the past, one simply overlooks the fact that human development as such has a purpose, and that it is impossible to follow the same spiritual paths today that were taken millennia ago.

[ 6 ] But on the other hand, much of the powerful human impulses has also been carried over into the present day through the external sciences of observation; much of what connected our ancestors spiritually and emotionally to the depths of the world—albeit in their own way—has been carried over. This has aroused a longing in people to understand something of how our ancestors followed their spiritual paths, how they strove—in order to satisfy the innermost needs of the soul—for an understanding of the eternal and the supersensible within the human soul. One can feel respect for this striving, but ultimately one can only orient oneself toward that which today must nevertheless emerge from within the human being as a completely new creation through an inner summoning of the deepest soul forces. One can orient oneself. And so, my esteemed audience, please allow me—in order to prepare the ground for what I actually wish to say—to offer a few orienting remarks, merely by way of comparison, so to speak, regarding the manner in which our ancestors sought the paths of the soul and the paths of the spirit.

[ 7 ] Above all, we must turn our attention to the experiences our ancestors had millennia ago in ancient India—and even as far back as the early Greek era—when the leaders of the schools of wisdom of that time, which might well be called mystery schools, were to show them the path to the spirit. The students were to be prepared energetically and conscientiously. For one thing was clear to these people—something of which we, in general education today, are no longer strongly aware: that human beings cannot, without tremendous inner struggles and without a profound transformation of their entire soul life, to the true heights of a satisfying understanding of the Eternal and of humanity’s connection to the divine, guiding forces of the world. The soul was first to undergo a thorough, intensive preparation before it was even given the opportunity to attain supersensible knowledge. And they spoke of something, my esteemed audience, that sounds almost fantastical to speak of today. A word was spoken of which, however, even today we should once again seek to gain an understanding—especially in the context of a serious spiritual quest; the word spoken was that of the threshold to the spiritual world, of the guardian of the threshold to the spiritual world.

[ 8 ] What was this threshold for our ancestors? What was this guardian of the threshold into the spiritual world? Oh, these were truly real, profound experiences that a person went through when becoming a student of the ancient wisdom—at the threshold and upon passing the guardian of the threshold. What did our ancestors say to themselves? Between what a person can experience in their ordinary, everyday state of consciousness—what they can learn about themselves and the world through this state of consciousness—and the actual knowledge that sheds light on the nature of our soul and reveals the most significant life forces to us—between us and this knowledge lies an abyss, and a person cannot cross this abyss without having thought through the inner struggles of the soul, without having to surrender to inner battles of the most intense kind, without, in other words, becoming a completely different person in spirit and soul.

[ 9 ] What the teachers of the ancient schools of wisdom did to prepare their students essentially consisted of a certain training of the intellect and a training of the will. Above all, the will was to be made more energetic and intense—the will of the one who, as a student of wisdom, was to be initiated into the supersensible. Why was this will to be strengthened? Why was the student of higher wisdom, so to speak, to unlearn the fear of the unknown? For this reason, the student of higher wisdom was to be inwardly equipped with powers of courage that one does not possess in ordinary life, that is why it must be made clear to him that if he has not unlearned the fear of the unknown, if he has not cultivated this inner courage in his soul, then, upon crossing that threshold beyond which supersensible knowledge of the nature of the soul might be bestowed upon him, he will fall into the abyss.

[ 10 ] We can best understand what was once the prevailing view—and how it has changed so dramatically right up to our own time—by recalling something quite ordinary in the history of science. Today we view our planetary world—our Earth in its relationship to the Sun—in terms of space and time, just as the Copernican worldview introduced this perspective into humanity’s conceptual life and as it has continued to develop from that Copernican worldview. We know today that we are not able to conceive of the Earth as stationary and the Sun as moving around it, as medieval people did; that we are not able to conceive of the various planets moving in the same way as those medieval people did. We know from what scientific mindset this Copernican worldview arose—along with all that it entailed—when we look back on those earlier times in which the outward appearance of the senses was more often taken as the basis for the external astronomical worldview. Yet we observe something quite remarkable: we see this very idea emerging as early as in Greek thought—for example, in Aristarchus of Samos—which, with some variation of course, is, within the context of the ancient worldview, quite similar to a heliocentric worldview akin to the one we ourselves embrace today. When we read in Plutarch how Aristarchus of Samos places the Sun at the center of our planetary system, and how he has the Earth move around it, we find, in the main lines of thought, hardly any difference between what Aristarchus —and anyone who studies such matters knows that all the so-called initiates thought just as he did—what this Aristarchus thought about our planetary system and what we ourselves think, except for the findings of our extraordinarily advanced observations.

[ 11 ] What is actually at stake here? In antiquity, a worldview of the external, the spatial—one so similar to our own—and, in contrast, in the general consciousness of humanity, merely a registration of the external appearance of the senses! The fact is that those who, in earlier times, were the leaders of the schools of wisdom carefully guarded something like the heliocentric worldview from people whom they did not consider sufficiently prepared for such a view. And this heliocentric worldview is only one part of a general worldview that is not at all dissimilar to what modern science has brought us—at least in terms of fundamental concepts—but which was withheld from the vast majority of humanity. Yes, the peculiar fact is, my esteemed audience, that we have today, in the general consciousness of humanity, views that in ancient times were strictly preserved in schools of wisdom and that students were permitted to receive only after a conscientious preparation of the will—to be fearless in the face of the unknown and to courageously grasp such insights.

[ 12 ] One might [ask]: What were the ancient sages thinking when they did not even allow their students access to what every educated person knows today? Why was that which every person knows today considered dangerous for human beings in those ancient times? Indeed, between what constituted general human consciousness and what the ancient sages knew of our worldview—that is, what is now general human consciousness—people imagined a threshold and a guardian of the threshold, that is, the experience one could have once one had undergone that inner struggle, once one had trained oneself to be fearless and to courageously grasp what we learn in school today—what is now common human consciousness. In those ancient times, therefore, a preparation was positively required for what we are not prepared for today—what is simply poured into our ordinary consciousness. Thus, times have changed, my esteemed audience. And, fundamentally speaking, any historical perspective that fails to take into account such a transformation of the soul’s experience in the course of human development remains merely superficial.

[ 13 ] The ancient sages said the following in reference to the state of mind that humanity was in at that time: If a person were to learn anything about the heliocentric worldview and what stands on the same level as it, he would not be able to bear it; he would fall into a kind of spiritual faint, and his ordinary consciousness would be clouded. Therefore, they sought to steel the will through every possible pedagogical and didactic art; they sought to foster a courageous grasp of the supersensible, to instill fearlessness. For people told themselves: Without cultivating these qualities of the will, a person would lose their sense of reality if, for example, they were to truly think—with the intensity with which people thought in ancient times and of which modern people no longer have a proper conception—that the Earth moves through space at tremendous speed along with the Sun. In the true sense of the word, this meant the ground would literally be pulled out from under the student’s feet. One did not want to expose people to this by leaving them in their ordinary state of consciousness. It was said: “They lose their sense of self.”

[ 14 ] In my book *The Riddles of Philosophy*, I have attempted to show how, in fact, humanity’s self-awareness has changed significantly since relatively recent historical times, and how, for example, self-awareness in ancient Greece was quite different from what it is today. It is indeed not merely an external fact that, with Copernicanism and Galileanism, an intellectual understanding of the world emerged, and that since those times, people have developed a previously unheard-of capacity for abstract thought. In this abstract thinking, in this intellectualism, what was gained above all was not merely external scientific rigor; something was also gained for the inner life of the human being. For this inner life of the human being, a strengthening, a reinforcement of self-awareness was achieved.

[ 15 ] Ladies and gentlemen, what we have today—when we simply go through school as children and learn the way we learn today, being prepared for abstract thinking and intellectualism as it happens today—is that self-awareness in human beings is cultivated in a different way than it was even among the most highly developed Greeks. Unfortunately, far too little attention is paid today to such highly significant facts regarding the development of humanity throughout world history; yet we sense it, we feel it, and therefore have a longing to once again bring the deeper reasons behind all human development to the forefront of our consciousness. Today, there is simply no danger that, by receiving the external findings of the natural sciences through a general, average education, one would succumb to spiritual impotence. But what is provided to us today through general education from childhood onward—adults of ancient times had to be prepared for this first through very specific pedagogical and didactic measures. Only then were they introduced to that which fulfilled the famous Greek saying: “Know thyself.” For the ancients, however, all knowledge was such that a certain understanding of the world arose simultaneously from their instinct. They did not yet possess the developed self-awareness that modern humans have. They were exposed to the danger of falling into spiritual helplessness in the face of the heliocentric world system, but they had an intuitive, emotional understanding of the cosmos arising from their instinct. Even when this intuitive understanding was then communicated to humanity through myths, there were always sages who experienced these myths as inner experiences—experiences that we must by no means regard as symbolic interpretations of the myths, but rather as an inner participation in the mysteries of the world within the human soul itself. Knowledge of the world was given to the ancients, with their self-awareness—which was weak compared to ours—along with their inner life.

[ 16 ] You can see this for yourself if you pick up literary works from relatively later periods. Whatever one may think today about the scientific writings—if one even wants to call them that—of the tenth through thirteenth centuries, or about the scientific views of that time, one cannot really read them today without special preparation, because they use a language that is no longer familiar in ordinary scientific life. But what is found throughout these works is precisely what the human being experiences inwardly in his soul, not separated from what he perceives externally. The soul is within him, and the body is within him. Outwardly lies the physical, corporeal nature, but everywhere he sees the spiritual within that outwardly corporeal nature as well. We may call this today “vague” or “false mysticism,” and we may be right to do so; but people of earlier times possessed that which their soul carried, that which filled their soul inwardly, that which instilled in them the awareness: “I am connected to the eternal powers of the world, and as the eternal powers of the world unfold their forces from beginning to end, so do I unfold my own forces.”

[ 17 ] Today we have the opportunity to bring our heightened self-awareness to bear on what our understanding of nature provides us. We have a broad range of specialized knowledge regarding the scientific worldview, and from this specialized knowledge we learn a great deal about the physical nature of human beings, but as a rule, the threads break when we seek to establish the relationship between this physical aspect of the human being—about which natural science tells us so much—and that which we experience inwardly in our souls, and in contrast to which we cannot help but attribute a different origin than that which is attributable to external natural facts, forces, and laws.

[ 18 ] And so it has come to pass, my esteemed audience, that modern man, precisely when he immerses himself in what the natural sciences rightfully offer him—for the spiritual science represented here fully acknowledges the triumphs of modern natural science—can arrive at nothing else, especially if he is conscientious, but the limits of knowledge. And, when it comes down to it, it was precisely the greatest thinkers in the natural sciences who spoke of such limits to knowledge, of the “Ignorabimus” that is so disastrous for the life of the soul: We can know nothing beyond the limits of what our senses provide us and what the reasoning mind can derive from these sensory experiences. Such theories about the limits of knowledge—one need only engage with them through an intensely developed inner life and be able to unload onto this inner life the obsolescence of traditional religious views, which in turn are connected to the old conceptions of the realm beyond the threshold—and one will sense the entire inner misery of modern inner life.

[ 19 ] One cannot help but say to oneself, my esteemed audience: Over the past three to four centuries, we have learned a great deal about scientific rigor and scientific methods, and the findings that have emerged from this foundation have become widely accepted and already shape the convictions of all those who, in any way, claim to be educated. But at the same time, all of this gives rise to a certain ignorance regarding what the human soul, out of its deepest longing, truly wishes to know—namely, the eternal destiny of the human soul and its connection to the eternal powers of the world. According to the view of the ancients, we stand beyond the threshold. They first sought to prepare themselves for the very knowledge that is now entirely commonplace and familiar to us. Yet with their less intense self-awareness—which, as a result, was fearful of the supersensible world—they developed a distinct, satisfying awareness of the world that knew no boundaries. We have gained a more intensely developed sense of self, but we have lost our sense of the cosmos. We feel boundaries everywhere within the vastness of our knowledge. We feel that we cannot penetrate to the very depths of the world. We have gained self-awareness; we must first regain our sense of the universe, otherwise we stand—as hermits with our developed souls—beyond the threshold of the ancients, but not beyond that threshold which we today call the limit of scientific knowledge or the like.

[ 20 ] This is where anthroposophically oriented spiritual science comes in, where this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science seeks to give modern humanity something that will, in turn, lead it across the threshold that has been set before it. However, we cannot stop at merely reviving or rehashing some ancient or Eastern wisdom. We can no longer reconcile all of that with our consciousness. Today we must create anew from the elemental aspects of the human soul, but we must draw it forth from the very same depths of consciousness as the ancients drew it forth in their own way. Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is still rejected by many today out of a certain intellectual complacency, or because it seems to contradict all too much what modern scientific findings have brought to light.

[ 21 ] Ladies and gentlemen, one certainly runs the risk of being misunderstood—and, in particular, of being considered immodest—when one chooses a comparison such as the one I now intend to use to characterize the relationship between the humanities and the natural sciences. But one can safely leave that to those who are eager to mock and scoff. For I am by no means claiming that the comparison I am offering—in terms of its significance in world history—is intended to apply to what I am about to say; rather, the comparison will serve to clarify a few points.

[ 22 ] When Columbus set out to discover America, he had absolutely no idea that he would be discovering a new world—a world unknown until then. At the time, people believed they would cross the ocean and land on the other side, in India. People simply believed they were taking an unknown path to reach something familiar. This is roughly how it is for those who approach the modern scientific worldview with the utmost conscientiousness and an inner, invincible thirst for knowledge. They find that this natural science is, in fact, initially in the same position as Columbus. Through it, one seeks to uncover the mysteries of the world and of life. One wishes to travel unknown paths. But either one retreats in discouragement and remains at home, as everyone except Columbus did, or one attempts to venture out, at first, into the unknown. Yet then one enters only a world that one, in turn, describes as something quite familiar. What, then, is all that which is described beyond the boundaries of scientific knowledge—as moving atoms and molecules, ions and electrons—and all that which is said to lie behind the veil of the sensory world spread out before us? We search along unknown paths for what underlies nature, and then describe what we encounter there—once again—as something familiar.

[ 23 ] But the one who takes a slightly different approach—who, I would say, approaches this scientific worldview with a more vibrant inner life—will indeed arrive at something different; he will arrive at something comparable to the experience of Columbus. He conducts scientific research; he develops all those meticulous methods, all that intensive, responsible thinking through which we have arrived at the modern astronomical worldview and the modern biological worldview; and then he reflects: What are you actually doing here? How are you developing your inner life by conducting external experiments, by making use of the microscope, the telescope, the [spectroscope], the X-ray machine, and thereby arriving at a synthesis of worldly phenomena? What is going on in your inner life here? What does one discover by devoting oneself to a living inner life?

[ 24 ] The unknown becomes something known to the spirit; it does not become material atoms and molecules, but rather a spiritual experience. However, it is rare for anyone engaged directly in natural science to have the blissful experience of seeing the spirit within themselves now shine forth—the spirit that pulses and ripples through the world from beginning to end, from top to bottom. But everyone can perceive what the inner path of thought is, especially in modern natural science. And this can then be further developed. And, you see, this further development—this adoption of a new approach to the experiences one is currently having with the natural sciences—is anthroposophically oriented spiritual science! And what I have described in my books *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* and *Esoteric Science*, is, in essence—despite certain forms of expression, despite the fact that perhaps the entire terminology still seems far-fetched to ordinary human consciousness today—nothing other than the higher development of the paths of knowledge that are themselves cultivated through modern scientific research. But one must move beyond what is merely experienced at an elementary level and develop specific methods of knowledge of a purely spiritual nature. Then we will satisfy in a different way that which lives today as a spiritual longing in many souls, and which leads those who want to reach the spiritual realm but wish to remain entirely within the material world toward spiritualism or similar superstitious practices, rather than toward genuine spiritual research. Only the intimate paths of the soul’s innermost depths lead to true spiritual research. Yet they are uncomfortable, for they differ from the usual scientific paths, even though they are nothing other than a continuation of those very paths.

[ 25 ] When we step into life today, no matter at what stage of development we do so, we bring with us what we have inherited, shaped by either a general or a higher school education. The results of school education are imprinted upon the soul of educated humanity. But there is an awareness that one can remain stagnant at a certain stage of life. Today, human beings remain stagnant at a very specific stage of life. They are admitted to our highest scientific institutions. There, they are not required to further develop their cognitive faculties, nor to cultivate, alongside the cognitive powers they have already developed, other cognitive powers that still lie dormant in their souls. One remains at the level of ordinary cognitive faculties. One observes natural phenomena, conducts observations and experiments, and makes use of the most sophisticated instruments; yet, given the state of the soul’s life that prevails in the general consciousness, one remains at that level.

[ 26 ] Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must proceed differently. It must start from a very specific feeling. I would like to characterize this feeling with the term “intellectual humility.” And I can only describe this intellectual humility in the following way: Let’s suppose a five-year-old child is given a volume of Shakespeare—what will the child do with it? The child will play with it, tear it apart. But when the child is ten or fifteen years older, the child will relate to it in a different, more appropriate way. Its inner soul forces have been developed. What was latent has been unfolded within these soul forces. Just as the child’s soul forces have unfolded through external educational influences or are developed by the world, so too can something in the soul of an adult still be developed today, if only the person says to themselves: I must be intellectually humble. I must assume that I face the phenomena of nature in their entirety in such a way that this encounter can be compared to the attitude of a five-year-old child toward a volume of Shakespeare. There is still something within the soul that can be developed in me just as the soul power of a five-year-old child can be developed up to the age of fifteen or twenty.

[ 27 ] One must start from this feeling, which comprehends the life of the soul through and through with intellectual humility. And then—then these powers slumbering within the soul must truly be developed. This is what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science strives for on behalf of its students—those who are suited to it and possess enthusiasm for it. It is not some kind of psychological miracle or the like; it is the continuation of what ordinary soul life is, but a genuine continuation.

[ 28 ] There are two faculties of the soul, my esteemed audience, that are indeed necessary in ordinary life, but which are experienced differently in ordinary life than in the inner life of the advanced spiritual researcher in the field of anthroposophy. One of these soul faculties is the power of memory. This power of memory must be developed in a normal way, as we say, in every human being; for if our power of memory is interrupted in any way for any length of time, we are mentally ill. It is a sign of serious mental illness when the thread of memory snaps; our sense of self is destroyed. You can read in the relevant literature how these symptoms manifest themselves. But what do we gain in ordinary life through this power of memory alone? We gain what we have experienced—that through which we were connected with the world of facts through our soul. This emerges in memories with greater or lesser vividness. We must live within them. The stream of memories must extend back to a certain point in early childhood so that our inner life can be normal. What would otherwise flit by is made permanent in our inner life through the power of memory.

[ 29 ] This is where training in the humanities comes in. What is referred to as “meditation” and “concentration” in the books already mentioned serves to develop nothing other than a higher stage of what, at a lower level in human beings, is the faculty of memory. If—without being deceived by autosuggestion, without being led astray by memories of past experiences—we bring before our soul images that we have been advised to use by an experienced researcher of the spiritual realm, or that we can learn in some other way, but which must be fully comprehensible so that we can survey them with our consciousness— if we bring such ideas into the center of our consciousness and now rest upon them entirely at will, if we give permanence to the ideas that otherwise merely follow external events and flit by, then something within our soul is developed in the same way that muscles are developed when they are used in work. This meditation—this sustained resting on easily comprehensible ideas, into which nothing from autosuggestion or reminiscences must be allowed to mingle—is modern meditation. As an inner spiritual method, it is truly no easier to practice than modern scientific work at an observatory, in a chemistry laboratory, or in a clinic. This resting on such ideas must be practiced for years.

[ 30 ] But then we make the inner discovery that, on the one hand, our memory naturally remains as sound as a normal person needs it to be, while on the other hand, something else develops from this memory for the purpose of supersensible perception. What develops is the ability—initially regarding our own life, for this is where supersensible perception begins—not only to survey our life through memories, in those faint recollections—for faint they are, after all, no matter how vivid they may seem—but to survey it pictorially, as I call it, “in imaginations.” In a single moment, we develop an imaginative overview of everything that otherwise flows by in the stream of memory. We survey our life, as in a grand tableau of life, from the point we have reached between birth and death all the way back to childhood. Here one can say: Time becomes space. Individual memories no longer merely surface from the stream of life; rather, we gain a coherent and unified overview of what we have lived through. This is the beginning of supersensible knowledge through the developed power of memory. In a certain sense, the power of memory detaches itself from physical, bodily conditions; we experience purely in the soul what we have experienced in the external world.

[ 31 ] But this brings about something specific in human beings. Thus, by first attaining such heightened self-knowledge through an enhanced capacity for recollection, one finally comes to understand what it means to live with one’s soul outside the body. This is the significant event that occurs on the path to supersensible knowledge: living with one’s soul outside the body. One arrives at a state of consciousness in which one experiences one’s own soul-spiritual nature—and then an expanded soul-spiritual nature—with such clarity and such a permeation by inner volition as one otherwise experiences only in geometric and mathematical concepts. I would like to say: It is through this that one best learns, for the sake of supersensible knowledge, what is given to one as mathematical imagination; once one has learned to imagine mathematically and geometrically, and to form inner intuitions in contrast to them, so that when one has a theorem, one can say: If I know its teaching, then I see through to its truth, no matter how many people may speak against it. Once one has attained the wholeness and essence of inner imagination, one can fill it inwardly and compare it with what one experiences—through a developed power of recollection—in a completely different, more vivid way. One finally comes to gain new conceptions of certain things that play a role in life.

[ 32 ] One comes to associate a concept with what it means to live outside the body, I said. But then—then the moment of falling asleep, the period between falling asleep and waking up, and waking up itself become something else. For ordinary consciousness, awareness is simply dulled when falling asleep and rises again upon waking; it is interrupted between falling asleep and waking up. Through such a cultivation of the life of memory and the capacity for recollection, as I have described it, a person becomes aware of themselves outside the body and learns to recognize, through direct observation, how they emerge from their physical body in their spiritual-soul life. This is not to be understood in a spatial sense, but rather dynamically; yet it is correct to say: They learn to recognize how they emerge from their body; the spiritual researcher rises into states in which he is entirely independent of his body, just as one is unconsciously independent of the body during sleep. But he experiences himself in states of consciousness where, even though his eyes do not see, his ears do not hear, and he does not even feel the warmth in his surroundings, he is permeated by inner soul life. What he then experiences is as if, while sleeping, a person were to experience a new world—a world beyond the physical-sensory world—and then, upon waking, were to emerge from it, as if surfacing from a spiritual sea back into the ordinary sensory world.

[ 33 ] Then, when one has had such experiences, one can now move on to something else that, in a sense, must serve as preparation for the modern crossing of the threshold—just as the ancient sage prepared his disciples through fearlessness and courage in the face of the unknown. Then another soul force must be developed; another force must be transformed into a power of cognition. Some, speaking from a modern perspective, are willing to accept that the power of memory can be transformed into an independent power of comprehension, since it is related to the intellect, and modern people love the intellect. They accept the intellect in the realm of science. But the other soul force—which anyone who wishes to cross the threshold today must also develop within themselves—is not accepted as an objective power of knowledge. Yet it does become an objective power of knowledge if it is developed in the right way; this is the power of love. Love in cognition—that is not accepted; people say: Where love enters the picture, cognition must lose its objectivity. Yet you can read in the cited books *How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds* and *Esoteric Science* how one can in fact make this love independent of that to which love is otherwise bound in ordinary life.

[ 34 ] Ladies and gentlemen, in ordinary life, love is bound to physical and bodily instincts—to that which defines human beings as physical beings. If one develops within oneself—just as I explained earlier regarding meditation and concentration of thought—a certain insight into how one ascends from stage to stage in life—for, after all, we essentially become different people with each passing day; one need only look seriously and honestly at what constitutes one’s outlook on life today, the content of one’s life, the content of one’s soul; one need only compare who one was nine or ten years ago with who one is today, and one will have to admit: Without intervening in the course of life through one’s will, one becomes a different person.

[ 35 ] The spiritual researcher must undergo a certain training. He must learn to take full control of his self-education with complete autonomy. Self-discipline must become the foundation of his life. And he must always be clear about what is at work in his life. He must gain the ability to observe the development of his will as if he were an outside observer. I have attempted to demonstrate in my *Philosophy of Freedom*—which I published in 1893 as a fundamental social-ethical perspective and which has now been presented to humanity in a new edition—that this is necessary for attaining a true consciousness of freedom. There I dared to make the following statement—albeit in reference to ethical-libertarian cognition: Love does not blind—but true love, which the human soul gains by becoming one with the object, cultivated through faithful self-observation—enables one to see. It is precisely this love that sets a person free. For when a person no longer acts out of instincts or impulsive drives, but merges with the external world in love, and allows themselves to be guided only by what is necessary in the world of facts, they become free. Selfless love sets a person free; but selfless love can also be cultivated into a power of cognition. Then we can imbue what we have gained through our developed power of memory with what love becomes. And just as the developed power of insight gives us a conception of how a human being exists with their soul forces outside the body, so the developed capacity for love gives us a true conception of our own spiritual-soul nature itself. And when what one attains through the power of love is combined with what one attains through the developed power of memory, such concepts expand. We know that one leaves the body with one’s spiritual-soul nature, but is then in the spiritual world, and that upon waking one re-enters the body. This is a concept that holds a certain significance for life between birth and death and beyond life itself. As this higher insight develops, we then gain the ability to survey our soul’s path before it has become connected to the earthly-physical human body through birth or conception. Just as we regard the soul as something real before it awakens—where it is, however, waiting for the prepared body—so we regard the soul that dwells in the spiritual worlds before birth and which now possesses powers different from those of the merely sleeping soul. The sleeping soul possesses only the powers to breathe new life into the body lying in bed. The soul that dwells in the spiritual world before birth possesses the powers—with the aid of what occurs in its physical hereditary stream—to organize the physical body in such a way that human individuality can express itself spiritually and soulfully within it. And we thereby gain insight into the eternal nature of the human soul. A conception of what the soul is in purely spiritual worlds is established scientifically, with mathematical clarity. And from this knowledge, the understanding of what is comparable to falling asleep—as a passage through the gate of death, as the departure into a spiritual world—develops once the physical body has been laid aside. In short, we attain, as a higher stage, what appears at a lower stage as the merely imaginative overview of life up to the moment of birth; we attain an expansion of this overview into a comprehensive view of the eternal nature of the human soul and the human soul’s connection with the spiritual cosmos. We learn to look into this spiritual cosmos. We come to know: Here we stand on Earth in our physical body, looking through our eyes into the physical world, hearing physical sounds, perceiving physical warmth. But what rests within our physical body and speaks to us as “I”—what thinks, feels, senses, and wills—that lived in spiritual worlds before it took up residence in this physical body.

[ 36 ] And now we learn something extraordinarily characteristic: As we develop here within the body, the soul is shadowy, and when we develop self-knowledge, we develop nothing but shadowy concepts of what lives within us as feeling, thinking, and will. But the world outside of us—that we perceive clearly; it lies spread out before us. When we gain an awareness of what we were before birth in the spiritual worlds, there is no external world of objects; there we do not look through physical eyes into an external world, nor do we hear physical sounds through our physical ears; there we perceive something else. There we perceive the human being within himself as a world in and of itself—that very human being whom we must help to create when we are incarnated in the world. Here, the external environment is our world. Before our conception in the spiritual worlds, the inner being of the human being was our world. The human being is revealed to the human being as the human being simultaneously grasps his or her Eternal through knowledge. And here, my esteemed audience, is where what is known as anthroposophical spiritual science expands into a genuine sense of true human significance and true human being.

[ 37 ] What, after all, has modern science brought us? A meticulous study of the animal kingdom as it evolves, from the lowest forms of life all the way up to the most perfect—namely, human beings—but nothing about human beings that describes them as a distinct being. They appear merely as the culmination of the animal kingdom. We seek in him what we have found in animals, only at a higher level, as the culmination. But in a sense, we have thereby lost sight of humanity in its true inner essence. We stand at the boundaries of the world; we stand before a new threshold. We cross this new threshold in the manner I have just described. What the ancients sought to explore beyond the threshold is our general human education today; but what they possessed of worldly knowledge by instinct, we must attain by crossing the threshold through such spiritual-scientific methods as I have described. Then, however, this spiritual-scientific method is transformed into a feeling of true respect for humanity. How this spiritual knowledge is transformed into a sense of true respect for humanity, how it is transformed into an understanding of social impulses—I will speak about this in greater detail on the 28th of this month, when I will draw the consequences of what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science has to say regarding school and educational issues as well as practical questions of social life.

[ 38 ] When I was given the opportunity to speak here in 1912 and, even earlier, in 1908, to the Dutch public about issues related to anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, I could only speak of it as something that, in a sense, strives—using a new method—to attain spiritual-scientific insights intended to satisfy the innermost depths of the human soul. I could speak of something that is sought after and developed by individual people. Since that time, despite the catastrophic events that have occurred in the intervening years, much has also taken place in terms of external development, particularly in the field of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

[ 39 ] We have established the School of Spiritual Science, the Goetheanum, in Dornach near Basel. The Goetheanum bears this name because we are aware that what appears in Goethe as a fundamental, intuitive power of judgment—as his artistic and scientific disposition—must be further developed, as I have explained today; this leads to what we call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Nevertheless, even though the building is not yet completed, we attempted as early as last fall to hold a whole series of college courses in this unfinished Goetheanum. These university courses were not held on spiritual science in the narrow sense, but were presented by some thirty individuals—scientists and experts from the usual fields of science, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, sociology, law, and so on and so forth. But men of practical life, active in the commercial and industrial spheres, also spoke. Artists spoke about their art. All of this—alongside the spiritual-scientific examination of philosophy—constituted the content of the Dornach University Courses, presented by thirty lecturers.

[ 40 ] What was the purpose of these university courses? They sought to show how, in fact, everything that constitutes modern scientific life, modern practical life, and what essentially forms the content of modern civilization, contains many declining forces that would inevitably lead to chaos and decline if they continued to decline, and how these forces of decline can be transformed into forces of ascent. The aim was to show how spiritual science can shed light on and revitalize science, practical life, and the substance of our civilized existence—revitalize them in precisely the way that souls yearning for knowledge of the supersensible and for the infusion of new impulses into social life so deeply long for.

[ 41 ] Much has therefore taken place during this time in the development of anthroposophical spiritual science, my esteemed audience. Whether the Goetheanum in Dornach—this School of Spiritual Science, which seeks to make a fruitful contribution to modern civilization—can be completed will depend on whether we can continue to find people as willing to make sacrifices as those who have already come together in great numbers, people who were sufficiently open-minded toward spiritual science as it is understood there, and who have brought it to where it stands today.

[ 42 ] This spiritual science has also influenced the life of civilization in other ways. I will discuss the fundamental principles in more detail in my next lecture; today I would simply like to mention how the establishment of the Free Waldorf School—a creation of Emil Molt in Stuttgart—has influenced school life in practice. I, however, was entrusted with the responsibility of guiding the pedagogy and didactics derived from spiritual science.

[ 43 ] And as far as practical life is concerned, a start has been made through practical economic initiatives in Germany and Switzerland. I will also discuss this next time.

[ 44 ] But what must underlie all of this is the necessity for a change in thinking, for modern humanity to relearn in the deepest inner life of the soul. For we need a new self-knowledge of the human being, which can only be attained if we learn to cross the threshold in a new way—the threshold that leads us into the supersensible world—so that we can carry our modern, strengthened consciousness into the realms that lie beyond this threshold and, through this strengthened self-awareness, gain a new, spirit-filled worldview. This is the foremost civilizational question of our time.

[ 45 ] The second question is the one that confronts us wherever we look at life today. We cannot achieve a meaningful social coexistence if we are not able to recognize the human being in his or her essence when he or she stands before us; if we are not able to respect, feel, and appreciate the full inner significance of the being who walks the earth as a human being. As human beings, we can only truly encounter one another if we gain an understanding of humanity through spiritual insight and true love for humanity through that love which strives toward this insight.

[ 46 ] And we can only deepen all of this through religion and give it artistic expression if we move from mere abstract cognition—the intellectualism of the modern age—to a true spiritual vision that, in turn, moves us not only intellectually but as whole human beings; that carries us, as whole human beings, into life. The science we have had could, after all, only show a natural world that runs on its own, that developed from gaseous states and [brought forth] human beings as an external form—and which, in turn, will one day fall back into the sun as waste. And on the other hand, there is that which resides within us as ideals, that which resides within us as moral impulses. But this modern science, if it is entirely honest, cannot bridge the gap between the inner consciousness of the human soul and the outer cosmic consciousness. As human beings attain spiritual science in the sense described here, they regain the ability to say: What I gain in social life is not only significant for a humanity in decline, but—since human beings are born of the spirit of the world—for this world spirit as well.

[ 47 ] Human actions will, in turn, be recognized as cosmic actions. That human beings may come to know themselves, that they may learn to honor one another, and that they may learn to appreciate their place—including in spiritual terms—within the entire cosmos: these are, first and foremost, the great civilizational questions of the present, which lie closer to the realm of knowledge. They extend to the issue of education, to economic and social issues, and to the legal and technical issues of social life—topics on which I shall take the liberty of speaking to you here on the 28th, as a supplement to today’s discussion.

[ 48 ] Q&A

[ 49 ] Question: Are there any dangers associated with the described path to the spiritual worlds?

[ 50 ] Dr. Steiner: Ladies and gentlemen! It must, of course, be said that everything a person undertakes in life may, under certain circumstances, involve dangers, and that there is always the possibility of avoiding these dangers if one follows the right path. As you will understand, it is not possible to offer more than a few hints in a short lecture, and naturally, that is all I could offer today as well. Therefore, of course, I could not describe the finer details of the path of knowledge leading into the supersensible worlds. Had I been able to do so, you would have seen that the matter of supersensible knowledge—as it is understood here in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—the life of the soul on this path, stands in a very specific relationship to what the life of the soul otherwise is. Isn’t that right? We are familiar with ordinary, normal human life as it manifests in the waking state, in which a person makes use of their senses, combines sensory perceptions with the intellect, develops them into laws of nature, history, or social life, and so on. But there is also another possibility, namely that the human soul-spiritual aspect is more strongly bound to the body than is the case in ordinary life. According to materialist theory, it is as if soul-spiritual experiences were nothing more than a result of physical-bodily states. When attempting to prove such a claim, one points to the fact that, indeed, parallel physical-bodily states can be demonstrated for psychological and spiritual experiences. However, from a spiritual scientific perspective—and this is precisely the important point, that one must delve into the details of spiritual scientific insights—the view of the connection between spiritual-psychic experiences and physical-bodily experiences, as it is commonly presented, is thoroughly incorrect.

[ 51 ] Let me use an analogy: Suppose I walk along a path that is somewhat soft; then whoever follows me will see footprints on the path that were left by a person. Another being, one that humans cannot see, might suppose that these footprints on the path originate from within the path itself, from the earth; that the earth possesses forces through which these footprints are created. Anyone who merely reflects on the configuration of the path might arrive at this conclusion. Those who have come to know the spiritual-soul aspect are not surprised that traces of the spiritual-soul aspect are found in the physical-bodily realm—for example, in the nervous system. They are imprinted, so to speak, like the footprints in the soft earth. One must therefore find everything that is experienced spiritually and soulfully reflected in the physical-bodily realm.

[ 52 ] In this regard, a certain degree of independence of the mental-spiritual from the physical-bodily already exists in normal life. In pathological life—that is, in what we recognize as psychopathy, which manifests in the most diverse forms of mental illness—it becomes apparent that the spiritual-soul life is strongly bound to the physical life, more so than in the normal state. It is always important to note that mental illnesses are, at their core, physical illnesses. Due to illness of the physical body, the soul-spiritual aspect feels more strongly bound to an organ than it should be. In this regard, medicine in particular will need to be deeply enriched. I already held a course for doctors and medical students last spring, in which I demonstrated how medicine—especially therapy—can be enriched. But it becomes clear precisely when one explores medicine from a spiritual-scientific perspective that, in the case of mental illnesses, one must look to the physical-bodily foundations. For these illnesses consist in the fact that the human being is more strongly bound to the body in a spiritual-soul aspect than in the normal state. Through the training I have discussed today, the opposite state is brought about—though for spiritual cognition, not for normal life.

[ 53 ] The spiritual researcher will be fully immersed in practical life. If one sleeps well, one is capable during the day in one’s external practical life; or if one is a crazy person, good for nothing, and clumsy, then one is not a proper spiritual researcher either. These things are definitely connected. Precisely because the spiritual-soul aspect becomes independent of the physical-bodily, the method I have described points in the opposite direction from that of mental illnesses. Psychic illnesses involve a sinking of the spiritual into the physical-bodily realm, and it is precisely through this method I have described that one can simultaneously restore human life to health—apart from the fact that these are methods of knowledge. And it is slander to claim that following these methods poses dangers to a person’s spiritual or physical life. That is not the case. It is simply that all manner of amateurish methods of soul development are prevalent in the world. These are, in fact, always associated with dangers, for the reason that they constantly force the spiritual-soul aspect into the physical body, whereas what is described here by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science as the spiritual path does not seek to connect the spiritual-soul aspect with the physical-bodily aspect in any pathological way, but rather to liberate it in such a way that the experience is as inwardly luminous and clear as a mathematical experience. Care is taken to ensure that nothing sought after in the method of spiritual science is in any way mystically nebulous, but that everything is permeated by complete clarity. There will therefore be nothing more superficial than nebulous mysticism, which is only seemingly deep but is in reality superficial. What is sought is thoroughly spiritual, but it is a healing of the soul’s life, not a disease.