The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Psychosophy IV

[ 1 ] Today, too, a short poem will be recited before the lecture—once again by the young Goethe.

Poetic Reflections on the Descent of Jesus Christ into Hell

What an extraordinary commotion!
A shout of joy resounds through the heavens,
A great army marches on in splendor.
Followed by a thousand million,
The Son of God descends from His thrones,
And hurries to that dark place.
He hurries, surrounded by storms,
He comes as a judge and as a hero;
He walks, and all the stars tremble,
The sun quakes, the world quakes.

I see Him on the chariot of victory,
Carried away by wheels of fire,
He who died for us on the cross.
He shows victory even to those far away,
Far from the world, far from the stars,
The victory He won for us.
He comes to destroy hell,
Which His death has already struck down;
It shall hear its judgment from Him:
Hear! Now the curse is fulfilled.

Hell sees the Victor coming,
It feels its power taken away,
It trembles and shuns His face;
It knows the terror of His thunder,
It tries in vain to hide,
It tries to flee but cannot;
It rushes in vain to save itself
And to escape the Judge,
The Lord’s wrath, like chains of iron,
Holds its foot fast; it cannot flee.

Here lies the crushed dragon,
He lies and feels the Most High’s vengeance,
He feels it and grits his teeth in rage;
He feels the torments of all Hell,
He groans and howls a thousand times:
Destroy me, O fiery heat!
There he lies in a sea of flames,
Tormented eternally by fear and pain;
He curses that the torment should consume him,
And hears that the torment shall last forever.

Here, too, are those great multitudes,
Who shared his same vice,
Yet were nowhere near as wicked as he.
Here lies the countless crowd
In a black, dreadful throng,
surrounded by a fiery storm;
He sees how they shrink from the Judge,
He sees how the storm devours them,
He sees it, yet he cannot rejoice,
For his torment is even greater.

The Son of Man descends in triumph
Down into the black swamp of Hell,
And there reveals His glory.
Hell cannot bear the radiance;
Since the very first days of its creation
Darkness has reigned there.
It lay far from all light,
Filled with torment amid the chaos here;
The radiance of His countenance
God ever turned away from it.

Now she sees, within her limits,
The glory of the Son shining,
His awesome majesty.
She sees Him surrounded by thunder,
She sees all the rocks trembling,
As God stands before her in wrath.
She sees Him coming to judge her,
She feels the pain that torments her,
She wishes in vain to destroy herself;
Even this comfort is denied her.

Now she thinks of her former happiness,
Looking back with anguish on that time,
When this splendor brought her joy;
When her heart still dwelt in virtue,
Her cheerful spirit in the freshness of youth,
And was always filled with new delight.
She thinks with fury of her crime,
How she boldly deceived people;
She thought she was taking revenge on God,
Now she feels the consequences.

God became a man. He came to earth.
“This one, too, shall be my sacrifice,”
said Satan, and rejoiced.
He sought to destroy Christ,
the Creator of the worlds was to die;
But woe to you, Satan, for all eternity!
You thought you could overcome Him,
You rejoiced in His distress;
But He comes victorious to bind you:
Where is your sting, O Death?

Speak, Hell! Speak—where is your victory?
Just look at how your powers lie in ruins;
Will you soon recognize the power of the Most High?
Behold, Satan! Behold your kingdom destroyed,
Burdened by a thousand torments,
You lie in eternal, dark night.
There you lie as if struck by lightning,
No glimmer of happiness delights you.
It is in vain. You may hope for nothing,
The Messiah died for me alone!

A howl rises through the air,
Those black tombs quickly sway,
As Christ reveals Himself to Hell.
It grinds its teeth in rage; yet our great hero
Can command its fury;
He beckons—and all of Hell falls silent.
Thunder rolls before His voice,
The lofty banner of victory flies;
Even angels tremble before His fury,
When Christ proceeds to judgment.

Now He speaks; His speech is thunder,
He speaks, and all the rocks shatter,
His breath is like fire.
Thus He speaks: “Tremble, you wicked ones!
He who cursed you in Eden,
Comes to destroy your kingdom.
Look! You were My children,
You rebelled against Me,
You fell and became brazen sinners,
You have the reward that is yours,

You became My greatest enemies,
You led My best friends astray,
People fell just as you did.
You wanted to destroy them forever,
All were to die; but now, weep!
I have won them for Myself. For them I came down,
I suffered, I prayed, I died for them.
You shall not achieve your goal;
Whoever believes in Me shall never die.

Here you lie in eternal chains,
Nothing can save you from this abyss,
Neither repentance nor recklessness.
There you lie, writhing in sulfuric flames,
You rushed to condemn yourselves,
There you lie, lamenting for all eternity!
Even you, whom I chose for Myself,
Even you forfeited My favor;
Even you are lost for all eternity.
You murmur? Do not blame Me.

You should live with Me forever,
My Word was given to you for this purpose,
But you sinned and did not obey.
You lived in the slumber of sin;
Now the just punishment torments you,
You feel My terrible judgment.”
Thus He spoke, and a terrible storm
Goes forth from Him, the lightning glows,
The thunder seizes the transgressors
And plunges them into the abyss.

The God-Man closes the gates of hell,
He ascends from the dark places back into His glory.
He sits at the Father’s side,
He will still fight for us,
He will! O friends, what joy!
The angels’ solemn choirs,
who rejoice before the great God,
so that all creation may hear:
Great is the Lord, God of Hosts!

[ 2 ] It may go some way toward fostering a deeper understanding of what was said yesterday and what will be said today if we try to draw a comparison between Hegel’s poetry, presented yesterday, and the poetry of the young Goethe, which we have just heard. This comparison will be valuable because it can help us become aware of the diversity of the souls from which these two poems originate. Let us try to visualize just how vastly different the two poems are—the one recited yesterday and the one recited today. Given the limited time available, it is inevitable that certain things can only be more or less hinted at. Nevertheless, I believe it will be possible for us to understand one another.

[ 3 ] Yesterday we heard the poetry of a philosopher, a man who reached tremendous heights in the realm of pure thought. And we saw that in this poem, “Eleusis,” thought itself, so to speak, became creative within Hegel’s soul. If you now reflect on how yesterday’s poem affected you, you will be able to say to yourself: One senses mighty thoughts wrestling with the greatest questions of humanity as well as with the great questions of the ages that tie in with the so-called Mysteries. One senses that someone has delved into these great mysteries of the world with thought, yet one also senses a certain awkwardness in the poetic treatment. One can tell, so to speak, from this poem that it is something that does not lie within the primary mission of the individual from whom it originates. It is a struggle with poetic form, and one can see from the poetry itself that the thought has had great difficulty in adapting to the form through which poetic expression becomes possible in the first place. One can see from the poetry that the individual from whom it originates would not have been capable of producing many works of poetry in a lifetime.

[ 4 ] Let us compare this with the poem we have just heard, but by focusing on a specific detail. Before the first lecture, I had you read a poem from Goethe’s youth that had been adapted for this purpose, and which so vividly illustrated to us how two souls lived within Goethe’s breast—two spiritual forces, two spiritual powers—and we saw what in this poem—worthy, too, of what lived as the core of his being in the mature Goethe—nevertheless presents itself to people in powerful images. But we see in the poetry of the young Goethe that a completely different spiritual force is at work in him, at least initially, than, say, in Hegel. Throughout Goethe’s work, it is what we might call: rich, vivid images flow to him. And how rich in imagery is the poem that has just appeared before us as a work by the young Goethe! This, then, was already inherent in his nature—that rich, vivid, and meaningful images flowed to him. And where the grandeur of the subject overwhelms him, we become aware of how that which had still stood in his way as a hindrance in his early poetry is pushed back by a powerful inner life that expresses itself through rich, vivid images.

[ 5 ] In a sense, we see a threefold aspect in the poems presented here. We see how, in Hegel, thought takes effect, giving rise to images more or less solely through the immense struggle it undergoes. We can still tell from the pallor of the images just how intense that struggle was. We see it in the poetry of the young Goethe, as it flows along in richly evocative images. And we see how these richly evocative images in Goethe’s poetry—where he dealt with the legend of the “Perpetual Jew”—could, in a certain sense, be so compromised—because those two souls were struggling within him—that he was unable to bring them to completion. It has, after all, remained only a fragment. Here we are pointed to the multifaceted nature of the soul’s life. Let us keep this in mind: how a force of the soul—which we might, in a certain sense, call “conceptual,” as Hegel does—struggles to penetrate that force of the soul which is the greatest in Goethe, and how this force of the soul, in Goethe’s own soul, in turn penetrates into its opposite.

[ 6 ] And now let us continue with our psychosophical reflections. Let us remember that within our inner life, judgments and the experiences of love and hate—which stem from the faculty of desire—are at work. We can also summarize—in a different way than we did yesterday—what lives in our soul, on the one hand, as a judging power, by recalling that this power of judgment confronts us when we speak of the soul’s intellectual capacity, of the ability to understand the truths of the world; and, on the other hand, by considering that a completely different soul force confronts us when we say: a soul is interested in the external world in one way or another. — Depending on how the experiences of love and hate take effect, a soul is interested in the external world. But these phenomena of love and hate themselves have nothing to do with the power of thought, with intelligence. The power of judgment and the power of interest are two forces that operate differently within the soul. A simple observation already shows this. Anyone who believes that volition is still something special in the soul can see, when looking into their soul, that they encounter there only an interest in what is willed. In short, apart from interest arising from love and hate, and the power of judgment, which manifests itself in judgment—apart from these two realms, you will find nothing within the inner realm of the soul. With this, you have exhausted the life of the soul in terms of its content. But in doing so, you have completely overlooked one thing that belongs to the most important aspects, something that immediately confronts us in the life of the soul: namely, consciousness. Consciousness is part of the life of the soul. This means that when we seek to explore the content of the life of the soul from every angle, we encounter the power of judgment and interest; but when we look at the inner nature, the character of the life of the soul, we must say: We may only count the experiences of love and hate and the capacity for judgment as part of the life of the soul to the extent that we attribute them to the word “consciousness.” We must therefore ask ourselves: What, then, is consciousness? I will not define it for you now, but I will characterize it.

[ 7 ] If you approach human consciousness with the help of what we have already considered, you will say—precisely in light of the flowing stream of ideas you have taken in—that it becomes apparent that, in the soul, consciousness does not, after all, coincide with the life of the soul. For we have seen that there is a certain difference between the life of the soul in general and consciousness. An idea that we took in days, weeks, or years ago continues to live within us, for we can remember it. But if we do not remember it at this very moment—perhaps only after two days—then although this idea has continued to live on, it was not conscious at that moment; that is to say, it was in our soul, but not in our consciousness.

[ 8 ] So the stream of soul life flows on, and consciousness is yet something else entirely than the flowing stream of soul life. In short, we must say: If we describe the ideas that we can recall at any given moment as a stream that—conceiving the soul as a circle—flows in the direction of the arrow [see diagram], then this stream can contain within itself all the ideas that, so to speak, flow within our soul from the past into the future; but if they are to become conscious, they must first be brought up into consciousness through an act of striving, out of the way in which they exist unconsciously within the soul. Consciousness is therefore something that belongs to the soul. But consciousness does not belong to the life of the soul in such a way that everything in the soul must necessarily enter into consciousness. The stream of the life of the imagination continues to flow, and consciousness illuminates only a certain part of our soul life at a given moment.

[ 9 ] Since we are, after all, dealing with other people and must be prepared for objections, the following must be noted as a aside. Someone might now object: What you call the flowing stream of ideas is nothing more than the disposition of the soul or brain, which, once established, remains; and all that needs to happen is for this disposition of the brain to be illuminated by consciousness at a certain moment. - That would be the case if it were not necessary for something to be detached from perception immediately after the act of perceiving, so that the perception itself can be carried forward. If the disposition for memory were truly already created by the act of perception, there would be no need for something to be detached from the entire process first, nor for the perception to be transformed into a representation. Perception develops in relation to the external object, but the idea does not. The idea is a response from within. We therefore have within us that which has been experienced in the world and which flows along with the current of time from the past into the future, yet it does not always coincide with consciousness; rather, it must first be illuminated by consciousness if it is to be remembered.

[ 10 ] How is it, then, that light can be shed on the flowing stream of ideas in our soul, so that parts of it can become visible in memory or in some other way? A fact of ordinary soul life, as it unfolds on the physical plane, can show us how this happens. This is the following fact, which is not taken into account at all in external psychology, because there one works not with facts but with prejudices. We, however, wish to work impartially with the facts.

[ 11 ] There are many different kinds of human emotions. I want to draw your attention only to a few that we already mentioned yesterday, and to a few others—emotions, for example, that express themselves in longing, impatience, hope, and doubt; I want to point out emotions such as anxiety and fear. What, then, do all such emotions tell us? If we truly examine them, they all share a remarkable commonality: they all relate to the future; they relate to what may happen, or to what we wish will happen. Human beings, then, live in their souls in such a way that their emotions are concerned not only with the present but also with the future. And indeed, they are quite keenly interested in the future! You can take this further: You can compare the fact that feelings relating to the future live within us with another phenomenon. Try to recall from your memories something you experienced in your youth—or perhaps even quite recently—as joy or as pain. Try, just for a moment, to compare what lives on in your emotions from the past—whether it be a pain you’ve overcome or a joy you’ve experienced—and how infinitely faint the memory of such things can be when it’s refreshed. If they’ve left a mark, if they’ve affected our health or had some other impact, then they make themselves felt; then they force their way into our consciousness. But that is the present! What we have experienced in the past with regard to our emotional life, however, fades the further we move away from it. And now consider how it is with explicit desires. When you desire something that is to be granted to you in the future, try to really observe the stirrings in your soul. But I would like to know how many people complain that this or that did not come their way ten years ago, unless it has continued into the present and caused a current lack. There is a tremendous difference between our life of interests when we look toward the future and when we turn our gaze to the past. No matter how far you look around, no matter what you consult, there is only one explanation for the fact I have just described to you. The fact is, of course, obvious; but there is only one explanation: that what we desire does not flow at all in the same direction as the flowing stream of ideas, but rather that it flows against this stream. You will be able to shed an immense flash of light on your entire inner life if you assume just this one thing: that everything—desires, wishes, interests, the phenomena of love and hate—constitutes a stream in the inner life that does not flow from the past into the future at all, but rather comes toward us from the future, flowing from the future into the past [see diagram, D-C]. Suddenly, the entire sum of soul experiences becomes clear! It took me days to elaborate on this further, and so I can only say the following for now.

[ 12 ] If you assume that the stream of phenomena—of love and hate, of desires, and so on—is flowing toward you from the future and intersects with the stream of ideas we characterized earlier, what then is our inner life at that moment? It is nothing other than the encounter between a stream flowing from the past into the future and a stream flowing from the future into the past. And if the present moment in our inner life is such an encounter, then you will easily understand that these two streams converge within the soul itself—they clash, so to speak. This clash is consciousness. There is no other explanation for consciousness than the one just given. Thus, our soul participates in everything that flows on from the past into the future, and in everything that comes toward us from the future. So when you look into your inner life at any given moment, you can say: There is something like an interpenetration of what flows from the past into the future with what flows from the future into the past and opposes the former as desires, as interest, as wishes, and so on. Two things interpenetrate each other.

[ 13 ] Since this distinction must be made very clearly, we want to give these currents in the life of the soul two names. If I were speaking to an audience right now as if there were no such thing as the spiritual science movement, I would choose the strangest possible names to designate the two currents. But the names themselves are not what matters. At this moment, I would like to choose names in which you will recognize what you have already come to know from another perspective, so that you can now view it from two sides: first, from the perspective of the pure empiricist, who describes to you the phenomena of the soul as they unfold on the physical plane, and who can therefore choose names for what he has observed however he wishes; and then you can view it from the perspective of occult research. Let us first consider this latter aspect. Names are entirely irrelevant here, but I would nevertheless like to choose names such as those selected by one who views things from the standpoint of clairvoyance and therefore truly sees them flowing into one another—names from spiritual science through which you will recognize in psychosophy what you have learned in spiritual science. Let us therefore designate the stream that contains the ideas that are unconscious for the moment—which comes from the past and flows into the future—as the etheric body, and the other stream, which flows from the future into the past, merges with the former, and brings about their intersection, as the astral body. And what is consciousness? It is the mutual encounter of the astral body and the etheric body.

[ 14 ] Try this experiment: Take everything you have learned from research into clairvoyant consciousness regarding the etheric body, and apply it to what has been said here. You will recognize it again. And try comparing everything you have learned about the astral body with what has been said here: you will also be able to make sense of it and recognize your truths from that source. You need only ask yourself the question: What is it that causes the blockage, that produces the intersection? —The fact that something becomes blocked there is due to the fact that the two currents meet in physical human life. Suppose the physical human body were removed, and the etheric body were also removed. But this is the case after death, when the current flowing from the past into the future is no longer present. Then the current pushing from the future into the past—that is, the astral body—has free rein and now makes itself felt immediately after death. And the result is that life in Kamaloka proceeds in reverse, as you have been told.

[ 15 ] As you can see, we find in the field of psychosophy what we have learned in the field of spiritual science. I would like you to note one more thing, however: that in fact, there is sometimes quite a long way from the knowledge of spiritual-scientific truths derived from clairvoyant research to what can actually be experienced on the physical plane, for this must first be brought into order. But once it has been brought into order, you will find everywhere that the findings of clairvoyant consciousness can be validated by observations on the physical plane.

[ 16 ] But now let us consider another aspect of our inner life—one that is usually described by words such as “surprise” or “astonishment” in response to something. When can we be surprised by something we encounter? Only when, at the very moment it approaches us, we are unable to judge it immediately—when, so to speak, an impression is made on our inner life, and we are thus not yet able to measure up to the thing with our judgment. The moment we are able to assess the matter, the astonishment and the surprise cease. And whatever we encounter in such a way that we are immediately able to assess it does not lead to surprise or astonishment at all. Thus, we can say: When a phenomenon confronts us in such a way that we are surprised, perhaps even feel fear—for even there we can characterize the feeling in such a way that we are not yet able to assess the phenomenon confronting us with our judgment—where, then, the phenomenon makes a conscious impression on our inner life without our judgment being able to take hold immediately, the future forces its way into our inner life. That is when our feeling, our interest, comes into play, but our judgment cannot keep up immediately. From this we must conclude that, in fact, our interest, our feelings, and our life of desire cannot have a direction that runs from the past into the future, for then judgment could flow directly from that same direction. Thus, judgment must be something other than mere interest. We have already deduced this from ordinary observation. But this judgment also cannot merge with, nor can it be one and the same as, the stream of inner life flowing from the past into the future. If that were the case, judgment would have to coincide with the stream of perceptions at every moment. At every moment when we judge, our entire inner life would have to be active. It would have to be fully engaged with the ideas at every moment. But judgment is a conscious act. Consider, however, how far removed you are, at the very moment you are judging, from having all the ideas you could possibly have present in your mind! Judgment enters into consciousness, but it is incapable of capturing the flowing stream of the life of the soul. Not all of your ideas are always at your disposal. Thus, our judging cannot coincide with the flowing stream of soul life. Nor can it coincide with the stream flowing from the future into the past, because otherwise feelings such as fear, surprise, and amazement would not be possible. It follows, then, that what we call “judging” does not coincide with either of these directions.

[ 17 ] Let us bear this in mind and now consider the ever-flowing stream of our etheric body, which moves from the past into the future. Its most distinctive feature is that it can flow on unconsciously within the soul, yet it can also become conscious. Let us now consider how unconscious ideas flowing within the soul can become conscious. We must be clear about this: these ideas are constantly present. But what happens at the very moment they become conscious? Let us consider the moment when, in a most peculiar way, images that have slipped from our minds become conscious. I would like to evoke such a moment for you. You are walking through an art gallery; you see a painting and look at it. At that very moment, the same image surfaces within you: you have, in fact, already seen it. Let’s assume that. What brought the memory to the surface? It was brought to the surface by the impression of the new picture. It was, therefore, the impression of the new picture that—if I may put it this way—conjured into the visibility of your soul the old image of the picture that had lived on within you. If the new picture had not appeared, the old one would not have surfaced.

[ 18 ] We can only begin to understand this process if you realize the following. What happened when you saw the new image? Your “I” is willing to encounter the image. It enters into interaction with the image through the senses. And this fact—that your “I” has a new impression, that it takes something new into itself—strangely enough affects something in the flowing stream of your soul life in such a way that this, too, now becomes visible. Let’s try to form a mental image to characterize this process. Think for a moment of all the objects that, when you are standing facing a certain direction, are behind you. You do not see them because they are behind you. You can only see them if you hold up a mirror; then you see in the mirror the objects that are behind you. From this you can already conclude that something very similar must be the case with the ideas that live on unconsciously in the soul. When a new impression arrives, it enters the inner life in such a way that the old impression becomes psychologically visible. If you now imagine that the “I” in the inner life is something that stands before the old, unconscious ideas, and that the moment of recollection is characterized by the fact that these ideas are prompted—as it were—to “reflect” themselves through an inner psychological process, by creating a cause for this reflection, then you have the process of remembering—of bringing the old ideas into consciousness.

[ 19 ] And what, then, is the reason that such a reflection arises? You can easily find it if you’re willing to think about it. You’ll gain insight into the reason why such a reflection arises if you recall something I actually mentioned recently in a public lecture on “Life and Death”: that a highly significant fact to be observed in the life of the soul is that the backward flow of memory in the life of the soul stops at a certain point. From this point onward, a person can no longer recall the past. It is at this point that memory begins for a person. In other words: Which mental images are recalled at all in a person’s ordinary physical life? Only those in which the “I” was present—those that the “I” has truly taken in. For I have already pointed out: Roughly as far back as the memory of earlier events extends lies the moment when the child first became capable of developing the concept of the “I,” the “I”-consciousness. Only those perceptions that have been taken in in such a way that the “I” was actively involved—that an active force was at work, in that the “I” felt itself as a conscious “I”—only these perceptions are remembered at all in ordinary human life; only these can be remembered. So what does this “I” do when it is, so to speak, born—let’s say in the second or third year of a child’s life? Previously, it had, so to speak, absorbed impressions unconsciously; it was not present in the process itself. Then it begins to truly develop as “I”-consciousness, and with this “I”-consciousness, the child begins to link all the perceptions it takes in from the outside world. This is the moment when the human “I” begins to place itself before its perceptions and set them behind itself. You can grasp this almost tangibly: Before, the “I” was, so to speak, entirely immersed in its entire imaginative life; then it steps out and positions itself so that it now moves freely toward the future and is, so to speak, equipped to take in everything that comes from the future, while placing past images behind it.

[ 20 ] If we take to heart what we have just said, what must then happen at the moment when the “I” begins, so to speak, to take all perceptions into itself—when the “I” becomes conscious? At that moment, the “I” must connect with the flowing stream, with what we have called the etheric body. And indeed, at the very moment the child begins to develop its sense of self, the current of soul life has made a distinct impression on the etheric body. This, in turn, gives rise to the concept of the “I.” For consider that the concept of the “I” can never be imparted to you from the outside. All other perceptions relating to the physical world are given to you from outside. The sense of self—indeed, even the perception of the self—can never come to you from outside. This will only become clear to you if you now imagine that, before the child has a sense of self, it is incapable of sensing its own etheric body; the moment it begins to develop self-awareness, it senses its etheric body and reflects the essence of its own etheric body back into the self. Therein lies the “mirror.” While all other perceptions relating to physical space and life within physical space are received through the human physical body—namely, through the sense organs—self-consciousness arises precisely because the “I” fills the etheric body and, as it were, reflects itself upon its inner walls. This is the essence of “I”-consciousness: that it is the etheric body reflecting inward.

[ 21 ] What, then, can cause the “I” to reflect itself in this way within? Only this can cause the etheric body to attain a certain inner completion. We have seen, after all, that the astral body corresponds to the etheric body. It is, so to speak, the “I” that fills the etheric body and becomes aware of this etheric body as such, as through an inner reflection.

[ 22 ] But this concept of the “I,” this self-awareness, has one characteristic: it is powerfully gripped by all kinds of interests and desires. For these take firm root in the “I.” But even though these interests and desires take such a firm hold in the “I”—what we call the various forms of egoism—we must say: This perception of the “I” has, in turn, something very peculiar about it. In a certain sense, it does have something that is independent of these desires. For there is a certain demand within the human soul that it makes of itself—and which can very easily be verified by the soul itself. Every soul will say to itself: I cannot possibly bring forth my “I” through mere desire. No matter how much I desire my “I,” it is not present simply because I desire it. —Just as the “I” does not consist solely of the flowing stream of ideas, neither does it consist of the other stream that flows from the future into the past—the stream of desires. It is an element fundamentally distinct from both streams, yet one that encompasses both within itself.

[ 23 ] We can illustrate this graphically—and in this case, the graphic representation corresponds exactly to reality—by having the stream of the “I” intersect perpendicularly with the stream of time [arrow C-D]. This is, in fact, how one must proceed if one is to properly consider all phenomena of the soul. You can make sense of these mental phenomena if, in addition to the two currents—the one flowing from the past into the future and the one flowing from the future into the past [arrow C-D]—you also assume the existence of a third current in the human soul that is perpendicular to the other two [arrow E-F]. This is the current that corresponds to the human “I” itself.

[ 24 ] But there is something connected to the “I” that you can easily discover simply by observing your inner life: namely, the capacity for judgment. The capacity for judgment arises with the “I.” You can understand this quite easily right now by considering a phenomenon such as surprise. When the “I”—albeit indirectly—is at work, an event may approach you that will evoke a wealth of interest. But if the judgmental activity of the “I” cannot simultaneously come into play indirectly, then it is impossible for the event to encounter that judgment. But what happens when the “I” comes into play indirectly? We have seen that ego-perception is like an inner reflection in the soul. The reflection would have to occur in such a way that the ego literally has the ideas flowing unconsciously behind it. That would be the case if the “I” stream flowed in such a way that, in its own inflow, it actually had the direction I have indicated with the arrow E-F, but in life it had the direction I indicate with the arrow G-H—namely, toward the future.

[ 25 ] Now suppose that the “I,” insofar as it has become embedded in the etheric body, has itself become a mirror. This is strikingly true. Once the “I” has left behind the images that continue to flow unconsciously, what does it have before it when it looks toward the future—since it is, after all, the nature of the “I” to live toward the future? What must be there?

[ 26 ] Imagine this: You are standing in front of a mirror and looking into it. If there is no reflective coating on the back of the mirror, you see nothing at all; you are looking out into infinite distance. This, at first, is how a person looks into the future. In this way, a person actually looks into the stream flowing in from the future. It flows toward him in a spiritual sense: he sees nothing. When, then, does he see anything? When he sees something from the past inside the mirror. Then, of course, he does not see the future, but the past! When you look into the mirror, you do not see the objects that are in front of you, but those that are behind you. When the “I”—at the very moment the child attains self-consciousness, which arises when the “I” enters the etheric body—reflects inwardly, all soul life from that point onward consists of a mirroring of experiences, a mirroring of impressions. That is why you cannot remember anything before the “I” has become a mirroring apparatus. The very earliest childhood impressions remain outside of memory. The essential point is that the human “I,” insofar as it penetrates the etheric body—that is, absorbs the ideas from the past—thereby becomes a soul-reflecting apparatus itself. And it is accessible to everything it takes in from that point onward into its reflecting apparatus. What, then, must happen so that the “I” can, so to speak, truly reflect the past?

[ 27 ] One might say: When you have an external impression, such as the one I described earlier—when you see an image again that you have already seen—this brings about a reflection in relation to the old mental image that was previously unconscious; this image is thereby held back in its radiance from the other side in such a way that it falls into the inner mirror of the soul. But if no new impression occurs, no repetition of any old impression, then the ego itself must draw forth what is to appear as a reflection; it must act from the other side and create a substitute for what the external impression would otherwise have brought about. But what, then, is this “I” in the first place, as it expresses itself in physical human life? It is the inner fulfillment of the etheric body. Thus, in order to be able to reflect itself on its inner walls, it must have brought this etheric body into a state of reflection. This can only happen by the etheric body being truly enclosed. It is sealed off from external sensory impressions because you are in the physical body; for through this you are surrounded by eyes, ears, and so on, and what lives within the etheric body can thus be reflected back. But for what you are to recall freely, you must have a different power; for if the etheric body is to reflect, it must have a reflective surface. The sensory organs—that is, the physical body—provide this mirror-like surface for new impressions. But when the physical body is not active, as is the case with free recollection, when we have no new impressions to refresh our memory, the surface must be drawn from the other side. This can only happen by using what strikes the “I”—we might say, strikes the “I” from the side—as a primary force, by drawing upon desire, channeling the stream coming toward us, and making it the mirror-like surface. This means that only by appropriately strengthening our astral body can we bring about the development of the forces of striving and desire that enable us to recall into memory an image that refuses to be reflected. Only by strengthening our “I”—as it manifests itself in the physical world—are we truly able to draw in this stream, which otherwise eludes us and comes from the future, and transform it into a mirror-like surface. Thus, only by strengthening our ego—only by making the ego the master of the astral body and of the stream from the future—can we enable the ego to recall images that do not want to be reflected, that refuse to yield to us. There is a struggle here that we wage against these unconscious images. The “I” is not strong enough to bring them forth, and so we must draw upon what comes toward us.

[ 28 ] To illustrate this, I’d like to use an example from everyday life to show how you can actually strengthen your sense of self. Usually, you experience life’s events by simply following the continuous flow of experience. When a bell rings—once, a second time, a third time—you first hear the first ring, then the second, and then the third. But then you’re done. When you listen to a play, you hear the individual parts one after another; then you’re done. In other words, you live in the etheric body with the continuous flow. But let’s suppose you systematically set out to master the reverse flow; you get used to following things—which you would otherwise follow only in one direction—in the opposite direction as well. For example, you resolve to recall some events of the day in reverse order. When you look back on daily life in this way, you are not following the usual “I”-current—which arises because the “I” lives in the etheric body—but rather you are following the opposite current, the current of the astral body. If, for example, instead of reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the usual forward direction, you now recite it backward, you are following a current opposite to the usual flow of events. This is not the usual current that arises from the “I” filling the etheric body. And the result is that you thereby provide your “I” with a supply of energy drawn from the astral current. Then, in fact, a capacity for memory emerges on a truly immense scale. In my work as an educator, I have encouraged my students to strengthen their memory for the future by having them learn certain things—which are otherwise learned only in one direction—in the reverse direction as well, and to practice them over and over again. For example, the mineral hardness scale is usually learned in the following order: 1. talc, 2. rock salt, 3. calcite, 4. fluorite, 5. apatite, 6. orthoclase or potassium feldspar, 7. quartz, 8. topaz, 9. corundum, 10. diamond. So, in addition to this list, I had the students practice the reverse order over and over again: diamond, corundum, topaz, quartz, orthoclase, apatite, fluorspar, calcite, rock salt, talc. This is an exceptionally good exercise, especially when done at the right time during childhood—for strengthening memory.

[ 29 ] There is another exercise for this, one that is again connected to everything we have considered in recent days and today as well, and it consists of the following. Let’s suppose someone suffers from a noticeable loss of memory and makes the effort to take up again, with full dedication, some activity they engaged in during their youth. Imagine that this person is now forty-seven years old, and that at the age of fifteen he had devoted himself particularly to a book that gave him great pleasure at the time; he now takes up this book again and tries to work through it anew. When, in such a case, you bring those same events back to mind, the new stream flows toward you, and you draw strength from the astral stream that comes toward you from the future. When a person does this—for example, when an elderly person returns to activities he engaged in between the ages of seven and fourteen—it is a very special aid to improving memory.

[ 30 ] These things can thus show you that our “I” must indeed draw strength from the astral current flowing toward the etheric body if it is to foster the capacity for memory. All of these are extraordinarily important matters for practical life. And if, for example, more attention were paid to such things in the classroom, this could have an immensely beneficial effect. For example, one could have a beneficial effect by organizing the successive grades in a seven-grade school in such a way that, so to speak, a middle grade would be established that would then stand on its own, and that in the fifth grade—in a modified form—what was covered in the third grade would be repeated, and likewise, in the sixth grade, what was covered in the second grade would be repeated, and in the seventh grade, what was covered in the first grade. This would greatly strengthen memory, and people would see, if they put this into practice, how beneficial these measures would be, simply because they stem from the laws of real life.

[ 31 ] From this we see at the same time that the human being, in his conception of the “I,” in his “I”-consciousness, possesses something that is only just coming into being. It does not emerge until childhood. And we have also pointed out how it comes into being: namely, through the etheric body reflecting inward. It is therefore no wonder—certainly not for those familiar with spiritual science, since they know that at night the human being is outside both the physical body and the etheric body—that ego-consciousness cannot be present at night, because the ego cannot reflect itself in the etheric body. We are therefore not at all surprised to hear that the sense of the “I” must also descend into unconsciousness during sleep, for the etheric body is the continuous flow of time; it contains the perceptions that must first be illuminated from the other side—that is, by the astral body. Then what is, so to speak, flowing forward in the etheric body can be illuminated by the life of the soul. What a person has as the sense of self exists only in the etheric body; it is, in itself, merely the entire etheric body viewed from within. The concept of the “I” is itself active only in the etheric body, but not the “I” itself, for—as we have said—the “I” is the power of judgment that enters from the side. The moment you wish to grasp the “I,” you must not turn to “I”-consciousness, but rather to judgment. And curiously enough, judgment asserts itself quite confidently in relation to “I”-consciousness. We have made a very precise distinction between what is grasped by judgment and what is not yet grasped by it. When we have the impression of the color red, no judgment has yet been formed by the soul life. The power of judgment remains at rest. What determines the impression surges in from the outside. The moment we make even the simplest judgment—“Red is”—when we ascribe existence to the red, a judgment is already being formed by the soul life. The moment we make judgments, the “I” becomes active. If the “I” now makes its judgments based on the results of external impressions, then the external impressions enter into the judgment; the external impressions become the object of judgment—for example, “It is red.” But what must be possible if the “I” is an entity distinct from all concepts and even from its own perception? If the “I” is the instigator of “I”-perception, what must be present? Then there must be a capacity for judgment. Among the various judgments in our inner life, there must be one in relation to which the “I” feels sovereign, not dependent on an external impression. This indeed occurs when you make the judgment: “I am.” “I am” is, after all, merely another expression of this. There you have filled what otherwise lives within the “I”—but which you have not yet brought to consciousness—with the power of judgment in the “I is” or “I am.” What was previously an empty bubble, which dissolves like foam when the life of the soul becomes unconscious, you have filled with the power of judgment.

[ 32 ] If that is the case—if the “I” fills itself—what happens then? Judging is an activity of the soul. Activities of the soul arise in the inner life of the soul, internally. They lead to ideas. Within the realm of these ideas, the idea of the “I” also emerges. However, we have been unable to learn anything about the “I” itself from the idea of the “I.” But one thing is now clear: nothing from external impressions can lead us to the idea of the “I.” In other words: The concept of the “I” does not originate in the physical world. Since it does not originate in the physical world—yet otherwise possesses all the characteristics of concepts that do originate in the physical world—and since judgment within the soul, which belongs to the elementary contents of soul life, is applied to the “I,” the “I” must enter into soul life from somewhere else. This means we have thus demonstrated clearly that just as the concept “red” enters the soul from the external world and is encompassed by the “I” through judgment, so too does something enter the soul from the other side that is encompassed by judgment. If we take the impression “red” and encompass it with a judgment, we have “red is.” If, in a similar way, we take the “I” and say “I is,” we take in an impression from that external world we call the spiritual world and frame it with a judgment. “Red” as such corresponds to the forms of existence in the physical world. “Red is” is a judgment and can only come about within the life of the soul. “I” is a fact, just as “red” is a fact, and it can only enter the life of the soul—that is, be encompassed by a judgment—when the judgment comes from the other side of the soul and encompasses the “I” with the judgment, saying “I am” or “I is.” “I is” is merely the reversal of “I am” from the other side. The linguistic genius is indeed very clever and expresses things very concisely.

[ 33 ] If I were now to draw the fourth direction, from bottom to top, I would have to designate the direction running opposite to the “I” as the direction of the physical world [see Drawing I-K]. This would correspond to the physical body.

[ 34 ] The impressions of the physical world thus flow, as depicted graphically, from bottom to top and manifest themselves in the soul as sensory impressions. On the one hand, the “I” and its physical sensory organs stand in opposition; on the other hand, the currents of the etheric body and those of the astral body stand in opposition to one another. When the “I” encounters what the physical body is—when it flows directly toward the eye and the ear—it receives the impressions of the physical world. These impressions are processed further in the soul through the soul’s consciousness, which arises from the counter-flow of the astral and etheric worlds. And from this entire picture, you can see clearly that one obtains a relatively good visual representation of the relationship between the various worlds interacting within the human soul when one considers: On the one hand, the “I” and the physical body with its sense organs stand in opposition; they are directly opposite one another. Then, standing directly opposite them—forming, as it were, a right angle with the other two currents—are the etheric body and the astral body.

[ 35 ] Now I can assure you that countless mysteries of the soul will be unraveled for you if you use this diagram as a basis. You will then come to understand that this cross, through which a circle passes, provides a very good diagram of the life of the soul, as it adjoins the spiritual realm above, the physical realm below, the etheric realm to the left, and the astral realm to the right. You must, however, rise to the conception that the stream of time is not merely something flowing calmly along, but that something meets it head-on; and that the life of the “I” and the sensory life can only be grasped when they are understood as occurring at a right angle to the flow of time. If you bear this in mind, you will surely understand that truly diverse forces meet within our soul. Our soul is, so to speak, the stage on which forces of the most diverse directions converge.

[ 36 ] Let us suppose—since these forces, given the diversity of human beings, will assert themselves in the most varied ways—that the judging self is predominant in a person. Then it will be exceedingly difficult for that person’s soul to imbue abstract concepts with such richness that they directly appeal to the emotions. Therefore, we can expect that in a person whose primary activity is judgment, it will not be so easy for the words they speak to convey a richness that speaks to our emotional life. A person, on the other hand, whose inner life is such that a rich astral life already flows within their disposition—rich interests that flow counter to the continuous stream of physical life—will bring into life the capacity for vivid concepts. Such a person will not, so to speak, enter the physical plane as a “man of thought,” but rather in a way that demonstrates how easily he is able to clothe what he experiences inwardly in words that speak to our interest. And since human beings live through various incarnations and bring with them in their dispositions a predisposition for one current or another, you must imagine that the Goethe soul brought with it the predisposition for the current coming toward it from the future. And when he surrenders to this, he brings the ideas lying in the future into life from the very beginning as rich and vivid concepts. But once he allows this element—which is his own life—to clash with the ideas floating in his etheric body beneath the threshold of consciousness, in short, what he has absorbed from his surroundings—then something emerges that is incongruous, just like the two elements we described as “useless” in the poem “The Eternal Jew” and those we singled out from it. And in the case of a person like Hegel, who possesses an innate capacity for judgment, he wrestles with everything that flows toward him from that current which flows from the future into the past. In fact, it is the case that human beings, with their “I,” continually position themselves in such a way that the continuous flow from the past into the future is obscured in every present moment. The “I” obscures it, and it allows the stream of the faculty of desire to flow toward it. It looks into the infinite future as into a mirror that has no film on it. And the moment the mirror acquires a film, past things become visible.

[ 37 ] In these lectures, I have been able to present to you only a few aspects from the infinitely rich field of psychosophy. However, if you allow these ideas to take root, you will be able to draw various conclusions from what has been said. In particular, much will become clear to you when you realize that the stream of soul life flowing from the past into the future—the etheric body—contains unconscious ideas that are present even when they do not enter consciousness. But if you know from spiritual science that the etheric body is the architect of the physical body, then you will be able to say to yourself: Even if the ideas are not in consciousness, they still exist; the etheric body carries them. And such ideas present in the etheric body can—precisely because they are not conscious—develop a lively activity on the other side. And anyone who is familiar with the nature of the body and the soul knows how infinitely destructive ideas can be—ideas that consciousness cannot draw up from the unconscious life of the soul, yet which continue to flow along with the etheric current in that unconscious life. They then direct all their forces into the physical body.

[ 38 ] There is a fact in life that relates to this. Imagine that a person, between the ages of ten and twelve, experienced something that has been completely forgotten. It cannot be brought back into consciousness. Yet it continues to exert an influence in the etheric body and can cause illness. Down there in the unconscious, there are many such ideas at work that are truly, as ideas, causes of illness. Anyone who knows this also knows that, in a certain sense, there is a way to help. It consists in depriving these ideas of their power—that is, in redirecting them—by trying to give the person in question, who is not strong enough to do this on their own, clues so that their ideas can rise into their consciousness. This achieves quite a great deal. When one helps someone—who is powerless against certain ideas that continue to affect their etheric body—to bring those ideas up into consciousness, one has an immensely healing effect on their life.

[ 39 ] Perhaps some of you are now thinking: “We’re already trying that!” There is even a school—the Freudian school of psychiatry—that focuses on bringing memories of past actions and experiences into conscious awareness. But I cannot view this school as having anything to do with what I have just said, because this school applies this method precisely where it is ineffective: namely, it does not apply to the mass of mental images related to sexual life. It applies to everything else. And this method is extended with particular enthusiasm to the mental images of sexual life. But there it bears no fruit. And that must be taken into account. So it is not a matter of stumbling upon something under the influence of materialistic ideas—something that the facts already point to—but rather of knowing the facts very precisely.

[ 40 ] So, in addition to the individual insights you can take home with you, you may have gained something else. If one approaches the observation of ordinary life on the physical plane conscientiously and with discernment, such observation provides, everywhere, what one might call evidence for spiritual science. And it is precisely through such lectures that you will be able to gain a certain degree of confidence in the information you may receive that is based on clairvoyant research. Clairvoyant research, however, does not seek out facts through such things in physical life. I can assure you that the clairvoyant himself is often surprised when, after discovering something through clairvoyance, he proceeds to verify the facts in physical life and then finds a wonderful harmony. Conversely, the approach might not have been successful. If one tries to remain solely on the physical plane, one categorizes things incorrectly; one fails to arrive at the correct classifications and continually runs up against the facts.

[ 41 ] So the fundamental sense that you have been able to gain—and which may also provide a certain sense of certainty regarding research in the spiritual sciences—is something you can carry with you as a source of certainty for psychosophical research as well. That is why I also strive, whenever I speak to you about higher worlds, to occasionally approach the subject with objectivity and detachment, in keeping with a strictly scientific examination of the physical plane. This corresponds to the duty to recognize that human beings are placed on the physical plane so that they may learn to understand it. Our time calls for two things. The first is to truly study the physical plane with self-sacrificing thought, for it is not without reason that we have been placed on it by the great laws of the universe. On the other hand, we have already reached a stage today where we can no longer master the physical plane by ordinary means unless occult research comes to our aid. No matter how much ingenuity ordinary science may apply to these matters today, it will inevitably err unless it has occult science as its guide, which can show it the right direction. Just as humanity stood at the turn of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries at a point where physical research, in the modern sense, was born—and thus the main focus could be directed toward it—we have now reached a point again where, alongside this physical research, another form of research—occult research—must now step forward to provide physical research with its guiding principles. But by not only knowing this but also incorporating it into his duties, the occultist fulfills something that our age must embrace in twofold terms: a sense that we must stand firm on the physical plane, not shy away from devoting ourselves to thinking in a self-sacrificing manner, and that it is precisely the physical facts that require self-sacrificing thinking. These lectures, in which I approach you with objectivity, are intended to evoke this sense. And certainly, on the other hand, anyone who takes to heart the idea of the astral current flowing in from the future will be able to gain an immense amount for their life.

[ 42 ] I must admit—I could almost prove it to you ad oculos that this is the case; I have mentioned the relevant fact elsewhere—among all contemporary psychologists who, without wishing to know anything about occultism, have approached psychological phenomena with refined training and have therefore, albeit in a somewhat oblique way, intuitively grasped the truth regarding even the most elementary matters, the only name worth mentioning is that of Franz Brentano. Franz Brentano tackled psychological problems in the 1860s and 1870s. And although what is written in his psychology is, in fact, scholastic speculation, there is nevertheless something alive in it that strikes one as akin to a child’s first steps, which we are now to follow. For example, his theory of desire and feeling, as well as what he says about judgment, is flawed; but the underlying tendency is one that could have taken remarkably correct paths, had it not been for an absolute ignorance regarding all occult influences. Here, so to speak, the most capable psychologist has entered the physical plane. He also had the first volume of his Psychology published in the spring of 1874, with the promise that the second volume would follow in the fall. But this second volume has not yet appeared to this day. There is only the first volume. Why is that? You can look for the answer in the Psychosophical Lectures: Franz Brentano had to come to a standstill; he could not proceed at all. He outlined quite nicely what the next sections were supposed to cover. He even wanted to provide a perspective from the “I” toward spiritual life and from there into immortality. All of that was laid out. But he got stuck! For this would have required incorporating, from the other side, the current of occult research, so that the flow of soul phenomena could have been observed from the perspective of occult research.

[ 43 ] There you have the factual evidence: Franz Brentano lived as a child of our time. He began to group together the facts that you find on the physical plane. But he got stuck; he couldn’t go any further. Today he lives as an elderly gentleman in Florence. Thus, everything in our time will have to get stuck if it wants to tackle reality. Of course, one can write works on psychology, such as those by Lipps and Wundt; but these are all preconceived concepts and not processes that actually occur in the life of the soul, but rather exist only in the preconceived opinions of the authors in question. Precisely where they venture into the psychological realm, they thresh—and I don’t mean this in a malicious way, I just want to make it clear—nothing but empty straw, even in ethnic psychology or linguistic psychology. And so all the sciences would get stuck if what comes from the other side did not meet them halfway.

[ 44 ] Therefore, take from this page the sense that, through your own interests, you have placed yourself within a movement that seeks to understand what the true mission of our time is, and that your trust, knowledge, and faith can grow if you accept this as a karmic fact—telling yourself: My karma has led me to participate at a crossroads of the currents of time, and it is precisely from this realization that I must draw courage, strength, and confidence to work energetically in this field! And this work must be fruitful because it is driven by the necessity of human progress. And if I myself can contribute, I will seize the opportunity to perform such selfless work—whether now or in a future life—that can serve the further development of all humanity. — And with that, we come to the greatest ideal that anyone who believes in the spirit can feel. Do not regard this ideal merely as an abstract one, but gain it through your constant and repeated return to our spiritual scientific work—for which, after all, ample opportunity is provided in our gatherings. And try to carry with you the sense of belonging to this work. If I have done anything that can instill this feeling in your souls, then I have given you this greeting to take back home to those who are now dispersing to their respective places of residence. Take this greeting with you as an expression of the power of unity that should exist among all members of our spiritual science movement. Feel this, even when we are not physically together, and try to draw courage, confidence, and energy from our physical togetherness—even as we disperse back into the world—just as these qualities have now been described.