The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] The content of yesterday’s lecture is of great importance both for our upcoming reflections and for understanding karmic relationships in general. Therefore—because of this crucial importance—let me briefly summarize the main points of yesterday’s lecture once again today.

[ 2 ] We assumed that views on healing and remedies had changed quite radically over a relatively short period of time during the last century. And we pointed out how, in the 16th and 17th centuries, a particular view took shape that was based entirely on the premise: For every disease that had been given a name and that people believed could be conceptually defined, there must also be this or that remedy to be found in the world. And it was firmly believed that if the remedy in question were applied, it would necessarily influence the course of the disease. We then pointed out how this view persisted to a greater or lesser extent well into the 19th century, but then set it in contrast to the absolute opposite of this view, which found particular expression in the nihilism of the Vienna School of Medicine, which originated with the famous physician Dietl and was carried forward by Skoda and his various students. And we characterized the nihilistic school by stating: It not only began to harbor profound doubts about the absolute connection between this or that remedy, or between these or those therapeutic interventions regarding the treatment of disease and the disease itself, but it refused to acknowledge any such connection whatsoever. And the concept of so-called “self-healing” took root in the minds of the young physicians under the influence of this school. Skoda himself, after all, uttered the statement that is so significant for this school: We can diagnose a disease; we may even be able to explain and describe it; but we have no remedy for the disease. — And this school of thought took its starting point from the fact that Dietl was able to demonstrate that, with a wait-and-see approach, a disease such as pneumonia progresses in such a way that it develops its self-healing powers within a certain period of time, provided the necessary conditions are created. And he was able to demonstrate statistically that, with a wait-and-see approach, just as many people were cured or died as when the otherwise customary remedies were administered. At that time, the term “therapeutic nihilism” was by no means unjustified; for it was an absolute truth that the doctors of this school could not at all protect themselves against the patients’ belief that a remedy, a prescription, simply had to be there. The patient would not give in, nor would those around him—remedies had to be prescribed, and the adherents of this school usually coped by prescribing a dilute solution of gum arabic, which, in the opinion of the school’s followers, was supposed to have exactly the same effect as the remedies used in the past. From this we have come to recognize just how strongly the modern scientific world of facts points toward what we might call the karmic connection in life. For we now had to answer the question: How does what one might call “self-healing” actually occur? Or rather: Why does it occur? And why, in another case, might self-healing—or any healing at all—fail to occur?

[ 3 ] If an entire school of thought, led by medical luminaries, could have fallen into the trap of introducing the concept of self-healing, then anyone reflecting on this should have concluded: “So something is awakened in the process of illness that leads to the overcoming of the disease!” And that should have led further to an investigation of the more hidden causes underlying the course of the illness. We have now attempted to point out how such a karmic connection within human evolution can be sought in relation to the course of the illness. We have shown, however, that what a person does in their ordinary life—good and evil deeds, sensible and senseless actions, as well as the correct and incorrect emotional attitudes they experience—does not penetrate deeply into the depths of the human organism. And we have pointed out the reason why that which, in ordinary life, is subject to moral, intellectual, and emotional judgment remains only on the surface of ordinary life and is not subject to the law that we were able to demonstrate in the other case: the law that influences the deeper forces of the human organism. We have shown that there is, as it were, a kind of barrier against the penetration of immorality into the deeper forces of the organism. And this defense against the intrusion of what we do and think into the forces of our organism lies in the fact that we accompany the actions we perform between birth and death with our conscious mental images. By accompanying an action or any other experience with a conscious mental image, we create a protective barrier against the result of our actions sinking down into our organism.

[ 4 ] We then pointed out the significance of those experiences that have been irretrievably forgotten. There is no longer any possibility of bringing them back into the realm of conscious mental images; rather, we had to say that such experiences, precisely because they lack the protective barrier of mental images, penetrate in a certain way into our inner organization and can there contribute to the formative forces of our organism. And we were able to point to the forms of illness that lie even closer to the surface: neurosis, neurasthenia, and the like. Even hysterical states are shed light upon here. We said that the causes of such states must be sought in the forgotten mental images that have fallen out of the complex of consciousness, have sunk into the inner self, and—like intrusions into our soul life—manifest themselves as illnesses. — We have pointed out the immense significance of the period extending from birth to the point at which a person can recall their experiences, and attention was drawn to how what has been forgotten in the past continues to exert an influence in the living organism by, as it were, forming an alliance with the deeper forces of the organism and, from there, influencing our organism itself. A complex of mental images, a series of experiences, must therefore sink into the deeper strata of our being before it can take effect in our organism. We have then pointed out how this sinking occurs most thoroughly when a person has passed through the gate of death and lives through the further existence between death and new birth. There, all experiences are transformed in their qualities into forces that now have an organizing effect. And what a person has sensed and felt during the time between death and new birth is absorbed into the formative forces involved in the new building up of the body when the person now enters existence anew. There, within the formative forces, they now carry the result of what they previously experienced in their soul life, and perhaps even in their conscious life of imagination. And now we could point out that human beings, with their life of imagination imbued with the “I,” oscillate back and forth between two influences: the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic influences. When a human being commits a transgression brought about by qualities of his astral body—such as negative emotions, anger, and the like—he is driven to act by Luciferic forces. When such actions then follow the path just described—that is, when they become formative forces—we find them in the formative forces that now underlie the new physical body as Luciferic causes of disease. We have then seen how the human being succumbs to the Ahrimanic forces, which act more from the outside. And again, we had to say of the Ahrimanic influences that they are transformed into formative forces—into the shaping forces of the newly formed organism that comes into being when the human being enters existence through birth. And to the extent that Ahriman’s influences intermingle with these formative forces, we can speak of predispositions to illness of an Ahrimanic character. We then pointed out in detail how these forces, which develop in this way, operate. And I have shown you extreme examples of this operation, because extreme examples make the mental image clearer and more sharply defined. I said: Let us suppose that a person, in the course of their previous life, did everything that could lead only to a low sense of self-worth and self-confidence; that they prepared their “I” in such a way that it held nothing in high regard, dissolved into generalities, and so on. After death, such a person develops a tendency to overcome that resistance and to absorb the forces that will enable him, later in the course of his incarnation, to make his “I” stronger and more complete. This works in such a way that he then seeks out circumstances that enable him to struggle against that which is good—to struggle against it with a weak sense of self—so that a weak sense of self can be strengthened through that resistance. And it is true that such a tendency leads people, so to speak, to seek out opportunities for cholera, because in it they face something that offers them the opportunity to overcome those resistances. And in the overcoming of these obstacles lies what can lead, in the next incarnation—or even upon healing in the same incarnation—to a stronger sense of self, or to strengths that gradually allow a stronger sense of self to mature through self-discipline. We have also said that an illness such as malaria provides an opportunity to counterbalance something the soul has cultivated in a previous life—an excessive sense of self—through its actions and feelings. — Those of you who have participated in earlier discussions of our theosophical life will be able to visualize such a process. It has always been said that the human “I” finds its physical expression in the blood. Now, the two diseases we have just discussed are connected to the blood and the laws governing it; they are connected in such a way that in the case of cholera, a thickening of the blood occurs. It is this thickening that can be described as the resistance that the weak sense of self must endure and through which it seeks to develop itself. Similarly, you can understand that in malaria a kind of blood breakdown occurs, and that an overly strong sense of self requires the possibility of being reduced to absurdity—that in the breakdown of the blood, an overly strong “I” is reduced to nothingness in its striving. This is provided for in the breakdown of the blood. — Of course, these things are extraordinarily closely interconnected within the organism; but if you delve into them, you will come to understand them.

[ 5 ] From all of this, we concluded: If we have an organism composed of a soul that possesses within itself the tendency to overcome this or that in one direction or another, then this tendency leads the human being to imprint within themselves the potential for illness, but also, at the same time, the potential to fight against the illness—for illness is brought about for no other reason than to provide the possibility of healing. And healing occurs when, in accordance with their overall karma, a person—by overcoming the illness in question—acquires such powers that they can truly advance themselves through their work on the physical plane for the remainder of their life until death. That is to say, if the forces to be aroused are so strong that the person can achieve on the physical plane the very goal for which the illness was brought about, then the person continues to work precisely with the strengthened forces that have flowed to him from the healing process—forces he did not previously possess. If, however, their overall karma is such that, although they intended to shape their organism in a way that would allow them to gain forces through overcoming the illness in question—forces that would lead to their perfection—they nevertheless, because circumstances are complex, he simultaneously had to allow his organism to remain weak in another respect, then it may happen that the very forces the person develops and applies during the healing process do strengthen him, but not to the extent that he is yet ready to work on the physical plane. Then, when he passes through the gate of death, he will use what he has already gained—since it is not usable on the physical plane—and he will attempt to add to his powers what he could not add on the physical plane, in order to manifest these powers in the formation of his next body when he is reborn.

[ 6 ] With this in mind, it remains for us to offer some insight into those forms of illness that lead neither to a complete recovery nor to death, but rather to chronic conditions, a kind of wasting disease, or the like. Here, however, there is something that is of the utmost importance for most people to know. What has occurred is that, through the healing process within the human physical body, the only possible outcome has been achieved—that is, in a certain sense, the illness has been overcome. But in another sense, it has not been overcome; that is to say, while everything that was to be established in terms of balance between the etheric body and the physical body has indeed been achieved, the disharmony that existed between the etheric body and the astral body has not been resolved. This remains, and the person oscillates back and forth between attempts to heal and an inability to heal. In such a case, it is always of particular importance that the person make the most of whatever genuine healing has been achieved. And this is what happens least of all in life. For it is precisely with such illnesses, which become chronic, that the person finds themselves caught in a veritable vicious cycle. If, in such a case, the person were able to isolate the part of their constitution that has undergone a certain degree of healing—to let it live on its own, so to speak—and if they could withdraw from it whatever is still churning and out of order—which in such cases usually pertains more to the inner soul—then the person would be able to help themselves greatly. But a wide variety of factors work against this, notably the fact that when a person has had any illness and a chronic condition has remained, they continually live under the influence of this condition, and that—if I may put it bluntly—they can never truly forget their condition, never truly manages to withdraw what is still unhealthy within them from that condition and treat it on its own; rather, they are prompted—by what might be called the constant thinking about the other part of the organism—to, as it were, reconnect their healthy part with the previously diseased part and thereby irritate it anew. This is a specific process. And to make this process clear to you, I would like to explain the reality of Spiritual Science—that which clairvoyant consciousness perceives when someone has gone through an illness and in the process has retained something that can be described as chronic. Incidentally, the same thing happens even when there was no particularly noticeable acute illness, but rather when a chronic condition sets in without any acute illness having been specifically noted. In such cases, one can indeed observe that, in most instances, a certain fluctuating state of equilibrium develops between the etheric body and the physical body—a back-and-forth oscillation of forces that is not as it should be, yet with which one can still live. In this back-and-forth oscillation of forces between the etheric body and the physical body, the person in question is constantly irritated and thereby filled with persistent states of agitation. The clairvoyant consciousness constantly observes these states of agitation emerging in the astral body, and they continually intrude into the part of the organism that is half-sick and half-healthy, resulting not in a stable but in an unstable equilibrium. Through this intrusion of astral states of agitation, the person’s condition—which could otherwise be much better—is in fact greatly worsened. Please bear in mind that, in this case, the astral does not coincide with consciousness, but rather coincides primarily with inner psychological agitations that the patient refuses to acknowledge. Because in such a case the inhibitory force on the mental images is absent, these states and emotions—the emotional upheavals, the persistent states of weariness, and the dissatisfaction with oneself—do not always act as conscious forces, but rather as organizing, life-giving forces that reside in the deeper essence of the human being and continually irritate the half-healthy, half-sick part. If the patient in question could truly, through strong will and spiritual cultivation, manage to forget his condition—at least for a certain time—he would derive such satisfaction from this that he could then draw the strength from this very satisfaction to continue the process. If he could forget his condition, completely set it aside, and say with strong will: “I will not concern myself with my condition now!” — and if he were then to apply the spiritual powers thus freed to something of spiritual substance—something that uplifts him, that satisfies him inwardly in his soul—he would free those powers that are otherwise always occupied with experiencing the sensations of pain, pressure, and stabbing, and all that goes with it; this would grant him great satisfaction. For if one does not dwell on these feelings, one has those forces free; they are then available. Of course, it doesn’t help much to simply tell oneself that one doesn’t want to notice this tightness and stinging and so on; for if one does not direct the forces thus freed toward something spiritual, the former states will soon return. But if one applies the freed-up energies to a spiritual content that fully engages the soul, then one will notice that, through a complex process, one achieves what our organism would otherwise achieve on its own—without our intervention—in overcoming the disease process. It is, of course, essential that the person concerned take care not to fill their soul in a way that is directly connected to the very nature of their illness. If, for example, someone suffers from weak eyesight and, in order to avoid thinking about it, occupies themselves by reading a great deal to absorb intellectual content, it goes without saying that this cannot lead them to their goal. But you don’t need to look quite that far for so-called minor examples of this. Anyone can observe for themselves, when they have a minor ailment, how much it helps them to manage to forget their ailment—specifically, a kind of forgetting brought about by engaging in other activities. This, then, is a positive, healthy form of forgetting! There you already have an indication that we are not entirely powerless against the karmic effects of our transgressions in past lives, which manifest themselves as illnesses. For we must tell ourselves: If we admit that what is subject to moral, emotional, and intellectual judgment in life—between birth and death—cannot penetrate so deeply in a single lifetime as to become the cause of an organic illness, but that in the period after death until the next birth it can sink so deeply into life as to cause illness, then it must surely also be possible to transform this process back into a process of consciousness!

[ 7 ] The question can also be phrased this way: If illnesses play out as a karmic effect of spiritual or other experiences caused or experienced by the soul—that is, if they are the transformation of such causes—can we not also imagine—or do spiritual realities tell us nothing about this—that the product of this transformation, the illness, is avoidable, avoidable insofar as, instead of the healing process—instead of what is drawn out of the organic regions and brought forth as illness for our education—we substitute the spiritual counterpart, the spiritual equivalent thereof? That, if we are wise enough, we transform the illness into a spiritual process and carry out the self-education that we are meant to undertake through the illness—so to speak—through the powers of our soul?

[ 8 ] I would like to illustrate once again with an example that such things belong to the realm of facts. However, it must be noted here that only examples that have been examined from a perspective based on Spiritual Science are cited; these are not hypotheses, but actual cases. Therefore, you cannot expect me to provide a complete account, because I am not proposing hypotheses but rather presenting cases that must be accepted as such. Let us suppose that, in a later life, a person contracts measles, and we seek the karmic connection behind this case. We find that this instance of measles occurred as a karmic consequence of events in a previous life that we might describe as follows: In a previous life, the individual in question was one who did not care much about the outer world—not exactly in a grossly selfish sense, but who was nevertheless very preoccupied with himself; in other words, a person who did a great deal of research and reflection, but not on the facts of the outer world, rather remaining within his inner soul life. Even today you will find many people who believe that by withdrawing into themselves, by brooding, and so on, they can arrive at the solutions to the world’s mysteries. In the case of the personality I am referring to, the issue was that they sought to cope with life by inwardly pondering how one should behave in this or that situation. The weakness of the soul that resulted from this over the course of their life led to forces being generated in the period between death and rebirth that exposed the organism to a bout of measles at a relatively late stage in life.

[ 9 ] Now we can ask ourselves: On the one hand, we have the measles outbreak, which is the physical-karmic effect of a past life. But what about the state of the soul? After all, the past life also results in a certain state of the soul as a karmic effect.

[ 10 ] This state of mind manifests itself in such a way that the individual in question, in the very life in which he or she contracted measles, was subjected to self-deception time and time again. You must therefore regard these self-deceptions as the psychological-karmic consequence of that earlier life, and the onset of measles as the physical-karmic consequence of that life.

[ 11 ] Let us now assume that this individual had succeeded, before “the case of measles” occurred, in doing something to improve themselves thoroughly—that is, to acquire such strength of soul that they would no longer be susceptible to all manner of self-deception. Then this inner strength, cultivated in this way, would have meant that the measles could have been prevented, because what had already been brought about in the organism during the formation of this constitution would have been balanced out by the stronger spiritual forces that would have been developed through self-discipline. Of course, I cannot spend half a year discussing these matters; but if you were to look widely at life and consider all the details that present themselves as experiences from the starting point given here, you would always find that external knowledge would fully confirm—down to every detail—what has been said here. And what I have just said about measles can lead to insights that explain why measles is specifically one of the common childhood diseases. For the characteristics that have been mentioned occur in a great many lives. In certain periods of time, in particular, they have been rampant in many lives. And when such a personality enters existence, they will want to make corrections in this area as quickly as possible—during the time between birth and the usual onset of childhood illnesses—in order to undergo organic self-education by going through measles; for, as a rule, there can be no question of spiritual education at this age.

[ 12 ] From this you can see that we can truly say that, in a certain sense, illness can be transformed back into a spiritual process. And this is what is so immensely significant: that when this process is taken up into the soul as a guiding principle, it creates a perspective that has a healing effect on the soul. In our time, it is hardly surprising that we have so little influence on the soul. And anyone who views the present era from the standpoint of Spiritual Science will understand why so many medical professionals, so many doctors, have become materialists—that is, have lost hope in the power of spiritual influence. For the majority of people do not concern themselves at all with anything that possesses a life-giving power. All the material circulating in popular literature today has no life-giving power for the soul. That is why those who wish to work for Spiritual Science also sense something profoundly healing in this theosophical work, because spiritual scientific knowledge can once again offer humanity something that pours into the soul in such a way that the soul is drawn away from what constituted the physical organism. One must simply not confuse what appears at the beginning of such a movement with what the movement can truly be. Indeed, things are brought into the theosophical movement that are also rampant in the outer world; that is to say, when people become theosophists, they often bring to theosophy precisely the same interests they have in the things of the outer world, as well as all the vices they possess there. Much of the dark side of our age is carried into it. But then, when any dark sides become apparent in the individuals concerned, people say that Theosophy is to blame. That is, of course, a very facile explanation!

[ 13 ] When we see the karmic thread stretching from one incarnation to the next in this way, we have, in fact, grasped the corresponding truth from only one side. For those who develop a sense of how the karmic thread extends from one incarnation to the next, many questions will arise that will be addressed in the course of these lectures. Above all, the following question must be addressed: How does one distinguish between an illness for which external causes can be identified and one that is entirely rooted in the human constitution itself, so that one might believe one can dismiss what is present by saying that the illness arose entirely on its own and that there is no external cause?—Things are not quite like that. But from a certain perspective, it is nevertheless justified to say that illnesses occur for which a person is particularly predisposed due to their inner constitution. For numerous symptoms, however, one will be able to identify external causes. Of course, this does not apply to everything that happens to us, but for many things that befall us from the outside—for example, when we break a leg—we must cite external causes. We must also count among the external causes what is brought about by the weather, as well as the numerous cases of illness whose causes are to be found in poor urban housing. This opens up a broad field of inquiry for us once again. And for those who view the world through the lens of experience, it is understandable even now that the current trend in medicine is to seek the causes of disease in external influences, particularly in germs, about which a witty gentleman once said, not without reason: “Today, diseases come from germs, just as it was once said that diseases come from God or the devil.” In the 13th century, it was said that diseases came from God; in the 15th century, it was said that they came from the devil. Later, it was said that they came from the humors, and today it is said that diseases come from germs. These are the views that have succeeded one another over the course of time.

[ 14 ] We must therefore speak of external causes of human illness or health. And here, people today may easily be tempted to use a word that is, in essence, very capable of throwing our entire worldview into disarray. If someone who was previously completely healthy travels to an area infested with influenza or diphtheria and subsequently falls ill, people today will certainly be inclined to say that the person in question contracted the pathogen by going to that area, and they will then readily use the word “chance.” People today are quick to speak of chance influences. — The word “chance” is truly a crux, a thorn in the side of every worldview. And as long as one does not even attempt to gain a little clarity about what is so easily labeled as chance, one will not be able to advance toward a reasonably satisfactory worldview. Thus, we now stand at the starting point of the chapter “Natural and Chance Diseases of Human Beings.” But there is no way around it: we must begin today by trying to shed a little light on the word “chance.”

[ 15 ] Isn’t chance itself something that might make us skeptical of what people today tend to assume about it? I have pointed out before that a witty man in the 18th century was not entirely wrong when, speaking of the custom of erecting monuments to great discoverers, inventors, and so on, he remarked that, if one were to view the course of history objectively, the vast majority of monuments would have to be erected to “chance”! And strangely enough: When one delves into history, one can make remarkable discoveries about what lies behind “chance.” I have told you that the invention of the telescope is owed to the games children played with optical lenses in an optical workshop; this led to a series of events through which someone went on to invent the telescope. One could also point to the famous lamp in the Pisa Cathedral, which had been oscillating with the same regularity before Galileo as it had for thousands and thousands of people before him. But it was Galileo who first tested how the oscillations corresponded to the rhythm of his blood circulation, and through this he arrived at the discovery of the laws of the pendulum. If we had not had the laws of the pendulum, our entire cultural life would have taken on a different character. Try to see if you can find meaning in human development, and whether you would still want to say that it was merely a coincidence—for example, in Galileo’s case—that led him to this important discovery. But let’s consider another case.

[ 16 ] Let us consider what Luther’s translation of the Bible means for the civilized nations of the European world. Let us realize what a profound influence it has had on religious sentiment and thought, and, on the other hand, on the development of what we call the German written language. I merely wish to state this fact, without discussing how one should view it; I simply wish to emphasize that it has had this profound influence. You must now try to see some meaning in the education of humanity that has been brought about over several centuries by Luther’s Bible translation. If you try to see a meaning in this, then set alongside whatever you can say—as insightfully as possible—about the meaning of development from the 16th to the 17th century, the following fact:

[ 17 ] Luther had, up to a certain point in his life, deeply engaged with everything that might lead his own personality to a kind of sonship of God through reading the Bible. He had moved beyond the Augustinian custom of reading primarily the Church Fathers to the joy of reading the Bible itself. But everything now pointed to the fact that the sense of being a child of God was to be kindled in his soul as a comprehensive feeling. And from this perspective, he devoted himself to his theological teaching during his first period in Wittenberg. The fact I would now like to emphasize is that Luther had a certain reluctance to obtain the degree of Doctor of Theology, and that in a chance conversation—while sitting with an old friend from the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt—he was actually persuaded to earn his doctoral hat. For him, however, this meant a renewed and repeated study of the Bible. Thus, that chance meeting with his friend led to a renewed study of the Bible and, in turn, to everything that came to expression as a result.

[ 18 ] Try to reconcile the meaning of what has been suggested over the past few centuries with the fact that Luther once sat down with that friend and allowed himself to be persuaded to earn his doctorate in theology: You will be compelled to make a strangely grotesque juxtaposition between the meaning of this development and that chance event.

[ 19 ] What you will first gather from what has been said is that the significance of chance may, after all, be somewhat different from what is usually thought. It is commonly thought that chance is something that, so to speak, cannot be fully explained by the laws of nature or the laws of life, that it constitutes a kind of surplus beyond what can be explained. Now add to what has just been said the fact that has already helped us understand so many aspects of life: that the human being, in his or her individuality, has been subject to the two forces of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic principles since the beginning of his or her earthly existence. These forces and principles are constantly at work within human beings, with the Luciferic forces acting more by seizing the innermost part of the human astral body, while the Ahrimanic forces act more through what the human being receives as external impressions. The Ahrimanic forces are at work in what we receive from the external world; and the Luciferic forces are at work in what arises and acts within the soul as pleasure or displeasure, as emotions, and so on. Now, both the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic principles lead us to succumb to illusions; the Luciferic principle leads us to succumb to illusions about our own inner being, so that we may misjudge our own inner life and perceive an illusion within ourselves. If you observe life rationally, it will not be difficult for you to become aware of this maya in your own soul life. Try to observe how infinitely often a person convinces themselves that they are doing this or that for this or that reason. Yet they usually do it for an entirely different reason, one that lies much deeper; but in their conscious mind, they explain the action to which they are driven by anger and passion in an entirely different way. In particular, they try to dismiss whatever is not valued in the world. And when a person is driven to do something by purely selfish impulses, you will often observe that they cloak their crude, selfish impulses in a selfless veneer and explain why it had to happen. But people usually do not even realize that they are acting this way. When they do realize it, the first steps toward improvement usually begin with a certain sense of shame. The worst thing is that people are driven to do something from the depths of their souls—and then invent a motive for why they committed the action in question. Modern psychologists have also noted this. But it is only because there is so little psychological education today that such grotesque interpretations of these truths arise, as is the case with today’s materialistic psychologists. They arrive at quite peculiar interpretations of life.

[ 20 ] A researcher of the human mind who observes such a fact will, of course, grasp its true significance and characterize it in such a way that the two elements—consciousness and that which reigns as the deeper causes beneath the threshold of consciousness—are indeed working together. But if a materialistic psychologist observes it, he will treat the matter differently. He will immediately spin a theory about the difference between the pretext a person uses to justify an action and the actual motive. — For example, when a psychologist speaks about the student suicides that are so frequently reported today, he says that whatever is cited as a pretext for them is not the actual motive; the actual motives lie much deeper: they usually lie in a misguided sex life. These are transformed so that they then feign this or that reason to the conscious mind.

[ 21 ] Such a claim may often be correct. But anyone who has been even slightly influenced by a truly deeper psychological way of thinking would never turn it into a comprehensive theory. Such a theory can easily be refuted, for the person in question would have to consider: If it is truly the case that the pretext is nothing and the motive is everything, then one would have to be able to apply that to this psychologist as well and say: So even in your case, what you are presenting here and developing as a theory is merely a pretext; if we look for the deeper reasons, perhaps the reasons you have given are of exactly the same nature. — Had such a psychologist seriously studied why a judgment based on a conclusion such as: “All Cretans are liars”—and that such a judgment is flawed when uttered by a Cretan himself; had he learned the reason why this is so, he would also have learned what peculiar circular reasoning results from the fact that, in certain fields, assertions can be turned back upon oneself. But the fact is that, across almost the entire scope of our literature, there is an extraordinarily low level of truly profound education. Consequently, people generally no longer notice what they themselves are doing. That is why it will be absolutely necessary, particularly for Spiritual Science, to avoid such logical confusions in every respect. Modern philosophers who deal with the science of the soul are the least likely to avoid such logical confusions. And our example is a typical case of this. In it we see the tricks that Luciferic influences play on human beings, so that they transform the life of the soul into maya and enable them to delude themselves into believing in motives entirely different from those that actually prevail within them.

[ 22 ] In this area, people should strive to practice stricter self-discipline. Today, people tend to use the word very loosely. But this word is also a terrible seducer. And if the word simply sounds nice and gives even the slightest impression that a sentence creates a mental image of a charitable act, then the very beauty of the sentence will be enough to tempt one to believe that the motive in question resides in the soul, whereas in reality the egoistic principle may be lurking behind it—a principle of which the person concerned need not have the slightest inkling, because he has no will whatsoever to pursue true self-knowledge. Thus we see Lucifer at work on the one hand. How, then, does Ahriman work on the other hand?

[ 23 ] Ahriman is the principle that interferes with our perceptions and draws itself into us from the outside. Now, Ahriman exerts his strongest influence in those cases where we have the feeling: “Here, your thinking can no longer keep up”; “there, you have reached a critical point in your thinking, where your thoughts become tangled like a ball of yarn.” — That is when the Ahrimanic principle seizes the opportunity to penetrate us, as if through a crack in the outer world. When we follow the course of world events and look at the more revealing ones—when, for example, we trace modern physics back to the moment when Galileo sat before the swinging church lamp in the Cathedral of Pisa—we can weave a web of thought across all events that easily explains the matter to us; everywhere, things will become clear to us. But there, at the point where we come to the swinging church lamp, our thoughts become entangled. There is the window through which the Ahrimanic forces penetrate us most powerfully, and there our thinking ceases to grasp from the phenomena what reason and understanding can bring to bear on the matter. But there also lies what is called chance. It resides where Ahriman becomes most dangerous to us. Human beings call those phenomena “random” in which they can most easily be deceived by the Ahrimanic influence.

[ 24 ] In this way, human beings will come to understand that it is not in the nature of things when they are led to speak of chance, but that it depends on them and their development. And human beings will gradually have to train themselves to penetrate maya and illusion—that is, to penetrate those areas where Ahriman is most strongly at work. And precisely when we are dealing with significant causes of illness and with a light that is to shine upon the course of many illnesses, we will need to approach these phenomena from this perspective. There we will first seek to understand to what extent it is no coincidence when a person happens to be riding the very train that could cause their death, or how circumstances arise through which a person is exposed, at a specific time, to a pathogen acting from the outside or to some other cause of illness. And if we can investigate these matters with heightened insight, we will be able to comprehend even more deeply the true nature and the full significance of illness and health for human life.

[ 25 ] Today I had to show in greater detail how, within the human being, Lucifer leads to illusion, and how Ahriman interferes with external perceptions and leads to maya there; how it is an effect of Lucifer when a person deludes themselves into believing they have a false motive, and how a false assumption regarding the world of appearances—the deception by Ahriman—leads us to believe in chance. I had to lay this foundation before I could show how karmic events—the results of past lives—also operate within human beings and explain phenomena even in cases where seemingly random external causes appear to be responsible for the onset of illness.