The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Novalis and the Science of the Spirit

On the Inauguration of the Novalis Branch

[ 1 ] Circumstances dictated that a number of our friends here in Strasbourg establish a second branch alongside the one already in existence, which is to bear the significant name “Novalis Branch.” Our friends from other places, who have gathered here in Strasbourg today in a spirit of camaraderie, have, by their visit, demonstrated their understanding that branches can coexist side by side within a single city, and that the diversity of work in various fields need not preclude what we must call the harmony and unity that must prevail among all those who consider themselves members of our society, which is spread across the globe. And so this branch, too, is to be integrated into the great current that we call Spiritual Science.

[ 2 ] You, my dear friends of the Novalis Branch, have chosen a significant name to serve as a signature, a symbol of your work. The name Novalis belongs to a personality who, in his last incarnation, was active only in the 18th century—a personality whose entire being is permeated and imbued with what we regard as a spirit-perceiving sense, as spirituality. And with this, you have shown from the very beginning that Spiritual Science is to be for you something immediately alive, which you seek wherever it can be found—not merely in this or that era, but as it lives on through all ages, and as it can pour itself out into the world in many different ways through one personality or another. In Novalis, in particular, we can see how the striving for spiritual knowledge is precisely what can permeate and interweave our ordinary, everyday life. Of course, if we were to point out the sources of the theosophical spirit in Novalis, we would have to shed light on earlier incarnations of this noble spirit; and from these earlier incarnations it would become clear to us how that which can only be theosophical spiritual life in the deepest sense has carried over from earlier incarnations into those of Novalis. But even if we consider only that Novalis who barely reached the age of thirty and who lived at the end of the 18th century—if we consider only that one incarnation— even then it becomes clear to us in him that spiritual knowledge is not something that lifts a person up into a dreamy, fantastical world, something that draws them away from immediate reality; rather, in the most manifold ways, we can see precisely in Novalis how the spirit of reality, how real life, derives its value and true content from being permeated by Spiritual Science.

[ 3 ] Novalis came from a noble family in central Germany in which there was, I would say, a certain materialistic piety—for such a thing does exist—but not actually what one might call the heart’s longing for a true, living spirit. Now, in order to fulfill Novalis’s karma in the proper way, it came to pass that Novalis’s father, old Hardenberg, even in his later years—though he was not imbued with a spiritual life, yet through his joining the Herrnhut sect, a Pietist sect—was, in a certain sense, permeated with devout impulses. And from this Central German aristocratic milieu—which, as I said, possessed enough of the spirit that even old Hardenberg, in his later life, though in a sectarian way, was able to attain a certain piety in spiritual matters—our Novalis grew up. He grew into—not what had been destined for him by his family’s will, for that would have been some military or diplomatic position—but into a great era; into that era in which great, powerful minds were at work in the lecture halls of the Central German University of Thuringia.

[ 4 ] Thus, even during that time in Jena, he was able to hear Schiller lecture on history. Let today’s history teachers say: Schiller was not a scholar of the highest caliber as a historian. — What history should be in life—a permeation of the entire course of human development with spiritual life—that was what Schiller instilled in the souls of those who were able to hear him teach history in Jena. Above all, a great personality spoke through Schiller. Spirit spoke through this personality; it awakened the spirit.

[ 5 ] And there was yet another teacher when Novalis was young—a teacher who, through the great energy of his intellectual life, created works in the realm of philosophy that belong to all of humanity but are still little understood today. Fichte was active at the time when Novalis was immersing himself in life. He was active in such a way that his entire demeanor—Fichte’s demeanor—had something spiritual about it. One might regard this as mere outward appearance. Anyone with a sense for such things will not view it merely as an outward matter that Fichte, when he gave a lecture in the evening in a dark hall with a candle burning on his desk, would first extinguish the candle, saying: “Well then, gentlemen of the audience, now the physical light is extinguished; now only the light of the spirit shall shine in this room.”

[ 6 ] To conjure up, at just the right moment, the relationship between the spiritual and the physical—not only before the soul but also before the eyes—means something immense for souls as receptive as Novalis’s. Such a soul can thereby become capable of maintaining a faith in spiritual life that nothing can shake. It fills the soul with a noble feeling that remains with one for life when a figure like Novalis enters such an environment. One cannot say that Novalis was of a dreamy disposition. Those who believe he was a dreamer do not understand Novalis. No, the spirit that lived within Novalis said—as we can read today in his posthumous writings—that the human state of sleep is different from the waking state. When a person is awake, the inner soul—as it was called in the language of that time, what we would today call the astral body—is united within them with the outer body. The body enjoys the soul. - A beautiful phrase that Novalis used to express the relationship between the physical and astral bodies. And the soul is released from the body during sleep—as Novalis said—and the body “digests” the soul when a person sleeps. This, in turn, is a beautiful, short, and concise expression of a relationship that we also encounter in Spiritual Science. It is beautiful when Novalis once writes the following statement in his notes: We are always surrounded by a spiritual world. Wherever we are, spiritual beings are around us. It depends only on the human being to extend his or her self outward in such a way that he or she becomes aware of the spiritual beings that surround us wherever we are. — It is also beautiful to see how he demonstrates a deep understanding of the course of esoteric human development and writes: In ancient times, people sought to elevate the soul to a higher stage of development through the mortification of the body, through self-mortification, and so on. In more recent times, the strengthening of the soul must take the place of these practices: the energy of the soul. Through this strengthening, the soul must gain power over the body; it must not be weakened by the process, and must then exercise a certain dominion.

[ 7 ] We could go on talking about Novalis for hours. We would not, admittedly, find a mind that expresses itself in words and doctrines as we can today in the Spiritual Science, but a mind that expresses exactly the same thing with its words. He was no dreamer, no fantasist. Even though his lyric poetry reached the highest heights we can imagine and lifts us up to the highest warmth of feeling, Novalis—and this applies to him, who did not live to be thirty years old — a practical mind who studied at the Bergakademie, a mathematician through and through, who perceived mathematics as a great poem according to whose lines divine spirituality has composed the world, but who proved himself practical in everything a mining engineer needs. Novalis was a mind who, despite this practicality, knew how to translate his theosophical outlook directly into life for the sake of his emotional life, for the sake of his heart. Truly, what we know of his relationship with Sophie von Kühn must not be understood as something connected with sensuality. He loved a girl who died at the age of fourteen. In fact, he only began to love her with such fervor after she was already dead. He felt that he now lived alongside her in the realm where she had been since her “death.” He resolved to follow her in death. The rest of his life was spent living alongside a physically dead person. All of this shows us what Novalis had grown into through the powerful impulse of his spiritual nature.

[ 8 ] We can see in Novalis how, as human beings, we essentially need only one quality to make sense of this spirituality that Spiritual Science is meant to bring us. One quality is all that is needed, and yet this one quality is so difficult for human beings to attain. Because it is so difficult for human beings to attain, people do not easily come to Spiritual Science. When this one quality is named, it seems to people as if everyone already possessed it. Yet it is precisely this quality, the lack of which prevents people from turning to Spiritual Science: truthfulness—the honest acknowledgment, from the deepest recesses of the soul, of what truly is. Apparently, there are so many such people—in their own opinion. Nevertheless, Novalis himself gives us an example of how just a single moment of true honesty is all that is needed, and how, through that one moment of honesty, a person would have to acknowledge what the spirituality of the world can mean to the human heart. Novalis’s father had a certain inclination toward spirituality; otherwise, he would not have joined the Herrnhut sect. But his soul was not as free and honest as is meant here. He was hindered by what lived within his soul and stemmed from the external physical world. The physical world, with all its prejudices, did not allow him to ascend into the spiritual world. But his son possessed this truthfulness. What could be more natural than that the father could have no inkling whatsoever of what lived within this son? The physical world, with its divisive, disharmony, and its insincerity—which erected a barrier here between what the young Novalis truly was and what the old Hardenberg wanted to be, but could not be due to a lack of genuine inner truthfulness—the physical world, with all that it does to a person, prevented him, as long as Novalis lived, from coming to understand his son’s significance. A few weeks after his son’s death, the elderly Hardenberg was in his Herrnhut congregation. The congregation sang a hymn: “What would I have been without you, what would I not be without you.” And this hymn that was sung—the elderly Hardenberg had never heard it before—but at that very moment it kindled everything spiritual within his soul. He was utterly captivated by the profound impact of what radiated from this song; at that moment, his soul—now made sincere—was filled with the spirit of the world, with spiritual life. And when the service was over, old Hardenberg asked someone who had written this song that had moved him so deeply. He was told: “That’s by your son.” — It was first necessary that, for a moment, everything that the physical plane brought could be forgotten; and then, for a moment—without knowing the one who had brought it in—pure truthfulness and pure objectivity lived within him, not the prejudices of the physical plane. This is how spirit would find spirit if, free from the obstacles of the physical plane, we were to face soul to soul. In the moment when a person, purely devoted to truth, can find the soul of another and the soul of the world—in every such moment—he must be permeated by what might be called theosophical spirituality.

[ 9 ] What might be called theosophical spirituality does not lie merely in some theory or doctrine—although we must never forget that for us humans, who are born to think, a doctrine is indispensable—but the very essence of “theosophy” does not lie in the doctrine. Anyone who might wish to emphasize that doctrine is superfluous, and that the only thing that matters is cultivating what is called universal brotherly love, must be repeatedly reminded that nowhere in the world can this universal brotherly love be achieved merely by preaching it. If we merely preach about love, then to the connoisseur of life this is just as if we were saying to a stove: “Dear stove, it befits you, out of your stove-like love, to warm the room.”—But the room remains cold, no matter how often we preach about love. But if we give it fuel—wood and fire—then the wood and fire are transformed within it into heat, and it warms the room. The fuel for the human soul is the great ideals, the great thoughts that we can absorb, through which we recognize the interconnectedness of the world, and through which we can learn the mysteries of human destiny and human life. These are not merely theoretical thoughts that fill us, but ones that warm us from within, and the result of theosophical wisdom is love. And just as surely as the stove warms the room through heat and not through preaching, so surely will the correct teaching of the great ideas that permeate the world make the soul loving. For this is the secret of true wisdom: that it transforms itself into love within the soul through its own power. Anyone who has not yet found the path from wisdom to love merely shows that they have not yet progressed far enough in wisdom. But anyone who might believe that the ideas we take in—about the evolution of the world, the evolution of humankind, about karma, and so on—are insignificant to human beings should repeatedly and time and again make it clear to themselves in their soul that these are not merely human thoughts, that they are not merely thoughts we conceive ourselves, but that these thoughts, which penetrate our soul, are the very ones according to which the divine spirits have built the world.

[ 10 ] In Spiritual Science, it is not our own thoughts that appear before our inner eye, but the thoughts of the divine architects, the divine spirits of the world. What the gods of the world thought among themselves before the creation of the physical world—that is what we reflect upon in Spiritual Science, thereby exploring that which flowed from the divine beings into the workings and becoming of the world to which we belong. But what the gods thought is spiritual light. And whoever does not wish to think about what the gods thought thereby—even if they are unaware of it—does not direct themselves toward the light, but toward darkness. The only possible foundation for a true development of the human soul is one in which we proceed from what the divine thoughts of the world are. The spirits of the world have not given us these abilities as innate dispositions to be left untapped. They have been given to us so that we may develop them. And since, in this cycle of human development, thinking is our most important and preeminent ability, we must take thinking as our starting point. But we must not stop at thinking. This, however, gradually leads us to translate Spiritual Science into a way of thinking, so that we learn to understand the mysteries of how knowledge leads to character traits and qualities of the soul. Knowledge, when properly understood, leads to character traits and genuine qualities of the soul.

[ 11 ] We can understand this through a single example—by realizing that we humans undergo successive, ever-new embodiments, or incarnations. What purpose would these incarnations, these repeated earthly lives, serve if they were not meant to make human beings gradually more and more perfect? We must look back from our present incarnation to earlier incarnations and tell ourselves: What we have become today is the result of this or that quality of our soul being instilled time and again through one incarnation after another, of our soul continually taking in new powers, having new experiences, and gaining new insights. What is incorporated into this soul in one incarnation then emerges in the following incarnation.

[ 12 ] We have now become what we were prepared to be in our previous incarnations. But then we can pause for a moment and say: We are not only looking back into the past, but we are also looking forward into the future, toward later, more perfect life paths. What would this human life be, throughout these many incarnations, if we could not say to ourselves: The further we develop into the future, the higher the levels will have been attained by that which today resides within us as our “I.”

[ 13 ] We can only guess at what we might yet become, for otherwise we would already be that. We must attribute to ourselves the ability to rise ever higher. — Yet we must look to the future with humility and awe; we must tell ourselves that even if we can already recognize this or that today, and are already able to experience this or that in the world today: With the greater abilities we can attain, we will be able to experience and recognize much more.

[ 14 ] How impossible it is for the one who engraves such a thought—as it has now been expressed—into his soul; how impossible it is for him to say to himself: “I can decide today what is true or false; I can ultimately judge what is true or false.” — The only thing befitting him is to say: “If I could decide that today, it would be impossible for even higher capacities to emerge within me in the future.” — But when this is put into practice in our mindset, it gives us—at every moment of our development—the great modesty, the true, dignified humility that we need to be truly human. Thus, the knowledge of reincarnation is transformed into a feeling, a character trait: into dignified humility, into true modesty.

[ 15 ] One could put it this way: Anyone who recognizes today that they are passing through successive incarnations and constantly ascending in their development would have to be a fool if they told themselves they were perfect; or if they told themselves: “It is not necessary for me to learn this today, because I will experience it quite differently tomorrow.” — Knowledge is transformed into a genuine character trait. And viewed correctly, every insight gained through Spiritual Science is transformed into a character trait. But we can surely see this: If we were unable to apply our powers at any stage of our existence, then those powers would not have been given to us from the spiritual worlds. If we were to wait until the world had reached its stage of perfection, believing that we must first be so perfect that we can finally recognize and experience things, then we would not have to go through various incarnations. This means we must be clear that we must apply our powers of insight in every incarnation. We must not say: “We will wait until the next incarnation, or until the end of our existence, to gain insight.” — We should apply the power we possess, despite our humility and modesty.

[ 16 ] Thus, alongside humility and modesty, there stands a justified sense of human self-worth that flows directly from our being imbued with the divine-spiritual and that tells us: Although our understanding will not be complete until we have reached a high level, it is precisely by becoming aware of our human dignity today and by applying our strength today that we can make it complete. — In this way, our character will acquire something that can be compared to a scale. We can place humility and modesty on one side of the scale and a well-founded sense of self-worth, boldness in judgment, on the other, and say: We have attained a new level of knowledge and self-awareness. - In short, we will find that whenever you simply try to incorporate into your feelings what Spiritual Science teaches, the teachings or theories of Spiritual Science are transformed within our soul—because they contain thoughts of the divine spirits—and are transformed within our soul into our character, our will, and our feelings. This can show us that in Spiritual Science, the teaching and the theory are not the main thing, but rather, so to speak, the fuel for the development of the human soul; that they are precisely what is intended to bring forth higher qualities within our soul. And anyone who demands these qualities without understanding lives in the worst of illusions—in self-deception, that self-deception which entered human evolution because, in the course of Earth’s development, other beings also entered and contributed to our evolution—beings who were not merely harmful, but also beneficial. But as useful as they were to us—in that they brought us freedom and a sense of self—we must nevertheless be clear that precisely these gifts from the so-called Luciferic beings—freedom and a sense of self—must not degenerate into extremes or radicalism, for then they become pride and arrogance. And pride and arrogance in the face of knowledge lead that knowledge into darkness. Knowledge is the reception of the divine light, of the divine thoughts. The rejection of knowledge is something that leads into darkness and cannot lead to higher qualities of the soul. When we view Spiritual Science in this way, we will recognize it as one of humanity’s most important concerns. We will recognize it as something we pursue not merely for our own sake, but because we are conscious of our duty to humanity and to its development.

[ 17 ] We are not living in a time that is entirely unimportant; we are living in an important time. It is often said by people living in this or that era that they are living in a time of transition. All periods of human development have been called times of transition, but not all are such significant times of transition. But of our present time, however, it can truly be said that it is a transitional period. To what extent is this the case? Let us consider the nature of another transitional period. For example, it was a transitional period for human development when the predecessor of our Lord Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, appeared. When John the Baptist appeared, he told the people what was later repeated in meaningful words by the Lord Jesus Christ: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

[ 18 ] What does this mean? We can understand what this means if we remember that, as human beings have evolved from one incarnation to the next, they have gone through various stages of soul development. In ancient times, people did not yet possess the qualities and spiritual abilities they have today. In ancient times, it was possible for all people to develop a dim, twilight-like, dreamlike form of clairvoyance and to look into the spiritual world. All people had the ability not only to see the physical world but also to look into the spiritual world. But in those days, when this clairvoyance was widespread, people did not yet possess something they have today: a clearly developed sense of self-awareness. Back then, people were not yet able to say to themselves clearly, “I am.” This anchoring in the center of the inner self could only be achieved by the old clairvoyance disappearing for a time. People had to, as it were, accept being cut off from the spiritual world in order to develop a clear sense of self here on the physical plane. Later, this clairvoyance will develop again alongside self-awareness, so that both qualities will reappear together and people will possess them once more. We can thus look back to a time in the distant past. Back then, at least at certain times, when people were inattentive to the physical world—when they closed their eyes and turned away from the physical, and left their ears inattentive to sounds—they would then look into the spiritual world and gain a direct conviction of its existence. These abilities faded, but in their place came, to an ever-greater extent, the capacity for thought, the capacity for self-awareness, for drawing conclusions, and for independent judgment—the very qualities that constitute our present-day everyday consciousness. We can roughly indicate the point in time when the old clairvoyant abilities gradually disappeared entirely from the capabilities of humankind. Before approximately the year 3101, almost all people on our Earth were still endowed with a dim form of clairvoyance. Then, from that year onward, it diminished more and more, becoming ever weaker. At the same time, however, ego-consciousness, self-awareness, judgment, reasoning, and self-conscious thinking began to develop. So, as it were, the light of spirituality dimmed, and that which is the human “I” began to dawn; it grew brighter and ever brighter. Internally, it grew brighter, but in the spiritual realm it grew darker. In this year begins what Eastern philosophy calls the Kali Yuga, the dark, black age. There was something that had, so to speak, reached a crisis, a turning point, during the time when John the Baptist appeared as a forerunner, followed by Jesus Christ. They had to tell humanity: You must now learn that spirituality exists, even though you do not see it with any spiritual eye. You must learn that the realms of heaven are there. You must comprehend this from within your own “I.” — That is why the Christ had to incarnate into a physical body, for only on the physical plane could self-consciousness perceive spirituality during the Kali Yuga.

[ 19 ] That was a time of transition. The old abilities had faded away. If the people of that time had not heard the call of John the Baptist and of Christ Jesus, they would have fallen into decline at that stage and would not have progressed any further. Those who heard these voices had to recognize the God who descended into the physical, carnal realm. They understood that the realms of heaven had drawn near to the “I.”

[ 20 ] Christ spent three years on Earth in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. That was the time when people could see with their physical eyes alone when a god descended to them.

[ 21 ] Today we are once again living in a time of transition, in a crisis. The Kali Yuga came to an end around the year 1899. And now, even though people are unaware of it, new qualities are developing within them. New qualities are developing naturally within the human soul. The fact that so many people know nothing about this is no proof to the contrary. A hundred years after Christ, Tacitus was still writing about an unknown sect of Christians; and in Rome, even after Jesus Christ had accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha seventy to eighty years earlier, people were still talking about a sect said to dwell in a side street and led by a certain Jesus. Yet the most significant events had passed before the eyes of countless people. If people do not perceive something, that is no proof that this most important, most decisive, and most incomparable thing does not exist. Since about 1899, abilities have been developing unnoticed within people, which will emerge in the mid-1930s of the 20th century, roughly from 1933 to 1937. Then, because the time has come, these soul abilities will manifest in a whole host of people; abilities of etheric clairvoyance will arise. They will be there. Just as there were people whose ego-consciousness had been driven to its highest peak when Jesus Christ was here, so there will be people in our century who will not only see with their physical eyes, but who will experience—as a natural development—what is striving down from spiritual levels, so that spiritual -soul abilities will emerge, enabling them to enter into etheric existence. And the joy of these people will be to understand the new world they will see. One thing is true—and important for our soul as truth—that the Christ Jesus said: “I am with you until the end of our Earth cycle.” He is here. He has been within our earthly sphere ever since that time. And when the spiritual eyes are opened, they will see him, just as Paul saw him during the event on the road to Damascus. This is what will occur around 1933: He will be seen as an etheric being—a being who, though not descending to physical existence, can be seen in the etheric body—because a certain number of people will then ascend to etheric vision. But people will be uninformed if they are not prepared through Spiritual Science for what they will see. That is why we are living in a time of transition—because we are growing into a new way of seeing.

[ 22 ] Spiritual Science has the responsible task of preparing people for the great moment when Christ will not appear in a physical body—for He was in a physical body only once—but He will be there, and He will return in such a form that those whose eyes are opened will see Him in the world that is visible only to clairvoyant eyes. People will rise up to him. This will be the Second Coming of Christ: a rising up of human beings into the sphere in which Christ dwells. But they would stand there bewildered if they were not prepared for this great moment through Spiritual Science. This preparation must be a serious one, for it is a matter of great responsibility. Humanity must be prepared for the fact that more will be seen than has been seen so far, provided that people do not lead this ability into darkness and allow it to wither away. For it could also happen that the entire 20th century would pass without bringing about the fulfillment of this goal. We have the responsible task of preparing people for this great moment through Spiritual Science. But we must prepare people spiritually, helping them to understand that only the spirit will encounter the Christ with the spiritual eye open. A materialistic mind might believe that the Christ would appear once again in a physical body. But that would not be spiritualistic; it would be materialistic. If we were to believe that, we would lack the will to work our way up to his spirit. That is why, during this time, certain prophecies from the Book of Revelation will be fulfilled. Relying on and building upon the materialistic spirit, individuals will appear in physical bodies who will then claim to be the incarnate Christ. And those who have not been led to true knowledge through Spiritual Science will fall victim to them, for the maya will be great and the potential for self-deception will be immense. The temptations will grow to enormous proportions. Only a spiritual insight that is conscious of its responsibility will lead people to an understanding of what is about to happen.

[ 23 ] These were reflections intended to show how spirituality is meant to work through Spiritual Science in the individual human soul, and that spiritual knowledge is a task for our time, because we can also say of the present era: The most important things lie ahead of us. But because even the most important matters could be completely overlooked by humanity in the darkness, and because the great moment could pass without people even noticing it, Spiritual Science must work in the right way. Imbuing our spirit with what is conveyed to us through spiritual research will, in every branch, provide the spirituality we need to develop our own souls ever higher and to render ever higher and higher services to humanity.

[ 24 ] Let us try more often to reflect that, just as in Christ’s time, so too in our time the word applies: Change your mindset, for the times are at hand. — If it was said back then, “the kingdoms of heaven are near,” then today, looking prophetically into the near future, we must say: For the human “I” is near the kingdoms of heaven. — Let us prepare ourselves through true Spiritual Science so that we may enter worthily into the kingdom that calls to us. And we ourselves can only flourish if we find the path to the kingdoms of heaven. When we process what we experience on Earth and, in turn, give rise to what we experience in the higher spiritual existence, offering it as a great sacrifice at the altar of divine existence, then we fulfill our destiny as human beings with dignity to the fullest extent. Let your work here be imbued both with the spirit of Novalis and with the spirit of Spiritual Science itself, which has appeared before our souls, and you will see that your work will proceed in a positive way. For when our work is imbued with such a spirit, then, as we are gathered in our branches, that which we call the light of the Masters of Wisdom and the harmony of feelings flows in. We are never without the help of these advanced individualities when we are united in the right spirit within one of our branches. May such a spirit unite you! May that same Spirit—which is also the Spirit of the Masters of Wisdom—permeate your very being! Work in this Spirit, and your labor will become part of the great work of Spiritual Science; your efforts will become part of the spirit that is to spread throughout the entire world.