The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] It was pointed out yesterday that the aspiring occultist, having undergone the preparations mentioned, encounters experiences which, for the reasons given, must be described using terms that contain a contradiction within themselves. We have initially named three such experiences: first, the light that cannot be revealed; second, the word that cannot be spoken; and third, consciousness without knowledge of an object.

[ 2 ] It will not be entirely easy to grasp everything that is initially necessary to connect ideas and concepts with these three experiences. Just as people think in everyday life, and just as they think and conduct research in the conventional sciences—specifically in the natural sciences—this research, this knowledge, is bound to the physical human body. For although this physical human body is not the actual agent, the actual doer, when a person investigates, it is the instrument that a person must use in order to investigate in the manner described, to acquire knowledge in the manner described about the external objects of the world that surrounds them. Everything that can be known in this way at all—that is, what constitutes the subject matter of everyday knowledge and, in particular, of the natural sciences—we will return to this at a later opportunity, noting that certain sciences, such as ethics, the social sciences, and jurisprudence, do not correspond exactly to this; what is said today applies specifically to all branches of the natural sciences— it simply cannot be acquired in any other way than through the instrument of the body, namely through the instrument of the human brain.

[ 3 ] When the occult aspirant goes through the experiences discussed yesterday, he first comes to be able to think without using his brain. This is, of course, a completely absurd concept to today’s materialist. But that is indeed the case. The inner experience makes this quite clear to the occultist who has undergone the occult, esoteric exercises. For everything that can be gained from external objects through ordinary science—what is researched and thought there—is shadowy, so to speak lifeless, compared to the images that are then formed by our soul once we have freed ourselves from the physical brain.

[ 4 ] For theosophists, it may be stated at the outset, for the sake of brevity, that a person who has managed to free themselves from their physical body then uses, in order to work inwardly within the soul, only those instruments that are present in their etheric, astral, and I-organisms. Thus, they make use of what we have come to know about the human being through Theosophy, excluding the physical body.

[ 5 ] What arises from this within the soul possesses a much stronger inner power, a much stronger inner vitality than the ordinary thoughts derived from external objects; moreover, it truly appears to be something that surrounds us everywhere as a subtle substance. One cannot help but say that it appears like flowing light; only one must not think of the light that is conveyed through the human eye, that is, through an external physical organ, but one must think that this spreading substance, in which one initially finds oneself as in a surging sea, is perceived more inwardly than it would appear as some kind of light or the like. It is perceived inwardly, and it is perceived in such a way that, when a person truly perceives it, the mental image that they might be in a kind of nothingness vanishes.

[ 6 ] Anyone who truly finds themselves in this element will no longer claim to be in a void, for this element has, above all, an effect that is initially quite surprising given all previous experience. It has the effect of tearing us apart and scattering us throughout the entire space, as if we were dissolving within it, as if we were disintegrating, losing the ground beneath our feet, losing all points of support wherever we have them in the external material world. That is what occurs at first. And in this feeling of being within an element that, as it were, sprays out into the entire space, one has what one might call a spiritual light that floods, flows, and does not reveal itself outwardly in any sense. This is what every aspirant to occultism first experiences as an inner experience.

[ 7 ] Now, if the aspirant to the occult first has this experience and is of a weak disposition—if he has not been accustomed in life to thinking deeply—then he is, in a sense, already standing on a precipice, for he cannot easily move forward unless he has learned in life to think deeply. Hence the preparation we spoke of yesterday: the long practice of a sublime intellect, of a sublime power of judgment. It is not what we acquire externally through this sublime power of judgment, through this sublime intellect, but rather the discipline we acquire by learning to think more sharply that benefits us when, as aspirants to occultism, we enter this flowing element of light. For it is not the thoughts themselves that are at work, so to speak, but the educational forces of our own self, which have been given to us through the thoughts. These continue to work, and we then have not only a flowing, hidden light around us, but we have the possibility that within this flowing element there will emerge forms of which we know that no perceptions of external objects have given us these inner images, but that they emerge in the element into which we ourselves have now immersed ourselves.

[ 8 ] Once we have reached such a state of life, we do not lose ourselves in this flowing light, but experience within it forms of a far greater vitality than any dream images or visions possess. Yet at the same time, we experience these images in such a way that they lack everything that characterizes external perceptions. We cannot find there the qualities that we perceive only through the senses; but to a greater degree, we can find what we otherwise experience only when we engage in thought. Yet these thoughts are not merely thoughts that come over us, but are, in a certain sense, structures fixed within themselves, appearing to possess an essence of their own.

[ 9 ] This is the first thing the occult aspirant experiences, and it becomes increasingly prominent as the occult life progresses. At first it is faint; at first we must be content with the little that we can experience there. But then more and more is given to us; then we experience more and more, and we come to know a world that presents itself to us as a world lying beyond the sensory world. Through such an experience, we come to know something quite special. We realize, in fact, that all the forces capable of enabling us to experience such a thing cannot be found within the sphere of our earthly life and earthly laws. When we have this experience, we realize very clearly that everything that enables us to think beyond our external life as earthly human beings and beyond the realm of the natural sciences has been formed within us by forces that belong to the Earth.

[ 10 ] As you know as Theosophists, before humans attained their present form on Earth, they underwent many transformations and evolutions. During this time, the forces of the Earth acted upon them. Gradually, their brain and their sensory organs took on the form they have today through the forces of the Earth. And if we wish to explain the eye, the ear, or the brain itself as they are today, we must say: At the beginning of Earth’s development, all these organs were quite different. During Earth’s development, the forces of the Earth acted upon these organs and gave them their present form. Everything that these organs—and also the brain—possess from the Earth forces, we make use of in our daily lives or when we think and research scientifically. There is nothing in the activity we engage in when we conduct such research that has not come to humanity through the Earth forces. Both the everyday person who sees and perceives the world and the things around them and reflects on them, and the scientist who works in the laboratory or at the observatory—they all make use of no other faculties of their brain and their sense organs than those that derive from the forces of the Earth.

[ 11 ] What we now possess as the development of our brain, and what enables us to work with the brain in such a way that it brings forth the higher aspects of human nature from within itself, and that we perceive what has just been described—this flowing, surging spiritual light—does not stem from earthly conditions, but is an inheritance of those forces that acted upon humanity before the Earth became the Earth. So that we must say, when we recall that the Earth, before it became Earth, passed through the lunar, solar, and Saturnian states: The forces that enable human beings to perceive with their senses and to penetrate sensory perception with thought do not originate from these Saturnian, solar, and lunar states. But everything that frees us from this sensory and intellectual work, from the work of science and so on, everything that enables us to drive the higher members out of ourselves, so that the etheric body, the astral body, and the I are squeezed out of the brain, so that these become capable of living in the flowing light—this we have within us as a legacy from the Saturn, Sun, and Moon epochs. This, then, originates from a pre-earthly period of development and cannot be found within the broader scope of earthly existence.

[ 12 ] Once science has reached the point—and it will eventually get there, even if it takes a long time—where it can, so to speak, understand the mechanisms of the senses and the brain, then science will be extraordinarily proud of this achievement. But we will only be able to understand that thinking and that research which can be explained by earthly conditions and therefore applies only to earthly conditions. One will never be able to explain the entire brain, nor all the structures of the sense organs, using earthly forces; rather, in order to explain everything that is active in our senses and in our brain—what has given the senses and the brain their present form—one will have to resort to what theosophists know as the Saturn, Sun, and Moon states.

[ 13 ] These earlier stages of Earth’s formation—that is, these forces that are active as long as human beings do not make use of their brains and external senses—these forces, which we have inherited from Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, are rendered inactive and suppressed by what the Earth has wrought with the forces of the brain and the senses. Everything we can find there when we enter the flooding light, we therefore do not perceive as if we were thinking it. For what we think, we have the feeling that we are thinking it now, but what we initially experience there does not seem to us as if we were thinking it now.

[ 14 ] It is extremely important that you bear this in mind. To the clairvoyant who enters this state, the mental images I have just described do not initially appear as thoughts he is currently thinking, but rather as thoughts that are merely preserved in memory, like thoughts we can recall.

[ 15 ] Now it will also become clear to you why we must ignore our intellect and are compelled to focus on sharpening our memory. This is because we must develop the sense that what lies within the expanding sea of spiritual light gives rise, so to speak, to forms that can only be perceived as remembered forms. If one had not undergone a sharpening of the memory, these forms would elude one, and nothing would become perceptible to the clairvoyant. It would then be the case that he would see only a vast, inner, surging sea of light.

[ 16 ] The fact that thought-forms can be perceived as floating in the inner sea of light is due to the fact that we have sharpened our power of recollection to such an extent that what appears can be perceived not by the intellect, but by the power of recollection, that is, by memory; for it must be perceived through memory.

[ 17 ] But that is not the whole story. What is perceived in this way through memory enables us, at first, to glimpse into long-past stages of our development—the lunar, solar, and Saturn stages. But the images perceived there, which appear as memories, are not the only ones; indeed, they are even the weaker ones. For something is perceived that acts upon us with great force and power, of which one might say—even though one knows it is only a fleeting thought-light acting upon us—that it causes us pain and pleasure, that it begins, one might say, to sting and burn and also to evoke blissful states within us.

[ 18 ] And now the question is: What does the occultist notice when, swimming in this sea, he perceives such peculiar formations that he can now grasp with his intellect—formations for which he no longer needs merely his memory, because they have become so strong that the intellect is able to grasp them? So what does the occultist perceive about these things?

[ 19 ] You see, the occultist only becomes aware of these things if he has studied them beforehand—that is, if he has familiarized himself with the various ideas of the philosophers, if he has delved a little into philosophy. Then the realization dawns before his inner eye that the true thoughts of the philosophers are mere shadows, that they are reflections of what is perceived as living in the flowing light.

[ 20 ] Now the time has come when you can understand what all the philosophy in the world really is. All the philosophy of the world is nothing other than a sum of thought-formations, of ideas, which are cast into our physical life like images and which actually have their origin in the supersensible life, in that which the clairvoyant can perceive in the manner described. The philosopher does not perceive what lies behind his images and what he casts into physical consciousness through these images; but he receives the images. Of all the important, great thoughts of philosophers who have ever played a role in the world, the occultist can always indicate the origin. The philosopher sees only the shadow image of the thought; the occultist sees the real, living element of light that lies behind it. Where does that come from?

[ 21 ] Well, you see, this stems from the fact that, although we have—generally speaking—paralyzed the forces in our brains that originate from the Saturn, Sun, and Moon phases of development, we still retain a certain remnant in our brains through which one can at least perceive shadows and images of what the brain is capable of through these pre-earthly forces. The forces at work in the philosopher’s brain are therefore not earthly forces; they are a faint, dim reflection of pre-earthly forces. The philosopher is simply unaware that a legacy from pre-earthly times lives on in his brain and that he uses his brain as an instrument to the extent that such a legacy is at work.

[ 22 ] However, this inheritance would not have taken effect unless something very specific had occurred during the Earth’s evolution—something of which, of course, even today’s philosophers do not wish to hear. If everything had simply remained as it was, so that the Earth is merely the reincarnation of what existed in the ancient Saturn, the ancient Sun, and the ancient Moon; if, in other words, the Earth offered humanity nothing more, brought humanity nothing more than the forces it possesses because the forces of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon—that is, the pre-earthly forces—still live on within it, then such a mode of thinking as appears to us to be so pronounced—one might say, to the highest degree in philosophy—could never have arisen on Earth at all. And philosophy is present in every human being, for to a certain degree every human being philosophizes. This is therefore only due to the fact that an irregularity occurred during the Earth’s reincarnation, that one of the creative forces which brought the Earth into being separated itself and does not continue to act like the others, but rather in such a way that we can say: This force acts upon human beings in a spiritual sense, just as the moonlight acts upon the Earth in a physical sense.

[ 23 ] You see, the moonlight affects the Earth physically in such a way that the moon reflects the sunlight. For what reaches us as moonlight is merely reflected sunlight. What enables human beings to go beyond mere recollection in clairvoyance, and what enables them to introduce something into physical consciousness as philosophy, stems from the fact that a new force is working into the human brain, shaping it—a force that is precisely the same spiritual power that is named Yahweh or Jehovah in the Mosaic text, and which is just as much a reflected spiritual light as moonlight is, in a physical sense, reflected sunlight.

[ 24 ] Thus, in fact, human beings cannot be explained solely in terms of their brains by what they have inherited from pre-earthly states. One can only understand them and this human brain when one realizes that just as physical sunlight is reflected from the Moon to the Earth—even when that particular part of the Earth does not appear to be receiving sunlight—spiritual light is reflected back to human beings from outside the Earth, insofar as they express themselves through their brains.

[ 25 ] Every inspiration—and it is an inspiration—that is bestowed upon a person not through their own efforts but from outside, enables them to ascend to a understanding of the world that can be described as philosophical. This understanding of the world is characterized by the fact that it prompts people to seek the unified principle in the various things of the world. That is the most essential characteristic. Whether a person calls this unifying principle “God” or “World Spirit” is irrelevant. But the fact that they wish to synthesize everything and relate it to a unifying principle stems from the fact that, at the moment when we, as clairvoyants, liberate the etheric body, we know: We have now not only drawn out what we have from earlier states, but we also have active influences from the spiritual world in the brain that can be compared to the influences of moonlight, as we have just done.

[ 26 ] I would like to draw your attention here to something that may be significant to you as you consider what has just been explained. The human being as a philosopher does not possess what the clairvoyant perceives as the Jahve forces, which intermingle with the forces inherited from earlier states. However, he possesses the mental images and is unaware that behind them lie the forces that were active in pre-earthly states and those designated as the Jahve forces. He does not know that this lies behind his thought processes. He sees only the shadow-images of thought that are produced for him by the fact that he works out of his etheric body this flooding light of which I have spoken, and that, as this acts in his brain, the shadow-images of thought are brought about within it, which we call philosophy. The philosopher does not know this. He knows only that he lives within these shadow-images of thought.

[ 27 ] But I would like to draw your attention to one peculiarity regarding these mental images, which will be useful to you later: namely, the peculiarity that, as a philosopher, one is unconsciously clairvoyant—that is, one lives in shadow images of clairvoyant states without knowing anything about clairvoyance; that one thus lives in shadow images and brings to bear everything one can as a philosopher, and that one ultimately arrives at the point of connecting and linking all the philosophical ideas and concepts one is capable of bringing to bear in such a way that one relates them to a unified essence. That is the peculiarity of philosophy.

[ 28 ] This peculiarity is always present in philosophy. But if one works with this philosophical material honestly and sincerely, there is no way to find anything resembling the Christ-being within these conceptual images—that is, philosophically speaking. One finds a unified foundation of the world, but one never finds a Christ. If you find the Christ idea in a philosophy, you can be sure it has been taken from the external world; where it can be found in the traditions, it has been incorporated into philosophy in an incorrect manner, perhaps unconsciously. If the philosopher sticks to his philosophy, it is quite impossible to find anything other than the neutral God of the world, but never a Christ. He cannot find him. There is no self-understanding philosophy that can possess the idea of Christ. It is impossible. So, let us note this first. But those who have the inclination and opportunity may take a look at the philosophers to see if, insofar as these philosophers are merely philosophers, they can find Christ among them. Examine a system of philosophy as extensive and developed as Hegel’s; you will see that within the system of philosophy, Hegel cannot arrive at Christ. He introduces him from the external world. His philosophy gives him no Christ.

[ 29 ] For the time being, what has been said may suffice to describe what first appears to the aspirant to clairvoyance and what he learns to call the “unrevealable light.”

[ 30 ] Very quietly, at first barely perceptible, the second experience occurs. It occurs in such a way that there are, in fact, many clairvoyants who have long since had the first experience, which has just been described, yet hardly understand what the second one is. There is also what we might describe in the following way: While the flooding light I have just described is something that seems to us as if we were dissolving into it, as if we were spreading out into the space of the universe, what can be called the ineffable Word appears to us at first as if something were coming toward us from all sides, as it were. To the same extent that we spread out over the whole world, it is as if something were coming toward us, as if something were approaching us from all sides, while on the other hand we are dissolving. And indeed, for the person who experiences this and cannot yet quite find their bearings, this dissolving is accompanied by severe states of fear. It is as if something like a world-skin were coming toward us from the outside, approaching us, and we can only say: This approach of a world-skin is as if we were first being spoken to in a language that is difficult for us to understand, one that is spoken nowhere on earth; in a way that no word that has passed through a larynx can be compared to it. But if we strip away from the word everything that is connected to it as an external sound, then we gradually gain a mental image of what is coming toward us from all sides as meaningful sounds of the world. It is faint at first, and only with the increasing power of occult learning and occult self-discipline does this perception of a spiritual world grow stronger and stronger.

[ 31 ] As clairvoyants, we then have a very strange sensation when we see something like a world-skin approaching from all sides; not an outer world-skin, but something that presses in like sounds. Then we have a very peculiar sensation; and the fact that we have this is a sign that we are on the right path. We have the sensation: Yes, actually that is our own true self; actually that is the true human being coming toward us. We are only seemingly enclosed within the skin when we live in the physical body. In truth, our entire being fills the world, and it comes toward us when we pass into the occult state in the manner described. Something comes toward us from all sides. — This is what appears as a certain sensation: the expansion of spiritual life and, in turn, its contraction.

[ 32 ] This is what we experience, and we associate a specific concept with it because it strikes us as meaningful words that resonate with us only intellectually: the concept of the “inexpressible word,” the “inexpressible language.”

[ 33 ] Well, you see, just as human beings possess a certain inheritance—which I just mentioned—that does not stem from earthly forces or from their earthly nature, but from pre-earthly conditions that contributed to the formation of their brain, as we have described, so too does he possess, as an inheritance, forces within him that originate from pre-earthly states and which are now active not in his brain but in his heart. The heart is a very complex organ, and just as in the brain it is not only earthly forces that are active but also pre-earthly forces—even though in external research we make use only of what comes from the earthly realm—so too are pre-earthly forces active in the heart. What the human being needs to take in earthly air and earthly food, to sustain the organism of life in relation to the earthly elements, he derives from earthly forces. In order for a human being to perceive what has now been designated by the term “inexpressible word,” not only must what constitutes the higher soul members be drawn out of the brain, but also from the heart.

[ 34 ] One can perceive the spiritual light for a long time as a clairvoyant if one has squeezed one’s higher physical members out of one’s brain. But if these higher limbs of the body remain firmly connected to the heart, as in ordinary life, then one is dealing with clairvoyants who, with their soul powers freed from the brain, see the flooding light, but who cannot hear the ineffable word approaching from all sides. They begin to hear this only when the higher supersensory powers of the human being have also been squeezed out of the heart. That which enables the heart to squeeze out these higher supersensory limbs, so that the human being learns to unfold a soul life that is not bound to the instrument of the heart, is connected with a higher heart organism. What exists as ordinary soul life on the physical plane is bound to the organ of the heart. When human beings are able to free the higher bodily members from their physical heart, then they will learn to experience a soul life that is bound to a higher heart organism rather than to the physical heart muscle and the blood. When a person learns to experience with their soul the powers of the heart that are higher than those bound to the physical heart, then they truly come to know that which asserts itself around them like an ineffable word approaching from all sides.

[ 35 ] This, then, depends on the emancipation of our supersensible human faculties from the heart. While the perception of the supersensible light depends on the emancipation of our higher self from the physical brain, the perception of the ineffable Word depends on the emancipation of our higher faculties from the physical heart.

[ 36 ] Just as there are people who, so to speak unconsciously, possess within themselves something of the pre-earthly forces of brain development, so too are there people who possess within themselves something of the pre-earthly forces of heart organization and heart development. And these people are far more numerous than is generally assumed. If there were no such people today who possess these ancient legacies and who, for reasons we shall yet mention, are working on them especially today, then there would be no Theosophists, and you would not all be sitting here. For the reason you are sitting here is none other than that you once felt, when a theosophical book came into your hands, or when a message from theosophy reached you in a lecture, something of that ancient heritage consisting of forces that worked upon your heart even before the Earth was formed. You have, as it were, by being moved by something that has come to you through Theosophy, experienced something within yourselves—just as the philosophers experience those shadow images of which it has been spoken—you have experienced the shadow images of what, unbeknownst to you, the clairvoyant of the heart within you could perceive, not through words spoken to you in any language. You have heard something very special there; otherwise, you would not have become theosophists. You have heard that this outer word is merely an outer echo of what has been explored by the clairvoyant heart, an echo of what originates from the realms of the occult, what has been explored with the pre-earthly powers of the heart, and what has spoken to you in the shadow images that you yourself can experience. Through the outer word, you have heard the inner word. Through the spoken word you have heard the echo of the ineffable word; through human language, in human words, you have heard that which has been heard in the language of the gods from the worlds of the gods.

[ 37 ] And even if people who today feel drawn to theosophical pursuits in an honest and sincere way do not always realize that something, so to speak, clairvoyant is already at work within them unconsciously, the situation with these people is exactly the same as with philosophers who see the shadows cast by the unconscious clairvoyant brain and do not know in what peculiar thought-elements they actually live. Because the brain is more easily accessible to earthly forces and is more easily affected by them, and is therefore more easily turned into an earthly organ than the heart, which is difficult for earthly forces to access—this is why, especially in our present age, people, by researching earthly laws and engaging their brains with external knowledge, strengthen the earthly parts of the brain to such an extent that the part of the brain that is super-earthly is completely paralyzed within. Through what Theosophy will bring down—because the heart is far less susceptible to the influence of earthly forces—one can, by speaking of ‘Theosophy,’ find access to human souls much more easily than through mere philosophy. For if people have not, through the purely material interests of external life, closed themselves off to what can speak to their hearts in the manner described, they will always be receptive, especially in our time, to theosophical truths. These theosophical truths can be understood by everyone, except those who have become too deeply entangled in external material interests in one form or another, whether through theoretical-material interests or through life interests that are purely absorbed in the material. Only those people cannot understand them who have allowed themselves to be ensnared by these interests, people who have no sense for anything other than these external material interests. A fog spreads over them regarding what the heart is meant to unfold when it is seized by Theosophy.

[ 38 ] Therefore, in order to understand philosophy, one must possess something that corresponds to the peculiar constructs mentioned earlier and casts shadows of them; one must, so to speak, have trained one’s brain to perceive finer thoughts in which the higher, superphysical forces can be reflected. But you know that people rarely train their brains in this way. To understand theosophy, one needs no prior education. To find truth, to understand what has been gleaned from occult research—when occult researchers have emancipated their higher powers, their spiritual limbs, from their heart and brain—people need only not be distracted by external life, not be absorbed in external life. The simplest, most ordinary person possesses sufficient powers to understand Theosophy. They need not be scientifically educated. Anyone can understand certain theosophical truths, provided they do not approach the subject with preconceptions or prejudices. For these theosophical truths are facts of occult research reflected in ordinary experiences as if in shadow images, arising from the ineffable Word that is then heard—if we may use the word figuratively— when the human being has liberated, has emancipated his higher bodily members from the physical heart, when he can thus not only live in a superphysical brain, but can live in a superphysical heart organ.

[ 39 ] To find accurate, logical expressions—especially for scientific terms—that convey what has been explored through the superphysical heart, it will be necessary to be familiar with such scientific terms. But even that is not essential in Theosophy. The most important theosophical truths can indeed be clothed in simple terms, and you know how little is needed to gain a sufficient understanding of the fundamental truths of Theosophy. Most of what we often present is not actually intended merely to evoke convictions in simple, unassuming minds; those can arise very quickly. In a healthy soul, they will always be present; in a soul that is not sickened by material interests, they will always be present. But what is necessary in our time is that Theosophy also find protection against the unjust attacks of a science that supposedly stands on its own rights. We must present the simple, straightforward, easily justified theosophical truths to the world in such a way that they demonstrate they can stand up to scrutiny when one thinks subtly, clearly, and correctly. Of course, the latter must be demanded of people. Restless, orderly thinking must be demanded so that one can see that there is no truth that contradicts what Theosophy is. But such thinking is, I would not only say, exceedingly rare, but it is even exceedingly difficult to achieve. The way in which external scientific prejudices arise—not through personal authority, but through unassailable external authority, an authority attached to vague concepts—is indeed very widespread; and the sheer magnitude of the prejudices this engenders is truly immense.

[ 40 ] Thus we see that, naturally, those who believe they are well-versed in a particular field of science, or who have become familiar in a popular sense with certain scientific findings, also believe that their thinking has reached a level where they can grasp the relationship between theosophy and science. But people are usually unable to do this, because clear, orderly thinking is by no means as widespread in today’s world as one might like to believe. Certain sciences can be pursued today with a rather disordered way of thinking—a way of thinking that has been shaped within the narrow confines of a specialized science and does not extend beyond those confines. And one can certainly be a literary figure, a writer, a person who publishes this or that today, even if one’s thinking is really not particularly advanced. For people usually do not even seek to determine whether orderly, correct thinking lies behind what is seemingly produced intellectually today, because they lack, so to speak, any sense for it. It does not take much to possess this intuition; one can have it as a kind of instinct; but this intuition is only strengthened when one is somewhat familiar with occult research and occult forces.

[ 41 ] In connection with what I have just said, let me make a remark intended solely to illustrate how, if one has even a little sensitivity, one can sometimes encounter strange things. What I have to say is, admittedly, a rather insignificant experience, but it is nonetheless telling. I was walking down a street yesterday morning. My gaze fell—let’s say involuntarily—on a certain spot in the window of a bookstore. And lo and behold, I felt as if something were stinging me, as if a horsefly or a bee were stinging me. I mean this in a mental sense. Now I was curious about what had stung me. At first, I wasn’t sure what could have stung me from that window, and I looked closer and found that there was a brochure there. A motto on this brochure caught my eye, and this motto struck me as if it were intended to defend the sentiment of the brochure, as if the author had intended this motto to express his sentiment. But why did the motto sting? We will soon find out. It reads as follows:

A man who speculates is like an animal on a barren heath
Led in circles by an evil spirit,
While all around lies a beautiful, green pasture.

[ 42 ] Below that it says: Goethe, *Faust*. But who says it in *Faust*? Mephisto! — It is not a saying one may cite when referring to Goethe. It is a saying put into Mephisto’s mouth. So if someone uses it, intending to use it in a good, proper sense, then they are not thinking clearly. They want to invoke Goethe; but inner reasons compel them to invoke not Goethe, but Mephisto, the devil. This showed me that there is something amiss with their thinking. The remark stemmed from undisciplined, completely disordered thinking.