The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. The Transformation of Human-Earthly Powers into Powers of Clairvoyant Research

[ 1 ] Many questions may arise regarding various matters as one gradually approaches the insights of Spiritual Science; it is entirely legitimate to ask such questions. Let us devote part of our discussion today to posing these questions to ourselves. The answers to such questions are often well-suited to leading us deeper into the whole context of world events, insofar as the spiritual world works into these events, and specifically into the context of the facts of human nature itself. One question can be posed as follows: When one gradually comes to realize the importance and great significance of what is called reincarnation, one may ask: Yes, how is it that in ordinary life in our present time, a person cannot gain awareness of previous earthly lives? Clairvoyant consciousness can indeed penetrate to the point of, so to speak, expanding the memory to such an extent that earlier earthly lives truly emerge in the memory as a recollection. But in the ordinary life of humanity today, there is, in fact, no awareness of past earthly lives. If one now poses the question, so to speak, from the standpoint of clairvoyant research, it takes on the following form. One is, of course, aware that the power required for clairvoyant research actually arises from within the human being and from the soul itself. One develops from the ordinary human perspective to the clairvoyant perspective: therefore, the powers with which one can later look back on previous earthly lives must naturally be present in every human being. The question is now this: What happens to these powers? What does human nature do with these powers that are present, that are born with the human being, and yet do not lead him to recall past lives?

[ 2 ] If one examines the question clairvoyantly, turning one’s gaze to the forces involved, one must direct one’s attention back to a very early stage of childhood. For only then can one see these forces—which, in clairvoyance, can be used to look back into past earthly lives—at work. Namely: These forces are used in present-day humanity to build the human larynx and everything connected with it. They are specifically used for all that later enables the human larynx to learn speech. The forces are thus present in every human being that would enable them to look back into past lives on Earth. But they are used to such an extent today to develop the speech organs in humans that, under normal circumstances, a person cannot have this recollection. However, there were earlier times on Earth when people did indeed have this recollection. Almost everywhere on Earth, people had this recollection of past lives. But this is because not all the forces used to develop the speech organs are lost to the ability to look back on past lives, since certain forces are still retained during the development of the speech organs. The development of humanity is such that language has gradually taken on a form that, in the present human cycle, calls upon far more forces—particularly those of the etheric body—than was the case in earlier ages. Thus, people of the present day do not even get around to taking into account those forces that remain—the majority of which are used for the development of the speech organs. If they were to do so, as the clairvoyant must, they would look back into past lives. Hence what I also hinted at in my public lecture on “The Riddles of Life”: If one succeeds in unfolding that activity of the etheric body which is otherwise unfolded only in the exertion of the speech organs, if one frees the speech forces from the speech organs, if one comes to be able to listen to oneself inwardly, as it were, without speaking outwardly, and one feels this more and more, then the exercise of these powers is suitable for truly restoring the memory of past lives. In today’s humanity, people pay no attention whatsoever to the powers of speech formation that remain and can be used to look back into past lives. This is a case where clairvoyant research can demonstrate where, in normal life, the powers go that would otherwise enable people to gain insights into spiritual life.

[ 3 ] The same is true of the forces that are employed in human beings today to produce what is known as the gray matter of the brain, which is primarily the organ of thought. This thinking is, of course, not something the brain performs, but the brain is needed as a tool for thinking. And those powers of thought that would enable a person—if they were fully at their disposal—to, for example, easily grasp what is written in my *Secret Science*; these powers, which make it easy to engage with the entire subject matter of *Secret Science*, are used in the average person today to structure the gray matter of the brain in a corresponding way. This structuring of the gray matter of the brain was not yet present to the same extensive degree as is the case today with the average person, in the people of ancient Greece in the sixth or fifth century. In this respect, human nature changes more rapidly than one might think. Therefore, for the Greeks of prehistoric times—the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries—it was quite natural at a certain age for clairvoyance to dawn upon them, which today can again be described as a secret science. And one must use the powers that are still spared in the processing of the gray matter of the brain for practice in the manner described, in order to gain a pure, clear overview of what is described, for example, in my *Esoteric Science*. On what does this rest, when one describes it as has been done in this book? The conditions for descriptions from the spiritual world are actually not that difficult for people today to attain. One might almost say that it is surprising that not many more people today come to perceive these conditions entirely on their own—and one might be surprised that these descriptions encounter such strong opposition. For it is relatively not difficult to attain that degree of clairvoyance necessary to grasp these things. One need only do the following, although one might apply Faust’s words to these matters: “It is easy, yet the easy is hard.”

[ 4 ] Brain development is indeed most active during the first years of human life; it is then that one can clearly see the etheric body and also the astral body most actively engaged in the folding and structuring of the brain. But this work on our brain takes a relatively long time. And it is no exaggeration to say that human beings truly—even if the process slows down in later years—become ever more intelligent through life experience. Work on the brain substance is always taking place. But one does not observe the following—and indeed cannot observe it: If, in a given year, one resolves to refrain from a favorite intellectual pursuit that one has been engaged in—though this should only pertain to external circumstances, since it is through these that the gray matter is structured—it cannot, of course, be Spiritual Science if one does not study it like any other science— yet if one resolves not to engage in some other favorite activity for seven years and actually carries this out, strictly carries it out, and attempts, in quiet meditation, to summon the forces one has thus saved—forces that, had one continued the activity, would have been used differently, but are now saved and set aside: then one can relatively easily, at least to a high degree, come to an understanding of those things described in my *Secret Science*. The fact that so few people achieve this merely testifies to how little is actually done in this direction. In fact, it is not practiced, for one who truly has a favorite pastime will rarely have the self-denial to refrain from engaging in it for seven years.

[ 5 ] So you see that part of what can be proclaimed today would be relatively easy to achieve. If you consider our present-day culture with all the monstrous achievements it has produced outwardly, you will not be at all surprised that many forces of the etheric body are employed in the processing of the brain, for this outward culture is almost entirely the result of brainwork; the forces are entirely absorbed in the processing of the brain. Now, some might say: “But I haven’t participated in this cultural work at all; I haven’t done anything to contribute to it!” — One might delude oneself into thinking that, but it is not the case. Today, one can hardly find even the most isolated place on earth where external culture does not penetrate to such an extent that one is involved in this external culture through one’s thinking. And that is enough to divert one’s powers from what one might call: the attainment of clairvoyant consciousness. Of course, one might say: Well, savages do not concern themselves with what the brain processes in this way, but one cannot say of savages today either that they develop special clairvoyant powers in this direction. — This is the case because a very specific spiritual law exists. Namely, what one is to attain clairvoyantly in this way must have a certain preparation. The savage might perhaps develop quite different clairvoyant powers. But the clairvoyant powers necessary for seeing what is described in my *Esoteric Science* the savage could not develop, because he has no preparation for it. For these powers must, in turn, be the reversal of other powers. You might say, for example: But many people have completely spared themselves what was my favorite pastime! Why have they not become clairvoyant? — This is because the development of clairvoyant powers does not come out of nowhere, but comes through the reversal of what already exists. One must already have developed powers in a certain direction; one must already have taken the first steps toward the kind of intelligence that is today our cultural intelligence; one must for a time renounce these powers, and then they are, as it were, reversed. And through this arises that which enables one to pursue the facts of “esoteric science” clairvoyantly. It is specifically those powers used in such descriptions that, in normal human development, primarily enable the brain to access the higher, more intelligent powers. In contrast, what does not attain these general, broad perspectives, as described in “Esoteric Science,” but rather addresses more specific circumstances, is attained through the reversal of other human powers and abilities. The ability, for example, to look back on past earthly lives is attained by retaining certain forces—which are otherwise entirely devoted to the formation of the speech organs—in the manner I have described.

[ 6 ] The greatest obstacle preventing people from penetrating the spiritual worlds are certain forces that are usually not taken into account at all. I have now mentioned two kinds of forces that enable people to look into the spiritual worlds with clairvoyance. I have pointed out the forces that are used today to develop the gray matter of the brain; but the forces that enable people to look back on past earthly lives are the forces connected with the development of language. But there are also forces that enable human beings to see in greater detail what lies between death and new birth, to see in detail what the individual human being does there. In “Esoteric Science” one finds more of the general picture. But that is something else again: to truly look into the spiritual world; for that, other forces are necessary, ones that are scarcely noticed in life. There is something for which a person must expend a great deal of energy: namely, that throughout their life they do not crawl on all fours, but in their youth come to stand upright. The forces that make a human being a vertical being are forces that fill those who have entered the spiritual world with a very special sense of awe. Watching a child learn to walk holds a wondrous mystery for those who engage in clairvoyant research. The forces one uses to stand upright as a child leave behind—though this remnant is too often overlooked—the very forces that enable one to look into the world between death and new birth. For if one manages—there are other ways to do this, but this is one way—to remember how one learned to walk, what efforts one made in doing so: then one discovers within oneself the forces that one has saved in one’s etheric body. For it is this body that must exert itself in this process. If one seeks within oneself these forces that were once saved—they are still present in all human beings—then much can be drawn out of the human being in this way, enabling them to look back into the life that has elapsed between their last death and their birth.

[ 7 ] You may ask: How does one go about doing that? If we are fortunate enough to continue our anthroposophical movement, we have already made a start on seeking out these forces. And if all goes well, these forces usually become active only after seven years; but a beginning has been made, and this beginning will continue within human nature. Usually, the forces that have been preserved in this way remain unaccounted for. Now, a person can promote the awakening of these forces within themselves by practicing a certain natural form of dance. It can certainly also be brought about through meditation, but for not quite a year now, the so-called eurythmy has been practiced in certain circles among us based on the principles of the movements of the etheric body. This is not something like the ordinary kind of gymnastics and dancing—which actually leads to nothing special—but rather these are movements that are given entirely in the spirit of the movements of the etheric body. Through these movements, the human being will gradually become aware of the powers that still lie within them; these powers will be discovered through this free dance movement. And in this way, capacities will gradually be created that awaken the powers within the human being to truly look into those spiritual worlds that lie between the last death and their birth.

[ 8 ] In this way, Spiritual Science can make a very practical contribution to human culture. And one can be certain that, little by little, Spiritual Science will not merely stop at teaching individual truths in the abstract, but will also treat the whole human being in such a way that powers which lie dormant today are awakened, so that the human being truly learns to rise to a spiritual experience of life. These are strange things to say, but they are simply the way it is: When one discovers the powers that were left behind while learning to walk, one is thereby enabled to look with clairvoyance into the worlds in which one lives between death and a new birth. This can also be achieved through meditation, but it must be practiced in such a way that it becomes a feeling as well. Feelings, however, are actually the most difficult to form through meditation. So the forces must be found that enable a person to look into the world between death and a new birth. In particular, the forces are found through which one looks at what preceded birth for a long time. In this realm lies much that makes life understandable to us. Some misfortune befalls us, for example. At first, we have only the feeling: this is a misfortune. We find it hard to bear. But if we knew why, for decades or even centuries before birth, we had arranged everything in such a way that this misfortune would befall us, then much would be more bearable for us! For we would know that this misfortune is a test, so that we may become more perfect. But one experiences all sorts of things in other ways as well when one looks into that very part of the spiritual world where one is, so to speak, undergoing the preparation for the present life.

[ 9 ] I do not intend to describe the general circumstances here; you will find them outlined in my writings. But I would like to use a few examples to show, as it were, how life before birth influences life after birth. You see, as strange as it may sound, once we have passed through the midpoint of our life between death and a new birth—after all, between death and a new birth, a number of centuries usually elapse, so there is naturally a midpoint—then the soul’s inner experience in the spiritual world is directed, above all, down toward the earth. And when one lives after this midpoint, one receives more and more impressions from the Earth of what is going on down there, of what people down there think and feel; and it is the case for every soul that it receives very specific impressions. For example, a soul may immerse itself in the second half of its spiritual life as it approaches its new birth, and more and more it looks down upon those people who, let us say, are preparing the later age down there: the spiritually active people. Some of these spiritually active people become particularly precious to the soul. Yes, it happens that from the spiritual world one looks down with particular interest upon one or two figures who are active on Earth. A person, for example, who was born in the second half of the nineteenth century was, let us assume, in the spiritual world at the beginning of the nineteenth and in the second half of the eighteenth century; but he looked down upon the significant people who influenced culture at that time. He finds some of them particularly valuable; they are especially dear to him. This is one of the experiences one has there: looking down upon the people developing down below. But by looking down, one also influences these people, though not in a way that impairs their freedom; one influences them in such a way that certain things living in their souls emerge more easily in their souls because a soul from the spiritual world is looking down upon them. Thus, earthly human beings are inspired to create and act by souls who are born later than these earthly human beings and look down upon them. This can be the case in broader as well as in more intimate matters.

[ 10 ] For example, there has been a case where a soul lived in the spiritual world during the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries and took an outstanding person from the earthly world as his very ideal: he wanted to become like this person, to strive to emulate him after his birth; one looks, for example, at the books of such a person whom one wishes to emulate after birth. One thus looks down from heaven to earth with a certain inner longing, with a certain inner impulse, just as one—albeit with a somewhat different feeling—looks up as a living human being with a longing for the beyond, for heaven. The only significant difference is that when one looks up to heaven as an earthly human being without the knowledge of Spiritual Science, it remains rather vague. The human being in heaven, however—the one who lives in the spiritual world—has the peculiarity that he sees the conditions on earth, the human soul he particularly reveres, whose writings he perhaps wishes to read, with particular clarity from the spiritual world. In short, in the second half of one’s spiritual existence between death and a new birth, one gets to know human souls in detail; one learns to look into souls. And we ourselves, who are living now, can be aware that up there in the spiritual world there are souls living who are waiting to be born in the coming decades, who look into our souls with a longing gaze, and who see in our souls what they need for their preparation for the earthly world. They see our souls at this stage of their spiritual life as clearly as earthly humans see their heaven only vaguely. This is yet another image that shows us how, when we come to know the spiritual worlds even a little, we truly come to the realization: We are being observed. For we are, in many ways. The gazes of spiritual beings—and especially those who are yet to be born—are directed toward our souls. From this we see that Spiritual Science, even in this regard, by no means gives people anything bad; for through it, people are guided to be worthy of what is observed in their souls by the souls not yet born.

[ 11 ] When clairvoyant research delves into these matters, it does indeed encounter significant, often deeply moving experiences. And among the truly deeply moving experiences is looking up into the spiritual worlds at the souls who are on their way to being born, and seeing how they look down upon the earth to search for those who might become their parents. In earlier times, this was even more significant; in our times, it has become less so. But observing such souls still ranks among the most moving experiences. For one can receive the most varied impressions there. Here is an impression I would like to describe as it actually is.

[ 12 ] A soul preparing to incarnate knows, for example, that for its next earthly life it needs a certain kind of upbringing, a certain kind of knowledge that it must acquire as early as its youth. But it now realizes: Yes, here and there I can find opportunities to gain such knowledge. — But this is often only possible if one renounces, for the time being, a pair of parents who could provide a happy existence in other respects, and if one takes refuge with a pair of parents who may not be able to grant a happy life. If one were to prefer another pair of parents, one would have to say to oneself: You cannot achieve precisely what is most important. — One must not create a mental image of all conditions of spiritual life as being so different from those on Earth. Thus one sees souls who are in the most terrible struggle before birth; one sees, for example, a soul who says to itself: I may be mistreated in my youth by a harsh pair of parents. — When such a soul finds itself in this situation, it faces terrible inner struggles. And in the spiritual world, one can see many souls preparing for birth as they undergo these immense struggles. One must also consider that in the spiritual world, these struggles are experienced as if they were a kind of external world before one’s eyes. In the spiritual world, what I have just described is not merely an inner struggle of the soul, not merely a struggle of the mind, but these struggles project outward, and one is, so to speak, surrounded by them. One sees, in vivid imagery, the visions that depict how these souls, internally torn, must proceed toward their next incarnation. When we bring these circumstances to mind, we can of course easily come to understand why so many people do not like Spiritual Science at all. For most of all, people would love it if it were true that after death one immediately entered into eternal bliss for all time. But that is not the case. And it is good that things are as they are, for under these conditions the world will attain the degree of perfection that it must attain.

[ 13 ] Curiously enough, we are enabled to look into our own lives or those of others within the spiritual world by the forces we save from the etheric body as we learn to walk. But these forces, when truly developed, have a certain advantage—as practical clairvoyance demonstrates—over those clairvoyant powers developed for looking back into past earthly lives. I ask that you take this difference very much into account, for in many ways it sheds light on so many things.

[ 14 ] Nothing facilitates the development of dangerous clairvoyance more than the cultivation of those powers that, in modern humans, are actually intended for the speech organs—powers that, when restrained, enable one to look back into past earthly lives. For these powers are, in human nature, most closely connected with the lower instincts and passions. And nothing brings one closer to Lucifer and Ahriman than the development of precisely these powers, which, at a certain level, do indeed allow one to look back into past earthly lives—both one’s own and those of others. They lead to powers of deception; but in particular, if they are not properly developed, they lead to the clairvoyant, under the influence of these powers, being more likely to decline morally than to rise—so that these very powers that enable one to look into past lives are the most dangerous. One may develop these powers only if one is at the same time fully attentive to the development of pure morality in the human being. Precisely because one must focus on the purest morality in the human being if one wishes to cultivate these powers, knowledgeable teachers will not readily agree to systematically develop the powers that allow one to look into past incarnations. And one can say: As widespread as it is to possess a certain lower form of clairvoyance that looks into the other worlds and can provide descriptions from spiritual regions, so little has a genuine, proper insight into past incarnations been developed in a way that considers only the powers of speech. Therefore, other means are usually employed when one wishes to guide people to look back into past incarnations. And this brings us to an interesting point that shows us how, indeed, one must pay attention to things that are otherwise rarely noticed. It is rare for someone to be led, in their spiritual development, to look back on past earthly lives merely through the development of their speech faculties. Nevertheless, there are many people who can do this in the present; this is usually achieved through other means. And one of these means is one that may seem strange, but is based entirely on a deeper truth.

[ 15 ] Some people immerse themselves in their inner life. It would require too much effort—or perhaps lead to too great a temptation—if they were to look back karmically into their past earthly lives solely through the development of their linguistic abilities. Therefore, the spiritual powers resort to another means. It looks like a coincidence: For example, this person experiences another person encountering them and mentioning a name, a specific time, or a specific people. And this affects the soul from the outside in such a way that, through this mental image, it develops the supporting forces for clairvoyance. And he then realizes that this name or reference, without the person who said it even knowing it, leads him to be able to look into past earthly lives. Thus, an external means is resorted to. The person in question hears a name or an era or the name of a people and is, as it were, stimulated from the outside to look back into past earthly incarnations. Such external stimuli are sometimes extraordinarily important for the clairvoyant observation of the world. One experiences something seemingly entirely coincidental, yet it radiates a stimulus for clairvoyant powers that one would otherwise have developed only rudimentarily.

[ 16 ] These are the kinds of aphoristic hints I would like to offer regarding the spiritual world’s penetration into our earthly world. For this penetration is, in fact, very complex.

[ 17 ] Looking back on past lives involves forces that are relatively dangerous because they are tempting. In contrast, hardly anyone who develops clairvoyant powers to gain insight into the life that preceded birth in the spiritual realm will be easily tempted to misuse precisely these clairvoyant powers. And as a rule, it will be souls possessing a certain purity, a certain natural morality, who look back with a certain confidence into the spiritual life that preceded the present earthly life. This is connected to the fact that the powers used as clairvoyant powers to look into precisely this time are childlike powers—those very powers that one spares from the process of learning to walk. They are the most innocent forces that human beings possess by nature. — And I ask you to pay attention to this, for it is very significant: the most innocent forces are also those through which, when cultivated, one can look into the life that precedes birth. This is also what makes the sight of a child so enchantingly satisfying, because the child is surrounded in its aura by the forces, the majority of which are used for learning to walk, by those forces that still shine into what preceded birth. And in this regard, for the clairvoyant observer, the child—whose face expresses innocence and naivety—can indeed reveal in its aura something that is truly more interesting than what is expressed in the auras of many adults. The struggles endured in the spiritual realm that preceded birth and determine destiny make what surrounds the child aurically something immensely great and full of wisdom. And the wisdom that surrounds the child in its aura is truly often far greater than that which a person can express through their words in later life. The child’s physiognomy may still be undefined; but the clairvoyant who sees the child can learn an immense amount from the child if he can perceive what surrounds the child with his clairvoyant gaze. And when the powers present in childhood are later developed through clairvoyance, one can look directly into the concrete circumstances that long precede a person’s birth. It may not be particularly satisfying to the ego to look into this world. But for those who wish to understand the whole context of the world, this insight is also particularly interesting. And to research in the Akashic Records regarding certain individuals in world history does not consist merely in investigating what they experience on the physical plane, but also in how they prepare their lives on the physical plane as souls in the spiritual world between death and a new birth.

[ 18 ] However, the powers that, when kept pure, shed light on past incarnations, are not so much spared during childhood, but rather emerge precisely at the age when passion—and sometimes the worst passions—begin to develop in a person. These forces, which of course also have other tasks in human nature, develop long after the forces of speech formation. They are connected to what develops in a person in terms of feelings of sensual love, and to everything associated with that. There is a close connection between what leads to sensual love and what leads to speech, a connection that is also expressed in male nature through the breaking of the voice, the mutation of the voice. And during this stage of life, a particularly large number of these forces are spared. If they are preserved in purity, they lead to a look back into past earthly lives. If they are not preserved in purity, if they are brought into contact with the human being’s sensual instincts, then they can lead to the greatest occult vices. It is precisely this kind of clairvoyant power, which stems from what has been preserved from this stage of life, that is also most easily exposed to temptation. — In this way, you will be able to understand the whole context, my dear anthroposophical friends! The clairvoyant who likes to speak about the time between death and new birth—perhaps some of you have already noticed that little is usually said about this—this clairvoyant has within them, in particular, developed reserves of energy from the earliest childhood. In the case of clairvoyants who—and mostly with nonsense—talk a great deal about people’s past incarnations, which happens very frequently, for some people simply have statements about past incarnations ready at the drop of a hat, one must be suspicious of them for this very reason, because in this realm the forces that are most susceptible to temptation can all too easily be drawn upon. For the powers that can be spared for this purpose are those spared during the time when sensual love is developing and when one has not yet entered social life externally. These powers sometimes lead to much mischief; in particular, they lead to a certain kind of occult mischief, because they contribute most to causing deception upon deception in the realm of the spiritual world.

[ 19 ] Why, then, are the statements of such clairvoyants, who are exposed to temptations, so often false? Because when the powers saved in this way from this stage of life are put to use, the lower instincts and drives rise up from within the person like a mist. And when these rise, then Ahriman and the Ahrimanic spirits come and form ghosts out of what rises, so that one can see these ghosts and mistake them for past incarnations. The kind of clairvoyance necessary to describe conditions as they are presented in *The Secret Science* can be developed particularly easily if one spares those forces that can only be held back in later life. And since at this stage of life, from the age of twenty-one to twenty-eight, one generally develops powers that relate more to intellectual life—to a life one already views with a certain sobriety—research in this field will be least susceptible to error and deception.

[ 20 ] We have thus seen that insight into the great spiritual conditions of the world is gained through the development of those powers that act within human nature to shape the brain. Insight into past earthly lives is achieved through the development of those forces that are specifically spared during adolescence, when the language-forming forces are no longer used for language formation and instead reign in the realm of the sensual drives and their organs. The actual spiritual realm—the realm that becomes particularly interesting where new life is being prepared—can be explored through the powers we specifically spare in the very earliest childhood, at the age when one is, so to speak, learning to walk.

[ 21 ] These are indeed strange facts, but if one wishes to penetrate the spiritual worlds, one must get used to accepting many mental images that initially seem paradoxical. But the spiritual world is truly not meant to be a mere continuation of the sensory-physical world; rather, it is a world that in many respects is precisely the opposite of the physical world. And it is precisely then that the human being appears to us as a being of such significance in the universe, when we look, on the one hand, at what he experiences as his destiny, his abilities, and his capacities in his earthly life, and on the other hand —precisely through coming to know the spiritual realm—at how human beings experience a life quite different from the earthly one between death and a new birth. Only then does the human being appear to us in his true significance and destiny, when we take this into account!

[ 22 ] In these two lectures, I wanted to present to you a description of various aspects of the spiritual world. I wanted to do this in a more aphoristic manner, because this was our first time gathering here in this city, because most of you are already familiar with the systematic presentations from the books and writings, and because I wanted to provide some additional insights on this or that point. This seemed to me to be more useful for our friends in this city than if I had chosen a chapter from Spiritual Science that would have been more coherent. One would like—let me say this at the end of our gathering here, which has also given me so much joy—one would like Spiritual Science in the present to take root as much as possible in the hearts and souls of people! For two things are important. First, when we look at the life around us and consider the facts of this life, seeing how people, even through the greatest achievements of culture, are becoming more and more materialistic, it becomes clear to us how the Spiritual Science is necessary for more and more of humanity, how people need it, precisely because external life makes people materialistic. Precisely because the greatest achievements of external life must make people materialistic, they require the counterbalance of Spiritual Science. Spiritual Science is a necessity of human life on Earth and will become so more and more as we approach the near future. And whoever considers how external life, steeped in materialism, would gradually wither away and die out as a result of the greatest achievements of human culture will feel the deepest longing for Spiritual Science to take root in the hearts and souls of people. Our culture will make ever greater and greater progress; but just as it is true that many songbirds that once populated the countryside are disappearing from areas where factory chimneys rise, so it is true that—even though we need railroads, steamships, and everything else that culture can give us, such as telephones, airships, and so on—and despite the fact that nothing should be held against the progress of external culture—it is nonetheless true that just as songbirds are driven away by the smoke from the chimneys, so too would spiritual happiness, freshness, harmony, and life wither away under the influence of material culture if Spiritual Science did not bring spirituality to human souls. Therefore, anyone who sees through these conditions must have a deepest longing for the spread of Spiritual Science, for this is a necessity.

[ 23 ] On the other hand, there is the fact that, because of this materialistic culture, people have never rejected—or even hated—Spiritual Science as strongly as they do today. — And today we face these two facts—necessity and misunderstanding—like two columns through which we must pass if we wish to establish Spiritual Science in the world. For us, however, who wish to prepare our souls for Spiritual Science, each of these columns will bear a call—a powerful call—to do everything that brings us ourselves, and those who desire it, closer to Spiritual Science.

[ 24 ] It is from this perspective that I wanted to speak to you, since this is my first time speaking in this city. And from this perspective, I would like to offer you these parting words: may some of what I have been able to say find its way into your hearts and emotions, not just into your minds! So that through this you may feel even more deeply and more thoroughly connected to us and to all those who would like to carry this movement out into the world, to carry it out into the world more than they have done so far! Since we have not yet been able to be together in person and this was the first time in recent days, we all hope that this gathering has made the bonds of our souls more intimate and stronger.

[ 25 ] With this hope in mind, I would like to bid farewell to you, my dear friends, and to this beautiful city, knowing that, if such a thing has come to pass, then this physical gathering has also served as an inspiration for a communion that is not bound by space or time. Let me say to you as a farewell: May our physical gathering here have served as an inspiration for a lasting, everlasting gathering in spirit.