The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. How Does One Gain an Understanding of the Spiritual World? II

[ 1 ] It was when the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte sought to draw attention to his awareness of inner life in the spiritual world—to his conviction that the spiritual world is all around us—that, based on this conviction, he said: “It is not only after I have been torn from the context of the earthly world that I will gain entry into the supernatural; I am already in it and living in it, far more truly than in the earthly world; even now it is my only firm standpoint, and the eternal life that I have long since taken possession of is the sole reason why I may still continue in the earthly world. What they call heaven does not lie beyond the grave; it is already spread out here around our nature, and its light dawns in every pure heart.”

[ 2 ] It is good to draw attention to such a statement from time to time. For in the present day there are many voices that would have people believe that speaking of the spiritual world and holding views about it is, in fact, a characteristic of the foolish and superstitious—or, at best, of the fanciful. We see time and again that people—even those who wish to promote the belief that speaking of the spiritual world is, so to speak, a folly—are always citing Fichte and similar thinkers. It is therefore good if at least some people know how those of an anthroposophical disposition may feel in harmony with all those figures in human development who truly carried within their hearts knowledge and insight into a spiritual world—or at least a striving for knowledge and insight in the highest and noblest sense of the word. And when materialistically minded people speak of Fichte and pick out this or that from his writings that suits them at the moment, it is good for the anthroposophically minded soul to always know where such people’s certainty of life, their courage to live, and their faith in life come from—namely, that these arise from a steadfast holding fast to the conviction of standing with the human soul within the spiritual world, within spiritual life. Should you hear here or there the utterances of such a man as Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who, as is well known, delivered the “Addresses to the German Nation” in difficult times, then may you always carry this awareness in your heart: The power to say what Fichte, for example, said—or many others; Fichte is merely one example—this power came to him because he knew: With the best part of my self, I always live, even while I still live in the physical body, within the spiritual world. It is all around my nature. — Such people were aware that the power lived in their words, a power that came to them because they knew, as it were, the spiritual world behind their soul and acting upon it.

[ 3 ] And there is yet another reason why it is good to occasionally recall a fact such as the one just mentioned. When Johann Gottlieb Fichte delivered those lectures titled “Instructions for a Blessed Life”—which, one might say, contain his spiritual philosophy of life—to a small circle of listeners, that small circle asked him to have the lectures published in print. The lectures had made a great impression on this inner circle before whom he had delivered them. And so this inner circle urged him to have them printed, believing that wider circles should also share in the encouragement to life, in the beautiful, noble pursuit of knowledge leading to true life, which these lectures conveyed. And the powerful, energetic Fichte—who was enthusiastic about his cause to the highest degree—makes a remarkable remark in the preface to the publication of these lectures of his, which are titled “Instructions for a Blessed Life.” He says: “Friends among my listeners, who did not think unfavorably of them, have, I might almost say, persuaded me to have them printed; and to revise them once more for this printing would, given my way of working, have been the sure way to never complete them. Let them now take responsibility if the outcome turns out contrary to their expectations. For I, for my part, have been so bewildered by the sight of the endless confusion that every stronger stimulus brings with it—as well as by the gratitude that inevitably falls to the share of anyone who seeks what is right—that I have become so disoriented by the wider public that I am no longer able to advise myself in matters of this kind, and no longer know how one should speak to this public, nor whether it is even worth the effort to address it through the printing press.”

[ 4 ] I would like to cite this particular remark by Fichte precisely because it shows how infinitely isolated Fichte felt at that time—a hundred and eight years ago now—with his knowledge of the spiritual world, in contrast to the prevailing tastes and consciousness of his era. Indeed, when one observes the greatest minds in human development in their longings and aspirations, the feeling blossoms within today’s Spiritual Science that this Spiritual Science is the fulfillment of what these finest minds in human development have longed for and sought. And in the face of the dullness and lack of understanding with which Spiritual Science is met today, harmony must truly be awakened within the human soul—to nurture and strengthen this human soul—so that one may stand in unity with these greatest minds when standing on the ground of Spiritual Science. But it will take a long time before even those who have a heart for Spiritual Science find, so to speak, the right inner vitality to truly feel the nature of the impulse that Spiritual Science is meant to impart to human culture. I wish to remind you of such things again and again because I would like to see in your hearts not only the right views of the spiritual world, but also the right attitudes and feelings toward the relationship of the human being to the spiritual world and to what must necessarily follow from this in regard to the attitude we must have toward our entire environment when we fill ourselves with the views and mental images about the spiritual world.

[ 5 ] It is indeed entirely understandable that wherever the Spiritual Science first makes its way into the outer world, one must encounter ignorance and misunderstanding toward it. For let us try to understand what the relationship to Spiritual Science is for a modern citizen of the world who has not yet been touched by it—a person shaped by the views of the present day. He hears this or that; he hears claims being made about the spiritual worlds. What must he necessarily do? Well, a person cannot help but try to grasp what is said to him through his own mental images, to try to understand it himself using the mental images he possesses. But the ordinary citizen of today has no mental images that can make comprehensible to him what is spoken of regarding the spiritual world in genuine Spiritual Science. He lacks, to begin with, the mental images, terms, and ideas for this. He seeks to penetrate what is said to him with ideas he possesses, but which are drawn from entirely different sources. How, then, is he not to misunderstand these matters? How can one even assume that he will bring any understanding of the matter to bear?

[ 6 ] We must, however, be clear that one thing is of primary importance in our relationship to Spiritual Science: the acquisition of precisely those newer concepts and mental images that, before one truly approaches Spiritual Science, one essentially does not possess—mental images that cannot be brought in from the outside, but must first be acquired. One should truly grasp this as a fundamental principle in order thereby to gradually develop the right inner attitude toward the spiritual current that can be described as Spiritual Science. Let us take just one, I would say fundamental, fact: that Spiritual Science is meant to give us the ability to first perceive and comprehend the spiritual world that lies outside of us. Over the course of the year, we have taken in much of what one might call: descriptions of the spiritual world, communications about the spiritual world. And on the other hand, we have repeatedly tried to enrich our concepts so that we may truly have mental images and concepts with which to correctly grasp what takes place in the spiritual world. We speak, for example, of beings of the higher hierarchies. You are familiar with how we speak of these. We speak of the souls of the departed who are in the state of existence between death and new birth. You are familiar with how we speak of this. But we must constantly remind ourselves that one cannot speak of these things using the concepts that have, so to speak, been picked up in the world today, or at least that doing so can only lead to misunderstandings. Let us first draw attention today to a concept that we have already been able to assimilate in the course of our reflections, but which we nevertheless wish to take to heart in its particularity by highlighting it, as it has underlain the individual reflections.

[ 7 ] When we observe the external world as it lies around us, how it makes an impression on our senses, and how we seek to comprehend it through the mental images linked to our nervous system and our brain, we must say: The main thing is that we look at things. By looking at things, we perceive the human realm, human beings as physical beings, the realm of animal beings, the plant kingdom, the mineral kingdom, clouds, mountains, rivers, seas, stars, the sun, and the moon. We perceive these realms insofar as they are physical beings. We look at them, perceive their colors, hear their sounds, perceive their state of warmth; in short, we perceive them. And the expression “we perceive them”—the mental image that “we perceive them”—is entirely justified in relation to our relationship with the physical world. The moment the spiritual researcher ascends into the spiritual world, the need must immediately arise within him to use a different expression for “I perceive,” for it is by no means entirely correct to say: “I perceive the beings of the spiritual world.”—One cannot apply the expression: ‘I perceive’—cannot be applied in the same way as it is used for the physical world. It is good to realize once and for all that all so-called perception in the spiritual world has a completely different character. In the spiritual world, as one grows into it, as one feels oneself rising more and more toward it, one has rather the impression: ‘One is perceived’—not: ‘One perceives.’ — Here in the physical world, we are, so to speak, as human beings on the physical plane, the highest physical beings. A stone could say it is perceived by human beings. A plant could say it is perceived by human beings, as could an animal. Likewise, the physical human being could say he is perceived by beings of his own kind. The moment we grow upward into the spiritual world, we too are perceived. There the beings of the spiritual world look down upon us. There we are, so to speak, an object for them. And it is even the first sign that one is within the spiritual world when, as a perceiving being on the physical plane, one becomes a perceived being. Remember also what was said in the last lecture. — One grows up to the beings of the higher hierarchies by growing up to their capacities, so that what one is is perceived by them. This is how it is with the beings of the higher hierarchies. One learns to see oneself growing into a state of mind in which one says to oneself: I feel perceived by the higher beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi; I feel perceived, as I continue to develop, by the higher beings of the hierarchy of the Archangeloi—and so on. This sensing, this feeling: that beings are looking at us, that spiritual beings are acting upon us with their will—that is what I wish to express in the phrase: I am perceived. And it is good to make this very clear to oneself, so that one does not think that growing into the spiritual world is merely, as it were, a continuation of that tableau that surrounds us in the physical world. The entire mood of the soul truly changes insofar as one must take this awareness into oneself: There you live within the spiritual world, and what one experiences inwardly is the awareness: the beings of the higher hierarchies are looking at you. And when you do something, when you act, it is the forces of the beings of the higher hierarchies that flow to you, that work within you.

[ 8 ] The best way to understand such things is by describing specific circumstances. So, without any presumption—I ask you to really take this into account, that I am introducing this with the phrase “without any presumption”—and with all modesty, let me draw your attention to the following, from which we shall see, as in an example, what this relationship of the human being to the spiritual world actually is. When we are to do some work here in the physical world, we first need—for this work in the physical world, which may well be something for which one is spiritually inspired—the forces that grow within us through the physical world. And these forces that grow within us through the physical world naturally lie, for ordinary consciousness, outside of that consciousness. But we feel that, insofar as they are physical forces, we cannot initially provide them to ourselves on the physical plane. If, for example, one were to doubt this, one need only go to Dornach now to our building site and watch for a moment how our friends there transform the large blocks of wood into capitals for our columns, and how they must apply their physical strength there. And then one will have to admit: Such forces come to us purely from the physical world. — For my part, I admit quite openly that I sometimes wish I had more of such purely physical strength than I do, in order to be able to further promote the work that is now being done there. These things are meant only to serve as a comparison for what is now to be said. — Just as the forces of the hand muscles and other physical forces contribute to our work, so too can spiritual forces contribute to our achievements—forces that flow into our souls from the spiritual world and that, one might say, act from above in the same way as physical forces do when we are engaged in activities on the physical plane.

[ 9 ] In the years that followed, among many other tasks, we were assigned this one: to translate into dramatic art, within our mystery plays, that which flows through our spiritual worldview. In other words, we had to bring spiritually perceived realities to life on the physical stage. If one may use the trivial expression, one had to “stage” these things. And in this staging, various elements were necessary that represent something essentially new compared to the ordinary art of staging. Over the years, one might say, we have had to bring about such productions with ever-increasing intensity. However, what I mean now is not so much to point to the external aspects—what happens when, so to speak, everything is already in place—but rather to point to what was more the spiritual, the spiritual essence of the matter. Let this fact stand as one side of the facts I wish to recount. The other side is as follows.

[ 10 ] At the very beginning of our work in Spiritual Science, quite early on, we were visited by a person who not only developed a deep, inner, and heartfelt interest in our teachings in Spiritual Science—as we were able and had to present them at that time, at the outset of our work in Spiritual Science—but who was also imbued with a wonderfully noble artistic sensibility, by a wonderfully noble artistic sensibility, by an artistic sensibility that was, in fact, completely fused with the very essence of this individual, so that one could say, in the truest sense of the word, that one was in the presence of an objectively charming person. This personality quickly and readily took in what could be said about the Spiritual Science teachings at that time. Then—this was already in the early years of our work here—she left the physical plane, and years then passed in which the individuality of this person worked from those subconscious depths—which do indeed exist once human souls have passed through the gate of death—to bring about the union of what she had absorbed from our Spiritual Science teachings with what constituted her artistic sensibility. One might say: One could observe the building up of a spiritual body in which these two forces just described worked together—on the one hand, the fruitful insights of Spiritual Science, and on the other, the charming, energetic, and perceptive artistic sensibility. Then the years passed in this way. And in the course of the last few years, when the tasks in Munich came to us, it was time and again, often and often, before I had to decide on this or that matter—which pertained more to the inner nature of our Munich mental images—that I knew: this individuality is looking down upon everything that is happening there. And just as one’s powers grow in the physical world, precisely out of this physical world, so it is, of course, not the case that such a being would dictate to one how things are to be done. For that, one must already possess the abilities oneself. But through her warm, loving interest in our cause, through her spiritual eye with its protective radiance flowing into what one has to do, one feels empowered for the task at hand by the blessing forces emanating from such an individuality.

[ 11 ] This is what can show us how the soul, once it has passed through the gate of death, gradually transforms into a being that is actively involved, that works alongside us here on the physical plane. And when one begins to consciously perceive and feel this cooperation, then one perceives such beings as the guardian spirit, as the strengthening spirit for what one has to do here and what is connected with the spiritual world. Then one sets to work with the understanding that there, in the spiritual worlds, hovers that being who is the guardian spirit of this work.

[ 12 ] When something like this is mentioned, we can, I would say, form a concrete mental image of what should and can flow into our entire lives as that which animates us in relation to the spiritual world. For we gradually come to realize: The dead have not died; they have merely passed into another realm. They are involved in what we do. And for us, this is not merely a vague notion—that they are involved—but we gradually learn to identify the areas in which they are active. We gradually learn to feel a connection with them when we need forces that we cannot draw from the physical plane, but rather when we must feel supported by what can flow down to us from higher planes, because the souls who have passed through the gate of death by drawing the material for what they are now becoming from another world, also possess powers other than those of the physical plane. Let us try for a moment to create a mental image of the true inner deepening that life can gain when Spiritual Science comes to us not merely in the form of abstract theories, but in living reality, in the living grasping of the individual concrete, then we will truly perceive the blessing of the inflow not only of spiritual scientific theories, but of the entire spiritual current that flows into us through Spiritual Science for the whole of human life.

[ 13 ] Or take another example. I truly assume that discussions of such matters within this field are approached with the necessary reverence, for only in this way can we move from the abstract to the concrete.

[ 14 ] Not long ago, a person who had been connected with us for five years left the physical plane; a person who had gradually brought their very being into complete harmony with the insights derived from our Spiritual Science. For many years this individual lived in a frail body and, in a sense, had to struggle against the attacks of that frail body. But one may say, especially when one considers the strength required to create this individual’s final poems, that what truly manifested in this individual was what one might call the victory of the spirit over the body. You are already familiar with the wonderfully intimate, poetically intimate characteristics of the spiritual world that this individual has attained, from samples that have been presented to you. The world, if it so desires, will be able to sense much from the publication of the latest volume of poetry, which will appear in a few weeks, and which, though no longer experienced on the physical plane by the personality who created it, will nevertheless reveal to the world in a wondrous way the spiritual life that had triumphed here over the body. When I spoke about these poems in Leipzig at the end of last year, I used an expression that I employed at the time—indeed, I would say, in the same way that a person, even if that person is only a child, says: “The rose is red.”—Such a statement can be entirely correct, and yet one need not “know” that the rose is red. So I knew back then in Leipzig that I was allowed to use the expression, and that it is correct. For I said at the time, out of an inner necessity to characterize these poems: In them is expressed not only what one might call a wonderful poetic expression of our worldview, but I could say: These poems have an aura! — That is to say, what seizes the personality has entered into the soul of this being, so that not only do words flow from it, but there is something in the words that is like an aura. In short, I used that word back then and felt it was entirely correct. Now I know why I said it. Of course, one can only know after death what the personality behind these poems is setting out to do in the spiritual world, what it was preparing for. But here we have the peculiar case that this personality suffered greatly, that the physical organism had decayed. But while the physical organism had decayed, something took shape in the soul that went far beyond this physical organism, something entirely different from what initially came to the consciousness of this personality itself. This other thing lived in the depths of the soul and lived an ever-brighter life the more the physical organism, so to speak, approached its destruction. And now one sees, I might say, that which has already been prepared here in the physical world shining forth in the spiritual world. To characterize what I wish to characterize, I would like to use an image for comparison.

[ 15 ] We can be surrounded by the vastness of nature with all its beauty and grandeur. Certainly, for those who appreciate the beauty of nature, what I once said from this very spot some time ago holds true. At that time, I said: One may have walked through all the galleries of Italy, then come up into the Swiss mountains and see a sunrise there, and then have the feeling: The spiritual beings who paint the sunrise are even greater painters than those who paint something on canvas. — But even though this must be acknowledged, we must say: We admire the outer beauty of nature; we can give ourselves over to it completely. But is it not infinitely valuable to us when, in addition to being able to surrender ourselves to external nature, we perceive that a painting by Raphael or Leonardo da Vinci or another artist, besides the beauty of nature, also brings before us what another soul has placed before us? We see, projected onto the physical plane, what souls give us, and how they enrich what we ourselves can glean from nature. — I would like to use this comparison to awaken in your hearts an understanding of what I wish to tell you.

[ 16 ] The individuality of the personality I have just spoken of is now in the spiritual world. And those spiritual formations that were previously in the body are now free from the body. They are now in the spiritual world. Here on earth we will have the magnificent poems, but in the spiritual world there is something else. There shines forth what is truly connected to individuality—and from which this individuality derives its spiritual body—from the imaginations that have been prepared here during the long illness. A wondrous cosmic image! In these imaginations lives a wondrous ingredient of the cosmos that stands alongside what spiritual research can perceive directly, just as a wondrous painting stands alongside what we can perceive as the beauties of nature. The infinite becomes apparent to us when, alongside what opens up to us in the spiritual world, we also perceive how this spiritual world unfolds before the spiritual gaze in the imaginations of a human soul. I would like to say: One sees the spiritual cosmos twice, first as it appears directly to the clairvoyant gaze, and then as it reveals itself to the clairvoyant gaze through what a human soul has acquired on earth through severe suffering, yet through an energetic striving for spiritual knowledge. I need not say that all these things must be taken in a karmic sense, that no soul could ever acquire anything of the kind mentioned through its own will. We must, so to speak, leave all this to the grace of the wise guidance of the worlds, whether such things may be granted to us. As long as a person dwells on Earth, they must ensure—and others must also ensure—that they remain on Earth as long as possible, and that they may be as healthy as is at all possible. One should not need to explain this, but there is so much misunderstanding regarding these matters. No one should ever try to do anything to bring about suffering or the like. That must not be. Then they would achieve nothing at all by doing so. So if someone were to come and say: “Well, I’ll try to throw myself into suffering somehow in order to achieve something”—that would be the most wrong conclusion one could draw from these discussions.

[ 17 ] Today, using these specific examples, I wanted to present two mental images, so to speak; the first mental image, which I would like to express as follows: The spiritual beings send us their powers through the gaze of their spiritual eye—which I attempted to demonstrate through the protective individuality of our artistic endeavors. The other I wanted to cite as an example of how inwardly wise the guidance of the worlds is, how, I might say, it becomes possible for us to look into the spiritual world at what a spiritual individuality has drawn out of earthly existence and what can now itself enrich our view of the spiritual world, just as artistic views enrich our physical world. There is much I might have to say today about many other aspects of the individuality that can carry up into the spiritual worlds, in such a gifted way, what it has drawn from the anthroposophical worldview. But the time for that has not yet truly come. I have mentioned these two things because I truly believe that by contemplating such concrete matters, which are close to us, we can better grasp the mental images and ideas we need to truly penetrate the spiritual world—and to which we must initially adhere above all else if we truly wish to penetrate it. We also come together for this purpose in more intimate gatherings, so that, as it were, we can already speak our own language in these more intimate gatherings—the language we have gradually acquired for describing spiritual life. For this is the progress made on the ground of Spiritual Science: that we do not merely learn to speak in general terms about the spirit that surrounds us. Just as we do not merely speak in general terms of the nature that surrounds us. We truly do not speak only of nature and always of nature and nature, but we speak of the grass in the meadows, of the ears of grain in the field, of the trees on the mountainside, of the clouds, and so on, and we must gradually raise ourselves to speak just as concretely of the spiritual world. That is why I would also like to speak from time to time in such concrete terms about the spiritual world, by pointing to a soul that is so protective, as I have characterized it today in relation to our artistic work, or to a soul that takes on such a form after passing through the gate of death, reflecting the forces that come from the spiritual cosmos itself—forces she has already gathered here while the body was wasting away—and teaching us things we cannot otherwise easily attain.

[ 18 ] A friend and member such as the one just described—whom you are, of course, familiar with—will also be the best collaborators for what Spiritual Science has to accomplish in the world. Given the way Spiritual Science is received, misunderstood, disregarded, and treated with hostility from many quarters, it can indeed sometimes seem as if it would be difficult to get through with what Spiritual Science is truly meant to do. But then the encouraging thoughts arise that spring from such a realization, as the one mentioned today: that those who have already passed through the gate of death become the true witnesses to what Spiritual Science is meant to be. I would like this to speak a little to our hearts and souls. For when we look at it this way, we must tell ourselves again and again: The Spiritual Science will—even if it were to pass us and our lives by—become part of humanity’s spiritual progress. And that can then give us courage in the face of what we must observe from this or that side; it can give us courage for the faith and conviction that more and more people will come who will understand: The spiritual world needs new concepts, new mental images, feelings, and attitudes if one truly wishes to grasp it.

[ 19 ] May such reflections help us develop a proper relationship to what we ourselves wish to be within this spiritual movement of ours. Let us accept examples like those cited today with reverence, but let us also internalize what they can impart to our mindset, so that we may be strong enough to withstand many external assaults. Out there, I said, people can only approach us with the concepts they have picked up in the world, and we need not be directly surprised when people out there apply the concepts they have picked up in the world to what they learn about us. There are indeed great, great difficulties regarding the relationship between Spiritual Science and what is said and judged about this Spiritual Science externally in the world.

[ 20 ] As you know—as was described to you here last time with great enthusiasm by one of our dear members, speaking from personal experience—we want to begin in Dornach, near Basel, with a genuine, true work of art, one that has, however, emerged as a work of art from our worldview. Everything depends on whether some people in the world understand what is actually meant here, and that the matter is not judged solely by those who wish to characterize it using concepts picked up from the outside world. For if one approaches such a thing with concepts picked up from the outside world, one ends up—even if one perhaps means well—merely characterizing things with the concepts commonly used out there. And so we can now see that through newspapers in all languages, things are being said about the Dornach building that are capable of sweeping away in a short time what we have laboriously acquired over the years—acquired by trying not to bother the public where it understands nothing of it anyway—when reports circulate through newspapers in all languages: What kind of age are we living in? Is this still the age of materialism? A colossal temple is being built—and so on, and then when it is described how in this temple there are columns connected to one another by pentagrams, and the like. — When that happens, one first asks oneself: What will become of it if the things that are meant to spring from our spiritual current are characterized using concepts picked up from the outside world? These descriptions are now making their way through the newspapers in a truly horrifying manner! It is not necessary for us to delve into the details of such descriptions. But what is so painful about this is that where this description first appeared—from which the rest has stemmed—the cause was a good-natured soul who wanted to understand, who wanted to render a great service to the cause through this description, a soul toward whom one even made an effort, so that nothing too terrible might be set into the world, to show things, for example, how there is really no pentagram to be seen, but rather, in a single place, discreetly, the esoteric mind must first sense the pentagram. And with such a soul, who has been asked not to write anything that sounds in any way like journalism, one experiences—as if such a soul were incapable of anything else—that she can only write in such a way that she does not use the concepts and ideas one acquires in our circles, but rather the concepts and ideas that are picked up today on the street of spiritual life! How it cuts into our souls when we see how what we actually intended is now being conveyed in this way through the newspapers. The articles and clichés are then passed on from one newspaper to another, translated into every language, and in every language a special kind of nonsense, a special folly, is added. Not, of course, to find what is happening incomprehensible—I would like to say, in the clash between what our serious and sincerely intended Spiritual Science has to do and what can be understood in the outer world, these words are spoken, but truly to show you how seriously and with what dignity we must take our cause, how deeply we must become aware of how profound the understanding must be that we must acquire for what Spiritual Science is meant to be for the world.

[ 21 ] One might perhaps sometimes ask: Why were we not allowed to continue working just as modestly, and anonymously, through concepts—among those who cannot understand us—as we did for our cause before the Dornach building? — Well, the eye of the present is simply attuned to the physical plane. The spiritual goes unnoticed. But the fact that a building is being erected there in Dornach—that is visible. But such questions are, of course, completely fruitless, and that is not what matters at all. Rather, what matters is that we gain the right sense and the right understanding of our cause in our hearts. These words are not spoken to accuse or criticize anyone, but to draw your attention again and again to how deeply seriously we ourselves should strive to gain an understanding of the completely different reality that is to spring up within us, in contrast to what so often strikes in from the outside world—striking, that is, in people’s opinions. What souls truly need, what they truly yearn for, does not include such things. Souls do indeed want Spiritual Science; they yearn to obtain it. Therefore, it will be a matter of ensuring that we assess the seductions and temptations arising from materialistic opinions—and especially from intellectual arrogance—in the right way, so that we gain the proper relationship to them and do not allow ourselves to be blinded by the fact that these opinions and moods can, so to speak, visibly confront us everywhere out in the world; rather, what matters is that we truly find the strength within ourselves to fully immerse ourselves in this world, and to seek within ourselves the impulse to establish a proper relationship with our surroundings, so that Spiritual Science may truly become something that warms us from within, strengthens us from within, so that we may find in it the starting points for our judgment and not allow ourselves to be blinded by what comes to us from without, and which—because it can appear with authority and power—can repeatedly deceive us about the way in which our time is capable of understanding the Spiritual Science.

[ 22 ] That is what I wanted to bring before your souls once again today. For when we meet less frequently, as summer approaches, let us be certain of this: that the impulses of Spiritual Science live in our souls independently of time and space, that we carry them just as vividly within us, whether our gatherings are frequent or infrequent. What matters is their essence—that we truly bring them to life within ourselves. That is what I felt compelled to discuss with you today.