The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. The Influence of the Spiritual World on Our Lives

[ 1 ] Above all, my dear friends, let me express my heartfelt joy that we are able to gather here today in this branch of the Anthroposophical Society. I recall the beautiful afterglow of our gathering last year, and just as sincere and heartfelt as that afterglow was, so too is the greeting with which I would like to begin today’s reflections.

[ 2 ] Today I would like to speak about a subject that is deeply connected to the very essence of our anthroposophical movement. Everything we are able to present within our spiritual movement is based on research that can be called clairvoyant research. And while it must certainly be emphasized time and again that the anthroposophical truths primarily touch our hearts and our souls, we must not overlook the fact that what is meant to work upon our hearts and souls within this movement has its foundation in this clairvoyant research. Clairvoyant research is the expression of a different state of the human soul than that which dominates everyday life. At first glance, it seems to lead us away from what is so familiar to us as human beings in our daily lives. In truth, however, this clairvoyant research leads us precisely to the very heart of truly human life. Today I do not wish to speak about the paths to clairvoyant research, which have already been outlined in the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, but rather I wish to speak about the peculiarities of that state of the soul, that mood of the human soul, which must arise under the influence of clairvoyant research. We must note that the paths to clairvoyant research do indeed lead to a point where, within this process, a person truly feels like a completely different being than they otherwise do in life. If one wishes to compare what surrounds the human soul when it becomes clairvoyant with a phenomenon of ordinary life, one can at most compare it to the phenomena of dreaming, which, however, are like a surrogate for clairvoyance. We recall that in a dream we live and move within a world of images which presents itself in such a way that, if we observe it closely, nothing can appear to us of what we call “the sense of contact with an external object,” and that, in the ordinary case of a dream, nothing initially appears to us that we can compare with our ordinary sense of self. If, in a dream, something of our ego does appear to us, it appears as separate from us, like an external being. We face our ego as if it were another being, so that one can speak of a doubling of the ego, although in the dream one perceives only the ego that has stepped out, not the subjective ego. Everything that seems to contradict what has just been said stems from the fact that most people know about dreams only from memory and cannot accurately retain in memory the fact that in actual dreaming the subjective self is extinguished.

[ 3 ] The field of clairvoyant research initially possesses the same characteristics that arise from the fact that the sense of touch and the subjective self are suspended in dreams. When the clairvoyant recalls the experiences of clairvoyance, they must have the sensation in that memory that the realities of clairvoyance are permeable, that one can reach through them, not that they offer resistance like a physical object. And regarding the sense of self: In the physical world, we have the sense of self because we know: I am standing here; the object is outside of me. — In the field of clairvoyant observation, we are inside the object; we do not separate ourselves, we do not distinguish ourselves from the objects of the clairvoyant field. This peculiarity of the clairvoyant field has the very specific consequence that the individual objects are not fixed like the delimited objects of the physical field, but are in constant motion and transformation. The objects of the physical field are fixed in that we can touch them, in that they set boundaries for us. The objects of the clairvoyant field do not impose such boundaries on us. That which causes our ego to merge with the objects of the clairvoyant field also means that everything that confronts us on the physical plane as an ego—that is, the human being themselves—requires us to exercise extraordinary caution in our observation when they appear in the clairvoyant field. I wish to consider the most significant case first: that we encounter a deceased person in the clairvoyant field through our developed clairvoyant abilities. When we encounter a deceased person, this may occur in such a way that, at first, the figure of the deceased person appears to us in the clairvoyant field like a vivid dream image, just as we have a mental image of him when he was still alive. However, this is not the usual case, but rather an extreme exception.

[ 4 ] It may happen that a deceased person approaches us in the clairvoyant field and that this deceased person takes on the form of a living person or another deceased person—a form that is not their own. The form in which a deceased person appears to us is, at first, not at all decisive for the identification of the deceased in question. It may happen that a deceased person approaches us and we have been particularly fond of another deceased person, or we have a particularly friendly relationship with a living person; in that case, the deceased person who appears to us may take on the form of that deceased person or of the living person. From this point of view, we initially lack all means by which we can recognize, on the physical plane, the identification of a self with a form. What can then help us to truly find our bearings is, first of all, to assume that the form is not at all decisive, but that in this or that form some being simply appears to us, and then to observe what this being does, what actions it performs. And if we calmly immerse ourselves in the image, it will become clear that, given all we know about the figure in question, this figure cannot act in the way it does in the clairvoyant realm. We will very often encounter a contradiction between the figure and its mode of action. And if we follow the course of action with our feeling, quite apart from the impression of the figure, then a feeling rises up from the depths of our soul that points us toward the being in question. Let us note that it is a feeling rising up from the depths of the soul that guides us, for this is of the utmost importance. That which appears to us in the clairvoyant field as a form that might be somewhat similar to a physical form can be as dissimilar to the being that actually appears as the symbols on paper representing the word “house” are dissimilar to the actual house. But just as, when we see on paper the symbols that make up the word “house,” we do not focus our attention on the symbols or describe the shapes of the letters, but rather, through our ability to read, move beyond the shape of the letters to the mental image of the house’s form—so, on the true path to clairvoyance, we acquire the ability to move from the form to the actual being. For this reason, one speaks in the true sense of the word of reading the occult script, that is, of an inwardly living movement beyond what the vision is to what the vision expresses—but expresses in reality, just as the script expresses realities.

[ 5 ] It is only natural, then, that we must ask ourselves: How do we acquire this ability to go beyond form, beyond immediate vision? We acquire this ability above all by taking in new mental images, new concepts that we need if we are to understand the clairvoyant field—new mental images in contrast to the mental images we have for the physical field. In the physical realm, there is an object or a being, and as we perceive it, we rightly say: I perceive the being, I perceive the object, I perceive it. Thus we perceive the beings of the plant, mineral, and animal kingdoms, of the physical human kingdom; thus we perceive clouds, mountains, rivers, stars, the sun, and the moon. This feeling, expressed in the words: “I perceive”—undergoes a change, a transformation, when we enter the clairvoyant realm.

[ 6 ] I will try to clarify what I just said by using a comparison that may sound a bit crude. Let us put ourselves in the mind of a plant and consider its relationship to us when we perceive it. If the plant could speak consciously, it would have to say: I am being looked at by people; I am being perceived by people. — We say: I perceive the plant. — From its own consciousness, the plant would have to say: I am being perceived by people. — And we must adopt this feeling of being perceived, of being looked at, toward the beings of the clairvoyant realm. When we speak, for example, of the beings of the first hierarchy above us, the hierarchy of the Angeloi, we must be clear that, strictly speaking, it is not correct to say: “I perceive an angel”—but rather we must say: “We feel that an angel perceives us, or perceives me.” — Just as we say: “The sun rises and moves around the horizon”—even though, as adherents of the Copernican worldview, we are convinced that the sun stands still, that the sun does not move—just as in these words of ours we contradict what we think, so we can certainly also say in ordinary language: “I see an angel.” — In truth, it is not correct. In truth, we must say: I feel myself being seen or gazed upon by an angel. — The expression: The essence of an angel or the essence of a dead person rests upon me, perceptible to me — is a correct statement from the clairvoyant’s point of view. Things are perhaps most easily understood through examples. Let us therefore cite an example here from genuine clairvoyant observation.

[ 7 ] At the beginning of our work in the field of Spiritual Science—more than a decade ago now—a person who was very dear to us and a close friend worked with us for a short time. This person was endowed not only with an enthusiastic inner response to what we were able to offer her at that time, at the beginning of the Spiritual Science movement, but also with a deep artistic feeling and sensibility and a profound artistic understanding. One could not help but grow fond of this person—I would say with a love that can be called objective, given the qualities that characterized her. She then left the physical plane after having worked with us for a relatively short time and having truly absorbed a great deal of our findings in Spiritual Science at that time. It is not necessary for me now to touch upon the next four to five years following the death of the person in question, but I will immediately recount what took place after four to five years had elapsed since her physical death. The year 1909 arrived, in which we began our Mystery Plays in Munich; to our great joy, we were able to begin with “The Children of Lucifer” by our highly esteemed Edouard Schuré. Whatever one may think about the merits or shortcomings of how we performed these Mystery Plays at that time and then over the years, we had to perform them exactly as we did. What I may say, however, is that under the circumstances in which the performances had to be staged, we needed an impulse from the spiritual world, including for the artistic elements we wished to integrate into the performances. Now I can give you the most certain assurance that even back then, in 1909, but especially more and more significantly in the years that followed, I always felt anew a certain spiritual impulse whenever I set about arranging the staging and the entire setup of the performances in question. Let us also consider the following. When one has anything to do on the physical plane, one needs not only mental power and talents, but also one’s muscles for work on the physical plane. These muscles are something that objectively comes to our aid, something that is given to us, in contrast to the mental powers in which we ourselves live. Now, when it comes to the spiritual, just as we need muscular strength for physical action, we need spiritual forces that come from the spiritual world and unite with our own powers. In the case I have cited, it was such that, as the years went by, for the artistic design of the Munich plays, more and more the impulse emanating from the aforementioned personality—who had left the physical plane since 1904—flowed into what I myself had to do, into what I had to do for my colleagues. If I wanted to express correctly what this is all about, I had to say to myself: The impulse that comes down from the spiritual plane from this personality flows into your intentions, into your actions. She is the patroness of what is at stake here.

[ 8 ] This is how we feel correctly—even toward a deceased person—when we are aware that their spiritual eye—if I may use that expression—and their powers rest upon us, flow into our own powers, look upon us, and act within us. — To experience such a spiritual reality in the right way, a very specific kind of selflessness and capacity for love is necessary above all else. That is why I emphasized that one could, as it were, love the person in question objectively because of their qualities; one had to love them because they were as they were. A subjective love, a love that arises from personal needs and can easily be selfish—such a love can, under certain circumstances, prevent us from finding the right relationship to such a deceased personality. And the difference between the right love, the selfless love, that we show toward such a deceased being, and selfish love, truly becomes apparent in clairvoyant experience.

[ 9 ] Suppose such a personality were to help us after their death, and we were unable to muster a truly selfless love for them; then the current emanating from them—as they direct their spiritual eye and will toward us—would feel like a burning sensation, creating a piercing, burning feeling in our soul. If we can muster and sustain a truly selfless love toward a deceased person, then the current—the spiritual gaze, as it were—emanating from such a person will wash over our soul like warm gentleness, and that warm gentleness will pour into our thoughts, our mental images, our feelings, and our will. And in this feeling we recognize the departed personality, not by its immediate form, for it can take on a form that is particularly familiar to us and expresses itself through this familiar form. The forms in which the beings of the higher world appear to us—and a deceased person is, after death, a being of the higher, spiritual world—these forms depend on our subjective nature, on what we are accustomed to seeing, thinking, and feeling. The way we feel and perceive the being that expresses itself in the form, how we receive what emanates from the being—that is reality. However the Maid of Orleans may have spoken of the forms in which the beings of the higher world appeared to her, the occultist, who is able to investigate these matters, knows that behind these forms there was always the Genius of the French nation.

[ 10 ] I have described to you how one learns to feel the gaze of spiritual beings resting upon one, how their will pours into our own soul. By learning this, one learns what is analogous to physical reading in the context of clairvoyance. Someone who wanted nothing more than to describe their visions would be like a person who described the shape of the letters on the paper without pointing to what they read through the letters and words. You can see from this how all too easy it is to be prejudiced toward experiences in the field of clairvoyance. For the natural tendency is, of course, to place the main emphasis on describing the form of the vision, whereas what really matters is what lies behind the veil of the visionary and expresses itself through the images of the visions. Thus it is necessary to create a mental image of the soul developing occultly and immersing itself in very specific moods and inner states that differ from the moods and states of ordinary life. We can say: At the moment when, through our occult exercises, we have reached the point where the contact characteristic of the physical plane ceases, and where the form ceases to be characteristic of the ego of the being in question, at that moment we are in the world where we become capable of perceiving the hierarchy of the Angeloi and the hierarchy, we might also say, the hierarchies of the departed. A transformation then takes place in our thinking, in our life of thought, when the sense of contact and the identification of the I through the form ceases. We no longer have thoughts in the sense that we have them here in the physical world. In this world, every thought takes the form of an elemental being, becomes a being. In the physical world, thoughts contradict one another or agree with one another. In the world we are entering, thoughts fight one another as real beings. They love one another or they hate one another. We immediately find ourselves living in a world of many thought-beings. And that which we are accustomed to calling “life”—we truly feel it there within the living thoughts, which are living beings. Life and thoughts have become united, whereas in the physical world life and thoughts are completely separate from one another. When one speaks as a physical human being, communicating one’s thoughts to someone, one has the feeling: Your thoughts come from your soul; you must recall your thoughts in the moment. When one speaks as an occultist—truly speaks as an occultist, not merely recounting from memory what one has experienced—one must have the feeling: Your thoughts arise as living beings, and you must be glad when, at the right moment, you are blessed with the thought approaching as a real being.

[ 11 ] To make this clear, I will cite two points. When one speaks as a physical human being from one’s thoughts, if, for example, one is giving a lecture for the thirtieth time, one will speak more easily than one did when giving it for the first time. When speaking as an occultist, the thoughts must always truly come to one, and then leave one again. And just as a person who visits us for the thirtieth time must perform the same work each time—just as, when visiting us thirty times, they must make the journey thirty times—so the thought we convey for the thirtieth time as a living thought must come to us thirty times, coming to us exactly as it did the first time, and memory is of no use to us whatsoever in this.

[ 12 ] When a physical human being expresses his thoughts, and there is someone in some corner among the listeners who thinks: I don’t like the nonsense this person is spouting, I hate him — this will not particularly unsettle a physical human being. One has perhaps prepared one’s thoughts in one way or another and speaks them out, quite indifferent to whether someone in some corner is sitting there with good or bad thoughts. When one, as an occultist, allows one’s thoughts to be conveyed, it may well be that the thought is held back by someone who hates it, or by someone who hates the speaker. And one must then first overcome the forces with which the thought is held back, for example, in the same room, because one is dealing with a living being and not with an abstract thought.

[ 13 ] I mention these two things to show how one immediately becomes immersed, upon entering the clairvoyant field, in a living, active interplay of thoughts. The thoughts seem to have stepped out of the subjective realm, and one has stepped out of oneself and lives outside—I might say, in the wider world. By living in this world of living and weaving thoughts, one is in the world of the hierarchy of the Angeloi, and one might say: Just as our physical world is filled everywhere with air, wherever we go, so is this world of the hierarchy of the Angeloi filled everywhere with that gentle warmth mentioned earlier, which radiates from the beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi. When, through our inner development of this kind, we rise to the possibility of living in the spiritual atmosphere of flowing mildness, then, one might say, we can feel the spiritual eyes of the hierarchy of the Angeloi resting upon our own soul.

[ 14 ] Let us try to characterize the same thing from another perspective. In our physical life, we have ideals. We conceive of these ideals as abstractions. By conceiving of them, we feel compelled to follow them. As soon as we enter the realm of clairvoyant observation, there are no abstract ideals. The abstract ideals are living beings there, the beings of the Hierarchy of the Angeloi. These ideals flow—one might say, gazing at us with warmth—through spiritual space in the form of a being of the Hierarchy of the Angeloi.

[ 15 ] In the physical world, we may have an ideal; we may be aware of it, but we cannot make use of this knowledge; instead, we may be led by passion, by emotion, by feeling to, as it were, skirt around the ideal. In the world of the clairvoyant field, it is different. If we disregard any ideal of which we are aware, we feel: A spiritual gaze resting upon us from a being of the hierarchy of the Angeloi reproaches us, and the reproach burns. Thus, the disregard of an ideal in the spiritual world is a real fact—the fact that a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi reproaches us. And the peculiarity of the world I have just spoken of is that we feel the reproach through the spiritual gaze of such a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi resting upon us. By being looked upon by the being, we feel the reproach. The act of looking is simultaneously the feeling of the reproach. You can see from this that one possible way to enter the world of the hierarchy of the Angeloi is to learn to feel genuinely toward ideals. If we keep our consciousness only on the physical plane, we will think in the following way: I find that this is some ideal I have recognized, but I am too comfortable to follow it. If I do not follow it, well, then nothing has happened. — Suppose we learn to feel differently, to feel that when we know of some ideal and, without any other consequence arising from this than that we have not followed it, we say to ourselves: If you do not follow this ideal, the world, after you have not followed it, has become different from what it would have been if you had followed it. — If we accustom ourselves to seeing something real in the non-following of our ideals and transform this into a real feeling, then we are on the path into the hierarchy of the Angeloi. Thus, in the possibility of transforming our feelings, of bringing our feelings to life, the possibility reveals itself to us of growing with the soul into the higher worlds.

[ 16 ] By continuing our efforts in esoteric practice, we can also ascend to a higher world, the world of the Hierarchy of the Archangels. When we do not follow the angel, we feel his reproach; when it comes to the Archangel, we not only feel his reproach, but we also feel a real effect emanating from him upon our own being. We can truly say: As we ourselves live with our thoughts and feelings in the world that belongs to the Hierarchy of the Archangels, the strength, the power of the Archangels works through our being. — I will again try to make this case understandable through an example.

[ 17 ] In recent months, we have lost a friend who was exceptionally dear to us, as he departed from the physical plane. This person, a profound, intimate poet, had, over the course of recent times—nearly five years—quickly found his way so deeply into our anthroposophical worldview that what he was able to feel precisely from our worldview resonated beautifully with us in his intimate poems of recent years. Throughout this time—essentially since he joined us and even before—he struggled with a sickly, decaying body. And the more his physical body declined, the more poems that corresponded to our worldview took root in his soul. Now that he has departed from the physical plane, the following is becoming apparent. Since little time has passed since this personality left the physical plane, one cannot really even speak of a clearly existing consciousness in this individual. Nevertheless, the first stages of his development during the period between death and a new birth are manifesting in a quite peculiar way. The astral body, which has withdrawn from the physical body and now lives in the spiritual world, reveals within itself the most wondrous tableaux of cosmic evolution, as we can come to know them through Spiritual Science. An astral body has drawn itself out of the decaying physical body, and soon after death—one might say, comparatively speaking—it shone so brightly that, in the clairvoyant realm, one had before one’s eyes a complete picture of cosmic evolution. To make it clear what is meant, I would like to use a comparison. One can be a great lover of nature, one can admire everything that is spread out in nature, in the outer physical reality around us, and yet still enjoy going to a truly beautiful painting that recreates, from another soul, what one sees outside in nature on a vast scale. In a similar way, one can have the clairvoyant field around oneself with all its mysteries and yet be inwardly uplifted by seeing, once again, what one beholds in the clairvoyant field—I would say, as if in a cosmic work of art—shining forth from a human astral body, from a human soul that has passed through the gate of death. If one now asks: By what means has that which the astral body shows us after death—of which it is itself still unconscious, though it will later become conscious of it—become imprinted upon the astral body in this case? — one receives the answer: Because, while it was undergoing its own anthroposophical development, the beings from the hierarchy of the Archangels worked their way into its poetically transfigured anthroposophical thoughts and ideas.

[ 18 ] We can call the progress we make through our occult development “progress in mysticism,” for this progress is, first and foremost, an inner progress of the soul. We bring ourselves, out of our ordinary personality, into a different state of our individuality, of our entire being. Step by step, we bring ourselves into a different state. This inner progression, this ever-advancing of the soul, can be called the mystical progress of the soul, as it initially seems to be experienced inwardly. But what inner mysticism is, is not merely this mysticism; rather, at the moment one has developed the ability to perceive the gentleness looking down from the spiritual world, at that very moment one is objectively within the world of the Angeloi—the world of the Angeloi reveals itself. And at the moment when one learns to recognize how real effects of strength and power enter into us, at that moment we are within the world of the Archangels. Thus, every stage of inner mystical progress signifies being transported into another world. We cannot reach a certain stage of mystical development within without being transported into another world.

[ 19 ] Only if we do not bring in what has been described as selflessness in this sense does something else happen. Let us suppose, for example, that we work on ourselves and reach a stage of development that allows us to live in the world of the Angeloi through our inner abilities. But if we remain self-centered, egoistic, and unloving people, then we carry our physical self into the world of the Angeloi. And instead of feeling the gentle gaze and the gentle will of the Angeloi upon us, we feel those spiritual powers that can rise through us—powers that, instead of looking at us from the outside, are set free through us from their, let us call it, underworld, as we are lifted up into a higher world. Instead of the world of the angels overshadowing or, rather, outshining us, the corresponding world of Luciferic beings emerges from within us. And when we live our way up into the world of the Archangels under the same conditions—so that we have indeed reached the stage of mystical development through which we can stand within the world of the Archangels, but without developing the feeling of wishing to receive the influences of the spiritual world through grace—then we in turn carry our own selves up into the world of the Archangels. And instead of the Archangels then permeating us within this world, imbuing us with their powers, instead the beings of the Ahrimanic world, the world of Ahriman, emerge from within us and surround us.

[ 20 ] At first glance, it seems quite terrifying to say: The world of Lucifer appears on the plane of the Angeloi, while the world of Ahriman appears on the plane of the Archangeloi. Yet in reality, this fact is by no means terrifying. Lucifer and Ahriman are, under all circumstances, higher beings than human beings themselves. Lucifer is a being we might describe as an archangel who has remained at an earlier stage; Ahriman is a being we might describe as a spirit of personality who has remained at an earlier stage. What is terrifying is not that we encounter Lucifer and Ahriman, but rather that we encounter them and fail to recognize them. To encounter Lucifer in the world of the Angeloi actually means to encounter the spirit of beauty, the spirit of freedom. But everything depends on our ability, at the very moment we enter the world of the Angeloi, to truly perceive Lucifer and his hosts. The same applies to Ahriman in the world of the Archangels. The emergence of Lucifer and Ahriman in the higher worlds is terrible only if we do not recognize them when we bring them forth—that is, if they dominate us without our consciously facing them. What matters is that we consciously face them. Thus the view one might easily hold of Lucifer and Ahriman is modified when one considers the premises we have presented today. Let us now suppose that through our mystical development we have ascended to the realm of the Angeloi and have become capable of truly living within the world of the Angeloi. If we now wish to engage in truly fruitful occultism within the realm of the Angeloi, then at the very moment when we expect the Angeloi to rest their spiritual gaze upon us, we must ask: Where is Lucifer? — He must be there! For if we cannot answer the question: Where is Lucifer? — then he is within us. But he must be outside of us in this realm; we must stand face to face with him. That is what matters. I have expounded on this not merely to emphasize the facts I have highlighted regarding Lucifer and Ahriman, regarding angels and archangels, but to elucidate a peculiarity in the revelation of the higher world. Speaking from the standpoint of the physical plane, one can easily be led to say: Lucifer and Ahriman are evil forces. As soon as one enters the higher world, this statement—that Lucifer and Ahriman are evil forces—no longer has any meaning. Lucifer and Ahriman must be present in the clairvoyant realm, just as the angels and archangels must be present. Now, however, there is indeed a certain difference between the perception of the angels and archangels and the perception of Lucifer and Ahriman. I have explained: We perceive the angels not by regarding their form as the defining feature, but by perceiving the gentleness that flows into us from them. We perceive the archangels, in turn, not by perceiving their form as the defining feature, but by allowing their strength, their power, to flow into our feeling, into our will. Lucifer and Ahriman are, in the spiritual world, like forms—forms that are merely translated into the spiritual realm, which do not provide physical contact, but are like forms that can be addressed as spiritualized repetitions of the physical world. You can see from this that it is important, in our mystical clairvoyant development, not only to acquire the ability to see figures in the higher world, but also to develop the awareness: You are being observed; a higher will rests upon you. This latter awareness must be added to the awareness of seeing figures clairvoyantly.

[ 21 ] You can see from this that higher development does not consist merely in the acquisition of clairvoyance—in the acquisition of what is often called the gift of clairvoyance—but in the acquisition of a certain state of mind, a certain spiritual disposition, and a certain relationship to the beings of the higher world. And the development of visionary abilities must proceed in strict parallel with the other development of the soul indicated here—toward a different state, toward a different mood. We must realize from this that under all circumstances we must learn not only to see into the higher world, but to read in the higher world—reading not in a pedantic sense as something that can be learned in a basic way, but as something into which one immerses oneself by undergoing transformations of one’s feelings and sensations, as has been indicated. Therefore, it is important to truly grasp that at the moment when clairvoyance begins and one thereby ascends to the revelation of higher worlds, a kind of split in the personality actually takes place. The personality one is on the physical plane—that one leaves behind. One is now a different personality by ascending into a higher world. And just as we are regarded in the higher world by the beings of the higher hierarchies, just as we are perceived by the beings of the higher hierarchies, so do we ourselves regard our ordinary personality from our higher vantage point. We look upon our lower self as a higher being, having stepped out of the lower self with the higher being. So that we do well, if we wish to express anything valid for the higher worlds, to wait until we are in a position to say: That is you, whom you yourself see there in your clairvoyant field; that is you. — This “That is you” corresponds on the higher plane to the “That is me” on the physical plane. This “That is me” transforms on the higher plane into “That is you.” What has just been said actually conveys more than one usually thinks. Imagine for a moment that you were looking back from your present vantage point to the time when you were eight or thirteen or fifteen years old, and you were trying to reconstruct a small part of your life from memory—from the eighth, the thirteenth, or the fifteenth year. Vividly imagine this looking back into your own world of thoughts, as you reconstruct the memories from that world of thoughts. Now bring to mind the feeling you now have toward that eight-, thirteen-, or fifteen-year-old boy or girl who was yourself. Vividly bring to mind your present feeling toward these past experiences. As soon as one ascends from the physical plane into the higher world, the moment in which we are living right now immediately becomes a memory such as the one just described. One looks back on what one is now on the physical plane and on what one can still become in the remainder of one’s physical life, just as you look back from your present vantage point on the experiences of your eighth, thirteenth, and fifteenth years. It is absolutely true: what we feel, what we think, the mental images we create, the actions we take on the physical plane—at the very moment we enter the higher world, all of this, which we summarize as our self on the physical plane, becomes a memory. We look down upon the physical plane and, as soon as we live in the higher world, have become a memory. And just as we distinguish a present point of view of our experience from one long past, so must we distinguish what we experience in higher worlds from what we experience on the physical plane. Imagine if someone who is forty years old were to vividly recall the soul’s mood, the abilities they had as an eight-year-old boy or girl. They would read a book, and while reading as a forty-year-old, they would begin, right in the middle of it, to relate to the book as if they were eight years old. That would be a mixing of the two moods of the soul, the two states of the soul, and you have an analogy for what arises when someone mixes his state of soul for the physical plane with what his state of soul must be for the other world.

[ 22 ] What I have just said, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that what is described from the higher worlds is understandable to every open-minded person; that is to say, we do not merely have to believe what is described, but it can be comprehensible to us if we approach it with a truly open mind. For if someone were to say: How can one describe the higher worlds using the concepts, thoughts, and ideas of the physical plane, since they are entirely different from the thoughts and ideas of the physical plane? — such an objection would be just as valid as if someone were to say: Yes, you want to evoke a certain mental image in me and write down “H-o-u-s-e.” I can’t create a mental image from that. If you want me to create a mental image, you have to bring a house to me.”—But we also characterize a physical fact, a physical thing, through something that has nothing at all to do with the fact and the thing in question. In the same way, we characterize, quite accurately, through what we can understand on the physical plane, that which are facts of the spiritual plane. But what is the necessary consequence of the facts presented in today’s discussion is that we must realize: We cannot understand what exists in the higher world with the concepts and mental images we usually have, but we must truly acquire other concepts, other mental images. We must enrich our imaginative life if we wish to understand the higher worlds. It is immensely important that we be attentive to the fact: as soon as the higher world is presented to us in an honest manner, the presenter must truly lead our conceptual faculties beyond the everyday; they must give us other concepts, but concepts that are entirely comprehensible on the physical plane.

[ 23 ] You see, one of the difficulties in understanding true Spiritual Science—genuine, serious occultism—is that people find it so hard to bring themselves to expand their conceptual understanding. They wish to understand the higher world—or that which has been revealed from it—using the concepts they already possess, without creating new ones. In our materialistic age, it is easy for someone who speaks of occult worlds to simply create a mental image that this occult world merely requires one to gaze upon a spiritual realm in which the figures are somewhat thinner, somewhat more nebulous than in the physical world, yet similar, only fluttering like mist. It will seem uncomfortable to some that the occultist who is serious about the matter is required not only to accept instructions on how to perceive an angel, but also to rethink and apply the concept to the angel: You are being looked upon by him; he rests his spiritual gaze upon you. — I can therefore say: Mystical development, which objectively means ascending into the higher world, is inseparable from an enrichment, from a deepening of our mental images, our feelings, and our entire soul impulses. We must not remain as impoverished in our imaginative life as we may be on the physical plane if we wish to understand the higher worlds.

[ 24 ] In order to create, so to speak, an occult foundation in this direction, it became necessary to construct, in a truly new style, the modest building that we can erect for our spiritual movement in Dornach. This building is, of course, by no means what we might envision as the ideal of such a structure; it is a modest beginning, because only modest means are at our disposal, even though our friends—a small number of our friends—have done everything in their power to bring this building to fruition.

[ 25 ] If we consider the architectural styles that have emerged so far in the third, fourth, and our current fifth post-Atlantean epochs, they are characterized by the fact that their spiritual impulses contain, as it were, that which humanity was meant to bring down into the physical plane through its understanding. The Egyptian architectural style, through its geometric form and its lapidary form, provided the initial impetus for bringing the human spirit down to the physical plane. Greek and Roman architecture are like a marriage of the soul and the spirit with the etheric body and the physical body, as if the soul and spirit on one side, and the etheric body and physical body on the other, were interlocking while maintaining perfect balance. The Gothic architectural style is the first attempt to rise up into the soaring pointed arch and all that belongs to it, ascending once more from the physical plane into the spiritual world. The next step forward, which must occur if Spiritual Science is truly to stand before us, so to speak, as a built reality, must consist in bringing to life what I described earlier as the living, weaving thought-form itself, which pours out into space and spreads out in space in such a way that what stands before us spatially is what imagination and inspiration directly give us from the spiritual world. Therefore, all forms of the Dornach building are such that one cannot ask of them in a materialistic way: What symbols do they represent in this or that world? — but one must take them as they are, since, poured out into space, they are the immediate spiritual experiences themselves. And an attempt is made to truly dissolve everything that can be spiritually perceived and felt into the artistic form. If, therefore, someone asks: “What does this or that form mean?”—then they do not understand the architecture, for every form signifies only itself, just as the human hand or the human head signify only themselves and nothing else. We must regard it at that very moment as a complete misunderstanding of our intent regarding our stance on occultism if someone were to come forward with such a question. For we shall count ourselves fortunate if we have overcome the old nonsense of the Theosophists, who ask of every fairy tale, every figure, every myth: What does this mean, what does that mean? — Our forms are all real in the spiritual world; they truly exist in the spiritual world and therefore signify only themselves and nothing else; they are not symbols, but spiritual realities. If you examine the entire structure, you will find nowhere a pentagram, nowhere the shape of a pentagram, nowhere a reason to ask: What does this or that form mean? At most, very subtly hinted at, one might see a pentagram in one place, but only with the same justification as you can see a pentagram in any five-petaled plant. And if someone were to ask us: What do our fourteen columns mean—which are not built in the shape of a pentagram, but are pentagonal for aesthetic reasons—what do they mean, the columns that support a large domed structure, and the twelve columns that support a smaller dome, what do these columns mean? — If someone were to ask us: What do these mean, apart from the fact that they represent a spatial proportion perceptible as such in the spiritual world—then we would have to ask in return: In what age of materialism do we live today, that even what is spiritually intended must be represented in the guise of the materialistic?

[ 26 ] Our structure will be understood if one deigns to ask: What does it represent? — not: What does it mean? What is it? — and not: What does it symbolize? — And our structure will be understood when one realizes that it is best not to use any of the common terms, but rather, to aid understanding in our materialistic age, to refrain from resorting to old figurative language. Let us be clear that Spiritual Science can at most be a synthesis of other religions. The ancient religions built temples; Spiritual Science does not build a temple, but rather that which follows naturally from its own essences; for which it is best to form an understanding only gradually, rather than adhering to the principle of applying old words to this new reality.

[ 27 ] My dear friends, I have a request to make. We know very well that in Dornach we can achieve what we have in mind only in the most modest, most elementary, and most primitive way. But we would ask for this one thing: that an effort be made to truly grasp this modest beginning of what is, after all, a new undertaking—out of the very spirit and meaning of our Spiritual Science—otherwise, I might say, one’s heart would almost break—to truly grasp what is actually being strived for through sacrifice in this modest beginning.

[ 28 ] Enough grandiloquent words and pompous phrases have been thrown about in the realm of what is known as the occult movement. We want only one thing: that people learn to say that, even if in fifty years none of the specific forms in which we express this or that may remain, one would still say of our movement: It strove in every fiber to be fundamentally true and fundamentally honest. — And the more modestly, the more simply, but then perhaps all the more objectively what we want is discussed, the better the cause is served. Every word and every term that is superfluous, or even of the sort that falls back into the old, comfortable conceptual framework, does unspeakable harm to what we—forgive the expression—wish to strive for in an honest manner. If we are understood in this way, then perhaps the mood we need will be established to some extent, should we, in December at the earliest, truly find ourselves in a position to open our modest building without any pomp, without any affectations or external fanfare, for the appropriate atmosphere can only be created by truly focusing solely on what we want, even if it does not cause a sensation in our materialistic age.

[ 29 ] Please also take the last words I spoke as coming from the sincere spirit of our spiritual movement, as what is necessary for our soul if this spiritual movement is truly to take root in our time. And it is necessary that an honest spiritual movement—one that genuinely fosters the mystical life of the soul and makes the revelations of the higher worlds possible—that such a spiritual movement pour itself into our materialistic age. Then, when our friends understand this meaning, this spirit of our spiritual movement, then and only then will we be able to fulfill the task set before us by the wise, leading individualities of the spiritual world.

[ 30 ] Building on what I have tried to explain to you today, I will take the liberty of speaking the day after tomorrow about the progress of the understanding of Christ throughout the ages and about the position of our movement regarding the question of Christ.