The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] In our recent reflections here, we have focused from a certain perspective on the life that unfolds behind the one that takes place for human beings in everyday life or in conventional science, within the physical consciousness mediated to them through the earthly instrument, through the physical body. Essentially, all our reflections are directed toward this life that unfolds beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness. Nevertheless, as is necessary in Spiritual Science, we attempt to approach this life from a wide variety of angles.

[ 2 ] Whereas certainty regarding external physical-sensory reality is gained simply through observation—a person says: I know that something exists if I have seen it —, certainty regarding the spiritual worlds is also created for those who are unable to ascend into them through special exercises by illuminating them from various angles. Through these illuminations from various angles, which then harmonize, a certain degree of certainty can be attained.

[ 3 ] I have drawn particular attention to the fact that human beings exist in the world not only through what they perceive with ordinary consciousness, but that beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness there unfolds a human life that is not encompassed by consciousness, yet which becomes recognizable when the human being, as one says, passes through the gate of initiation, yet remains unconscious to ordinary human life. Much is happening in the world with the whole being that is the human being—as I have put it—and what one knows while passing through life in the physical body is only a part of what is actually happening to the human being. And every endeavor to connect with the spiritual world consists in looking into this life that unfolds beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness, that is, by expanding this consciousness, to cross the threshold and look into precisely that in which we actually stand, but which we cannot grasp with ordinary consciousness. And so I said that there is a certain shiftable threshold between ordinary consciousness and that which—and the word does indeed have a specific significance for us—proceeds “unconsciously-consciously” for human beings.

[ 4 ] Last time, I gave a very obvious example. Early in the morning, a person decides to do something that he intends to carry out in the evening. He lives, so to speak, with the thought that he will carry this out in the evening. At noon, something happens that prevents them from carrying it out in the evening. To the ordinary consciousness, this may appear to be one of those events we call a coincidence. But if one looks more deeply into human life, one discovers wisdom in this so-called coincidence—a wisdom that lies below the threshold of consciousness. One cannot really fathom this wisdom with ordinary consciousness, but in such cases one very often discovers that, had the obstacle not occurred at noon, the person might have been brought into quite dire straits by undertaking the matter in question that evening. I said last time that he might have broken a leg in the evening or something similar. And once one sees the connection, one discovers that there is wisdom in the entire course of events, that the soul itself sought out and brought about the obstacle, but with intentions that lie below the threshold of consciousness. Now, this is something that still lies very close to ordinary consciousness, but it points down into a region to which the human being belongs—to which he belongs with the hidden parts of his being that, after he has shed the physical body, pass through the gate of death. It belongs to that ruling consciousness of which we spoke in the public lecture as a spectator of our acts of will. This spectator is truly always there. It guides and directs us, but ordinary consciousness knows nothing of it. Much is going on there that interposes itself between the events that ordinary consciousness overlooks. And there, just as the living being prepares itself within the egg, namely in all that interposes itself between the events of life, in what takes place beneath the threshold of our consciousness, that which we will become once we have passed through the gate of death is preparing itself.

[ 5 ] Now we must bring together what we have brought before our souls in our recent reflections with various things that may still be familiar to us from earlier reflections. I have often pointed out how important and essential memory is for human beings, insofar as they are here in physical consciousness—this memory that must not be torn apart. We must, up to a certain point in our physical experience, recall—or at least be able to recall—the context of our lives. If this connection is severed, if we cannot remember certain events—so that we at least have the awareness that we were present in time when these events occurred—then a serious spiritual illness sets in, to which I have referred in recent reflections here. This remembering is part of the experience within physical consciousness here. But this remembering is at the same time, in a certain sense, a veil that conceals from us those events I am actually referring to now—events that lie beyond ordinary consciousness, that lie precisely behind that veil woven by continuous memory. Just consider this: We are first a child; during that time we pass through certain stages of consciousness that we cannot recall. Then comes the point up to which we can always recall in later life. There is a closed series of memories; there we are able to trace our “I” back to a point that occurs in ordinary life during the second, third, or fourth year of life, or later for some people. When we look back within ourselves in this way, when we look into ourselves, our soul’s gaze first encounters this memory, and insofar as we are physical human beings here, we actually live inwardly within these memories. We could not speak of our ego at all if we did not live within these memories. Anyone who observes themselves recognizes this. By looking within themselves, they are actually looking into the scope of their memories. They are thus, as it were, gazing upon the tableau of their memories. Even if not everything we have experienced appears in these memories, we know that memories could emerge up to the specified point in time, and we must even assume that we were truly present with our “I” in all these memories and were able to retain them. If this were not the case, the coherence of our “I” would be destroyed and a mental illness would have set in. But behind what we perceive there in memory lies precisely that which is seen with the spiritual eye and heard with the spiritual ear. So that what I have already stated in the public lecture is correct: the power we otherwise need for memory, we use, when we look into the spiritual world, precisely for looking into the spiritual world. This does not mean that one loses one’s memory when one attains spiritual vision, but it does mean what I described in the public lecture, namely that one does not live in the same way through memory, that one cannot truly always grasp what one beholds spiritually, but that one must look at it again and again and must look at it anew each time.

[ 6 ] I have often said: When someone truly gives a lecture from the spiritual world, they cannot do so from memory, as one might speak about something else; rather, it must always be newly created from the spiritual world; what lives in thought must be generated anew again and again. The spirit and the soul must be active; they must constantly recreate in such a case. When the spiritual seer truly looks into the spiritual world, what is otherwise the veil of memory becomes a transparent veil, something through which he sees. He sees, as it were, through the power that otherwise constitutes his memory, and looks into the spiritual world. If one performs one’s exercises rigorously and energetically, one notices that when one uses one’s thinking in ordinary life—by allowing the things and events of the world to take effect upon oneself—the body then supports one as a physical instrument so that one can truly form mental images; and then the mental image, supported by the activity of the physical body, remains within us as a memory. When one enters the spiritual world, one must always be active in order to continually evoke the mental image anew. An unceasing activity begins when one reaches the point I described in the public lecture, when one can now wait until the mysteries of the spiritual world reveal themselves. But one must: participate! Just as, when one draws something, one must constantly participate in order to express something through the drawing, so, as the spiritual world reveals itself, one must actively co-create the mental image. It arises from objective reality, but one must be present in this creation of the mental images. Then, in this way, one first enters into something that is constantly taking place with the human being, with the twofold human being whom I have already alluded to, who is hidden within us, who lives there within our physical shell and beneath the threshold of our ordinary physical consciousness. It is to this human being that one connects. There one realizes: Here in the physical world, one is so connected to the world that one stands on solid ground, so connected that one sees other things in the external world, moves among these other things, and enters into a certain relationship with people to whom one does this or that, and from whom one receives this or that. In the ongoing perception of what we thus develop lies this life that we encompass with ordinary consciousness. But there lies another life underlying it, a lawfulness that we cannot grasp with this ordinary consciousness, yet into which we are placed when we are in our ego and astral body from falling asleep until waking up. Yet our consciousness is so subdued there that we cannot perceive with our ordinary senses how we stand within a world of the spirit that unfolds, that lives continuously around us, but which weaves itself as a non-sensory, invisible element into the sensory, visible world. We must indeed conceive of this world as a spiritual one; we must not think of it, as it were, as a duplicate, as something merely finer than the physical-sensory world, but we must think of it as a spiritual reality.

[ 7 ] I have often pointed out the reasons why, especially in our time, we must draw from the wellspring of all human knowledge that which, as we pursue it, relates to the spiritual world. Truly, not only from the fact that there are spiritual researchers who have something to say about the spiritual world, but from the entire course of our cultural life—I have pointed this out from various perspectives—it can be seen that there is a certain longing among people to truly allow this hidden side of human life to reach their souls, to know something of these hidden aspects of life. I have, after all, already cited phenomena in scientific and other spheres of life that show how this longing is alive in the present.

[ 8 ] Today I would like to include in our discussion a very special example from which we can see that there are already people in our time who, in a sense, touch upon these mysteries of existence, who sense and know something of these mysteries of existence, but who simply do not wish, for reasons I will describe later, to engage with these mysteries of existence in the way we attempt to do through our Spiritual Science. If one discusses these things in such a way that one leaves them, so to speak, a little up in the air, that one also leaves the door open for people: Well, you don’t have to believe it, you don’t have to think of it as a real world! — then it becomes easier to reach people with these things. And there are many examples of this in our time. I have cited them. Today I would like to cite one particular example, specifically in relation to this chapter. I would like to include in this discussion a few remarks about a truly extraordinarily significant novella from recent German literature; I would say, about a gem of German novella writing. In this novella, titled “Hofrat Eysenhardt”—which is truly one of the finest novellas we have in modern German literature—a single character is portrayed in an extraordinarily wonderful way: Hofrat Eysenhardt himself. This Hofrat Eysenhardt, who lives in Vienna—his date of birth is specified very precisely: “Dr. Franz Ritter von Eysenhardt was born in Vienna a few years before the outbreak of the 1848 Revolution”—becomes a lawyer, later president of the Regional Court; he becomes one of the most prominent lawyers in his country. He is feared by those who have anything to do with the court. He is popular with his superiors, for he is an excellent criminal investigator. He possesses a dialectic capable of condemning, one might say, anyone who falls into his clutches in any way. He puts everyone in a crossfire during interrogations, and he knows how to torment his “subject”—as one might call it in this case—with a certain callousness toward human life, so that it becomes entangled in all sorts of traps laid for it. Yet Court Councilor Eysenhardt, outwardly in life, is a very peculiar person. He lacks the ability to connect his human and emotional side with other people. He is, in a sense, a hermit when it comes to human life. He places great importance on appearing, in a certain way, proper and impeccable in his outward life. He is curt toward every subordinate. He is not only friendly but deeply courteous toward every superior. Yes, I could cite many more of his characteristics; he is the very model of a court councilor. Now, let us not dwell on these other traits—these are, for example, wonderfully portrayed in the narrative of one of his subordinates in the novella—but let us point out right away that he was once chosen to lead a significant trial against a remarkable man named Markus Freund. This Markus Freund already had a criminal record for similar offenses of a lesser nature than the one of which he was now accused. However, for the investigating judge who conducted the preliminary inquiry, it turned out this time that there was no possibility of securing a conviction. But Court Councilor Eysenhardt managed to secure a conviction. And in a document that the court councilor himself then drafted, for a purpose I will mention to you in a moment, he himself describes the manner in which that Markus Freund behaved during and, in particular, after the sentencing. So, I will just read the passage describing how Markus Freund behaved at the sentencing:

[ 9 ] “Otherwise, this man, who possessed the strong sense of family so characteristic of his race, had a very special affection for a newborn granddaughter, about whom he never tired of speaking to his cellmates. He could hardly wait for his release—which, despite the gravest suspicions against him, he seemed certain to receive—so that he might see the child again. Markus Freund stubbornly denied the charges and, during the interrogations before the investigating judge, managed to explain away each of the serious incriminating circumstances with truly astonishing acumen, so that the investigating judge, an otherwise very capable, if unduly soft-hearted man, was completely convinced of Markus Freund’s innocence when the final hearing began, presided over by the person to whom this information refers.” — Court Councilor Eysenhardt writes this himself; he writes about himself in the third person. — “Although Markus Freund displayed the utmost acumen even during the final hearing and his defense attorney delivered a very fine and moving speech, duly praised by the newspapers, the outcome of the trial was nevertheless the exact opposite of what the investigating judge—and perhaps the defendant himself—had expected. Mr. Markus Freund was unanimously found guilty by the jury and, given his multiple prior convictions and other aggravating circumstances, sentenced to the maximum penalty of twenty years’ imprisonment. “The person in question”—that is, the person in question is this Court Councilor Eysenhardt himself—“may, without immodesty, describe this outcome as one of the greatest triumphs of his many years of criminal practice. For surely the jury would have been swayed in Markus Freund’s favor by his truly dazzling sophistry, even though public sentiment at the time was not exactly favorable toward people of his kind, had the presiding judge not been able to reduce these sophistries to nothing through his dialectic—which, while still superior to the defendant’s, was nonetheless adapted to the jury’s capacity for comprehension in a folksy manner. The effect of the pronouncement of the verdict on the defendant was such”—so the court councilor himself always recounts—“that nerves of steel, accustomed to such scenes, were required in order not to be shaken by it and perhaps led astray regarding the truth and justice of the verdict rendered. At first, Markus Freund stammered a few incomprehensible words, probably in Hebrew. Then the man, who appeared to be barely of average height and stooped, straightened up so that he looked tall; the eyelids that usually almost covered his eyes lifted, revealing the whites of his rolling eyeballs, streaked with red veins. And from his contorted mouth, a series of curses and threats directed at the presiding judge hissed and dripped forth at breakneck speed; to repeat them here in the repulsive jargon in which they were uttered would hardly be in keeping with the dignity of the judiciary. Only the first sentence: “Mr. President, you know as well as I do that I am innocent...” shall be mentioned, and the last: “You will pay for this. An eye for an eye, you will pay for this, just you wait!” What lay in between was of an exceedingly fantastical nature and seemed, insofar as it had any meaning at all, to amount to the claim that he, Markus Freund, had scrutinized the high and mighty President down to his very kidneys with his own eyes and found that the high and mighty President, even if he did not yet suspect it, was of the same sort as himself, the downtrodden but this time innocent Markus Freund. The court officers immediately did their duty, subduing the raving man, whom the President on the spot sentenced to the deserved disciplinary punishment for his excess. While the officers, each holding one of his flailing arms, led the condemned man away, his rage turned to weeping and sobbing. Even in the corridor, one could hear his hollow whimpering: “My poor, poor little one, you will never see Grandpa again.” The gentlemen of the jury were quite dismayed by this incident and asked the President, through their foreman, whether it might not be possible to resume the proceedings immediately. Lacking legal knowledge and sufficient experience, they did not realize that such outbursts occur more frequently among very obstinate, guilty criminals than among those wrongfully convicted—who, however, are far rarer than the public’s romantic imagination would have it. It is perhaps less excusable that the aforementioned soft-hearted investigating judge, who had attended the final hearing along with its repugnant aftermath, took the liberty of saying to the presiding judge as he was leaving, shaking his head quietly: “Mr. Hofrat, I do not envy you your talent.”

[ 10 ] So Markus Freund had been imprisoned, and the court councilor continued to live his life for the time being. But how he went on living and what happened next is what he now recounts in his account. We must create a mental image of a long time—a rather long time—having passed, and the prisoner having been detained. Now the following happened:

[ 11 ] “Just like the person in question” — that is, the court councilor himself, who recounts this — “had seen him at that very moment when, with a face contorted with rage, he hurled those curses and threats at her, standing just as he had when she suddenly woke up without reason at two o’clock in the night of March 18–19, with the long-forgotten Markus Freund on her mind.”

[ 12 ] So, in the night of March 18–19, the court councilor suddenly woke up at two o'clock in the morning and had the impression that Markus Freund was standing before his soul in his mind.

[ 13 ] “And while the person in question lay motionless in a state of rigidity, her imagination rapidly replayed the events described in detail above. She was not entirely sure whether she had thought of these events at all, or constantly, in the intervening years. Both seemed true to her at that moment, as horror paralyzed her ability to think.”

[ 14 ] So, Hofrat Eysenhardt wakes up in the middle of the night, thinks of Markus Freund, tries to piece together what happened, and isn’t sure whether he had thought about the matter often or not at all.

[ 15 ] “While the person in question lay there with a pounding heart, unable to carry out her sudden impulse to turn on the lamp on the nightstand” — that is, he could not move his hands —, “it seemed to her as if something were tapping very softly on the door, or rather, it was more of a timid scratching, as if a little dog were begging to be let in. Instinctively, the person in question blurted out the question: Who’s there? There was neither an answer nor did the door open, but the person in question nevertheless had the distinct sensation that something had slipped inside, and a faint crackling ran through the parquet floor, across the room from the door to the bed, as if this invisible something were drawing nearer and finally coming to a halt right beside the person in question. At least she had this indescribable feeling of a strange presence—not a general, undifferentiated one, but rather it seemed to her that the something standing beside her bed must be none other than Markus Freund, whose sudden, fleeting image in her memory had just torn her from a deep sleep. She even had the sensation that the invisible something was bending over her face. Be it that the person in question had in the meantime, without being aware of it, begun to fall asleep again and was already dreaming, whereby, as is well known, it is not uncommon for the people one dreams of to merge into one another, or even merge with the dreamer himself; or perhaps certain far-fetched ideas of Schopenhauer’s regarding the secret identity of all individuals—a lingering effect of her evening reading over the past few days—were stirring within her; in any case, the senseless thought flashed through the mind of the person in question that she herself and that Markus Freund were, after all, essentially the same person, and as if to confirm this nonsensical assumption, which contradicted all logic, she repeated—whether purely inwardly or audibly and with the movement of her vocal organs, she does not know—the curses and threats of that Markus Freund cited above, as far as she could still recall them, and with the horrifying feeling that those curses had just now begun to come true. If the person in question, which is not impossible, had been sleeping and dreaming, she woke up under this terrible impression and lit the lamp. The pocket watch on the nightstand showed ten minutes past two. Everything in the room was as usual, although the furniture, walls, and pictures seemed strange to her, and she needed some time and a drink of water to find her bearings again, both in the room around her and within herself.”

[ 16 ] So that’s what he says. He says: At first, he pictures Markus Freund in his mind. Then he has this—let’s call it—this vision. But this, he continues, left quite an impression on him—an impression that initially prompted him to go, somewhat trembling, to the regional court to see Hofrat Eysenhardt and resolve to have the files pertaining to Markus Freund handed over to him once again. He never quite got around to it. But something else happened. Court Councilor Eysenhardt has actually always been a very free-spirited person. He merely recounts that this happened to him. We will soon see why he tells this story. Indeed, he even finds it somewhat ridiculous and unworthy that he attached any importance to it:

[ 17 ] “It was in vain that the person in question reproached herself for the unworthiness and ridiculousness of her behavior. Her once iron will was, and remained, as if paralyzed in this regard. It was barely enough to conceal, at least to some extent, the inner torments she carried within from her colleagues and subordinates. One morning, as she passed by a group of judicial officials standing together in a dark corridor engaged in lively conversation, the person in question thought she heard the name ‘Markus Freund’.”

[ 18 ] So, one day he had gone to the state court—he had never really dared to look at those files again—and he heard some people talking in the hallway, and as he walked by, he heard the name Markus Freund.

[ 19 ] “Since this man and this name had gradually become an obsession for her, one that gave her no peace anywhere or at any time, she did not rule out the possibility of self-deception”—in other words, he even believes he hears the name Markus Freund as a result of self-deception—“she stopped and asked: ‘Who are you gentlemen speaking of?’ ‘Of Markus Freund, of your Markus Freund, Mr. Hofrat, don’t you remember?’ replied one of the gentlemen, who happened to be the soft-hearted investigating judge who had made that hasty remark back then. ‘Of Markus Freund? What has become of him?’ The man in question held his breath. ‘Well, he has died; thank God, now he is at peace, the poor devil,” replied the soft-hearted man. “Died? When?” “About three or four weeks ago,” said the man in question. “Here, Regional Court Judge N. must know.” “At two o’clock in the night of March 18–19 of this year,” said the Regional Court Judge.”

[ 20 ] So, we are told: Court Councilor Eysenhardt had sentenced Markus Freund. He had long since been imprisoned. On the night of March 18–19, he wakes up, first picturing him in his mind, then having a vision of him entering; he is seized by a terrible fear, wants to have the files brought to him, but lets weeks go by. Finally, he overhears a conversation through which he learns that Markus Freund died at the very moment the deceased Markus Freund appeared to him, at first creeping up like a little poodle. Now, to understand the whole thing, one must add the conclusion of the novella to what has already been said. For the conclusion of the novella shows that the court councilor is now driven by circumstances, and specifically by circumstances from which one would not at all expect him to be driven—that he is driven, precisely as the presiding judge of a particularly important espionage trial, to come into contact with certain individuals, in the context of which he, guided by a dark instinct, commits exactly the crime for which he had convicted Markus Freund. Thus, having been swept up into this crime later by his passion and having committed it, he now had the opportunity to recall in a very special way what Markus Freund had said after his conviction: “It will be repaid to you, an eye for an eye, just wait. An eye for an eye, it will be repaid to you!”

[ 21 ] The court councilor had thus experienced, on a subconscious level, something that was connected—in the manner sufficiently hinted at—to his actions in the preceding period, but which was also connected, in a strangely mysterious way, to the fulfillment of what the deceased had threatened him with. Indeed, it is connected in an even deeper way. The author of the novella writes in the first person, as if he had been told various things about this Court Councillor Eysenhardt, and he recounts how he had a conversation with a subordinate—this was already depicted earlier in the novella. This subordinate is a remarkably astute, philosophically inclined man; he says: This court councilor is so gifted at getting to the bottom of things precisely because he himself has a great aptitude for all these things; and he delves deepest into those areas where he has his particular aptitudes. This is recounted in the novella. Now it is interesting that the thought arises in the court councilor, at two o’clock that night, from March 18 to 19: You are something of a unity with this Markus Freund. This unity, this merging of consciousnesses, comes to his mind; he has a glimpse of a connection that lies beneath the threshold of ordinary life. It is revealed to him. Of course, it is not revealed to him in the same way it is revealed to everyone else, but it is revealed to him.

[ 22 ] It is interesting to note that the author of this novella has brought together all the elements necessary to make the plot comprehensible. And so we must also consider what the author presents as preceding the vision the court counselor had that night. The court councilor was actually a robust man. As I said, many characteristics could be cited that would show him not as a man who found his way into life emotionally, but as a man who goes his own way with a certain brutality, and underlying that was a certain inner health. Yet, as if through an external symptom, the man who had never lost his mind, who had always been convinced of himself, began to lose his mind. For he discovered that a tooth had become loose and that he could simply pull it out with his fingers. Then the thought crossed his mind: Now life is going downhill; now something is starting to break down. And the thought crossed his mind: So this is how you lose your body, piece by piece. But that would not have been the worst part; rather, the worst part was that from that moment on—though he didn’t quite realize it—he began to dwell on his own decline, as he now writes in his own letter, where he describes himself as a third person—the worst part was that his memory was failing. And because his memory had been such a help to him in all the professional work he had to do and had done in that way, he began to feel a certain fear of life. And he really noticed how he could no longer remember certain things that he had once remembered so easily, how he had once had everything so well organized.

[ 23 ] Just think how interesting it is that the novelist combines this ability to have a very limited form of clairvoyance with a decline in memory! Then his memory improves again. And then he gets around to writing it down. And he remembers: You were like that. As a free spirit, he can think of nothing else but that these are entirely pathological phenomena. Well, and then he thinks to himself: I am actually in danger of going mad. That is, of course, in the nature of the free spirit. And he is ashamed to ask anyone for advice. That is why he wants to use his position to write in the third person and then present it as a document—where the author remains unknown—to some psychiatrist, who will give him a diagnosis regarding this imagined person. In this way, he wants to find out what the psychiatrist thinks. And through this, it becomes clear; the novelist uses this document to reveal something about this man’s inner life.

[ 24 ] As you can see, we have here a truly beautiful work of art that essentially points to precisely those elements that must be addressed in Spiritual Science—namely, the elements that arise from the connection between memory, the capacity to recall, and this insight into the spiritual worlds. The novelist does this very beautifully by allowing memory to be subdued at the very moment when, one might say, a few fragments of these mysterious connections emerge for the person concerned. And the entire narrative is remarkable, very remarkable, in that it is composed, piece by piece, in such a way that one sees the author saying to himself: There are such connections behind life. But he clothes it in the form of a novella. The novella is written with great subtlety, as only a philosophical mind can write. It was written by the long-time director of the Hamburg Schauspielhaus, who later became director of the Vienna Burgtheater, Alfred Freiherr von Berger. The novella is indeed not only among the very best that Berger has written, but it truly belongs to the gems of German novella literature. I say this, of course, not because this novella deals with a subject close to our hearts, but because truly only a subtle person can make such a subtle observation in a seemingly abnormal situation. From a purely artistic point of view, this is what I mean when I speak of the novella’s value. This novella is truly written in such a way that everyone who reads it feels: The man is writing a novella, but he would actually rather write a biography of Court Councillor Eysenhardt, for he writes in such a way that, when reading this wonderfully realistic portrayal, one never gets any other feeling than that good old Berger met a man who truly lived such a life. Now one must say: How natural it is for a person like Alfred Freiherr von Berger to approach the spiritual world, to truly come to know these connections through Spiritual Science! How infinitely significant it must have been for this Berger to come to know Spiritual Science in such a way that he could have said to himself, for example: This court counselor, having, as it were, scrutinized Markus Freund and in this case wrongfully condemned him—how will he now have to live in the time immediately following his passing through the gate of death, in what we have always called the Kamaloka? I have said: There the human being must live in the effect of his deeds, in the significance those deeds hold for the other person in relation to whom they were performed. What the court counselor did during the trial certainly gave him immense satisfaction, precisely because of his great dialectical skill. He derived great satisfaction from this, which was expressed in the statement he made: that he could count it as a merit to have stood up against the defendant’s sophistry and at the same time to have spoken in a way that led the jury to a conviction, even though they resumed the trial immediately afterward when they saw the effect of the verdict on the defendant. That is one aspect, as seen from the Court Councillor’s perspective. From Markus Freund’s perspective, the matter stands such that we must say: We see the effect of the verdict on him. In that—in what had an effect on Markus Freund’s soul—the Court Councillor must live in the Kamaloka. And a mirror image, a reflection of this, opens up precisely at the moment when Markus Freund steps through the gate of death. Thus this image opens up to him, so that he now sees: He is identical, he is one with this Markus Freund; he sees himself within this Markus Freund, he feels himself within him. We see: the court councilor has a foretaste of the Kamaloka. He experiences it so intensely that he not only relives what has happened there, but something else is now unfolding within him, connected to the whole matter, beneath the threshold of his consciousness. Every single detail is significant here. I told you that he had lost his memory for a while; that is when this fragment of the spiritual world was revealed to him. But now a time is coming when he is once again endowed with a great natural power of memory; his memory is restored while he is conducting this espionage trial. Yet precisely in the course of this espionage trial, he is driven to commit the very same crime for which he condemned Markus Freund through his dialectic. The power that once sprang from his memory has transformed into the power of instincts, and he is now driven by them. He no longer sees the connection—which is again unfolding beneath the threshold of consciousness—between what he is now doing and what he attributed to Markus Freund. This leads to the point where, upon realizing what has happened to him, Court Councilor Eysenhardt goes into his office on the very evening preceding the final hearing of the trial in which he was to celebrate his greatest triumph:

“Upon arriving at his office, the key to which he carried with him, Eysenhardt lit the two candles on his desk, washed his hands, face, and hair, then changed out of his civilian suit into his official uniform and paced back and forth for quite some time. He then opened the top drawer of his desk and took out, along with a packet of cartridges, a new revolver, which he had likely purchased during the worst period of his nervous breakdown. He carefully loaded all the chambers, then took a sheet of official paper from the filing cabinet and wrote:

In the name of His Majesty the Emperor!

I have committed a grave crime and feel unworthy to continue performing my duties or to go on living at all. I have imposed the harshest punishment upon myself and will carry it out with my own hand in the very next minute. m Eysenhardt

Vienna, June 10, 1901.

“The handwriting and signature betrayed not even the slightest tremor.”

[ 25 ] The next morning, he was found dead.

[ 26 ] A very strange connection is described in the novella, and we must say that the author would have been quite capable of understanding the connection between what takes place here in ordinary consciousness and what occurs beneath the threshold of consciousness—that is, of seeing the spiritual events in which human beings are entangled. Isn’t it true that from the outside one sees only what has happened in the physical world: that the court councilor condemned Markus Freund, and so on. Had this not happened precisely at the age when the court councilor was becoming frail and losing his memory, he would not have seen this fragment of the spiritual world. It would not have revealed itself to him. Everything would have remained subconscious. It is precisely such a novella that is, so to speak, sent out into the world from this perspective: Yes, there is something behind life, and in certain cases it imposes itself very clearly. But if one wants to speak to people about it in a concrete way, then it is unpleasant for them. To truly confront such a reality is uncomfortable for them. So one tells it to them as a novella; they don’t have to believe in it, they can simply enjoy it; then it works.

[ 27 ] What keeps people from the spiritual world, my dear friends, is something they simply do not know. The path into the spiritual world leads in two directions, so to speak. In one direction, by, I might say, piercing the veil of nature and seeking what lies behind the phenomena of external nature. And in the other direction, by piercing the veil of our own soul life and seeking what lies behind our own soul life. Ordinary philosophies certainly also seek to get to the bottom of the reasons for existence, to solve the world’s mysteries. But how do they do that? Well, they observe nature either directly or through experiments, and then they reflect on it. But by jumbling together these concepts acquired through this knowledge of nature, and jumbling them together again and again, and intertwining them this way and that, one does indeed arrive at a philosophy, but at nothing connected to true reality out there. By reflecting on what presents itself to us, one never gets behind the veil of existence. I have explained this in a public lecture: That which constitutes our eternal powers is active in that it first creates the tool for us, and with the tool we arrive at what mere consciousness provides us. Yes, but when we form our ordinary consciousness in this way, we must use the tool. When we then enter into the experience of ordinary consciousness, everything that the eternal forces within us create is already complete. It is not through thinking that we uncover the mysteries of nature, but in a completely different way. When, through meditation—as I described in the public lecture—we reach a point where we strengthen ourselves in thought and the revelation of the spiritual world then comes to meet us as if by grace, we view nature in a completely different way. Oh, quite differently! And we also view human life quite differently. Then we step out into nature, and we grasp whatever process or thing or event that meets us. But at the same time we are aware: before you actually looked at the rose, something had already happened. You first see the mental image, the perception, but the perception has only just formed. The spiritual lies within that perception; within it lies the memory, the memory of a prior thought. Therein lies the mystery that one discovers through spiritual research.

[ 28 ] Isn't it true that the philosopher looks at the rose; then he philosophizes by thinking. The one who wants to get to the bottom of the rose’s mystery must not think; nothing happens there. Instead, he looks at the rose and becomes aware: Before it even enters his sensory consciousness, a process has already taken place. This appears to him as a—yes, as a memory that preceded the act of looking. This fact that something like a memory arises within us, of which we know: You did this before you had the sensory perception—this, in relation to external nature, is forethought, which remains unconscious and is then brought to the surface like a memory: that is what matters. No amount of thinking can penetrate the mysteries of nature; rather, it is through pre-thinking. Nor can one penetrate the mysteries of what constitutes the content of the soul in any other way than by truly becoming that spectator of whom I have spoken. You see, these are the paths through which we can penetrate the spiritual world today.

[ 29 ] If you recall that in the novella, Court Councillor Eysenhardt catches just a glimpse of the spiritual world after he has perceived the process of decay itself, you will find in this a peculiar illustration of what I have just described: When, through the practice of thinking, one reaches a point where one’s thinking has become so powerful that one can see the spiritual world, then one first enters into decay as well—into that which is connected with death. Mystics of all ages have expressed this by saying: “To approach the gate of death,” that is, to all that which presents itself in human life as a process of decay. And so we come to this: when we have truly driven meditation to the point where we have attained the event of initiation, you stand at the gate of death; you know that there is something within you that has been at work since your birth or conception, which then sums itself up and becomes the appearance of death, the taking away of the physical body. Then one says to oneself: But all that which leads to death has come forth from the spiritual world. That which has come forth from the spiritual world has united with that which has come through the hereditary substance. We see the human being standing here in the physical world and say to ourselves: What meets us in his face, what speaks to us through his words, everything he does as a physical human being—it is the expression of that which has been prepared in the spiritual world through his last death and his last birth. That is where his soul life dwells. But we can gather from the whole meaning of this discussion: that which lives in the human soul between death and new birth draws forces from the spiritual world to form in this incarnation, between birth and death, something within the human being—something that is precisely what a human being is. And then it is truly so—if you recall how I described this in the public lecture—: As the will is strengthened in thought during meditation, one can experience how the seed develops, which now in turn passes through the gate of death and prepares itself in the spiritual world for a further incarnation, so that within the human being there is this eternal process of formation: the soul-spiritual emerges from the spiritual world and forms this human being here. Within this human being, initially like a point, arises that which now emerges here in life as the germ, which in turn passes through the gate of death to continue its development, as it were. So that when we have the human being here, this is truly how it appears: just as he stands before us, so is he created as a human being from the spiritual world. What came out of the spiritual world united with what the parents could give. As long as he was in the spiritual world, he was in the midst of the spiritual powers, just as he is here in the midst of the forces of nature in the physical body. He was in the midst of the spiritual powers, together with whom he prepared himself for this incarnation. It is truly the case that when we see the human being before us in an incarnation, as I depicted in the second Mystery Drama, *The Trial of the Soul*: entire worlds of the gods work to bring the human being into being; between death and a new birth, spiritual forces work to place the human being into existence. This human being here is the goal of certain spiritual forces that work between death and a new birth.

[ 30 ] You see, a certain branch of science—specifically the Spiritual Science—has always known and expressed this. Time and again, for example, a prominent figure has expressed what I have just described by saying: “Physicality is the end of God’s ways.” What he meant was: While we are in the spiritual world, interwoven with the divine world between death and a new birth, we prepare ourselves for our physicality. That is the end of God’s ways. He was simply unable to add the other sentence: In physicality, a new beginning is prepared, which then passes through death again and leads to a new incarnation. This statement: “Physicality is the end of God’s ways,” in a sense even forms the leitmotif of all the works written nearly a hundred years ago by a very significant person who repeatedly drew attention to the fact that human knowledge and human insight must take certain paths to recognize these spiritual connections: Christoph Oetinger. Oetinger, too, wanted to present theosophy in his own way. Richard Rothe wrote beautiful words at the end of the preface to a book about Oetinger. He wanted to express that in earlier times people sought spiritual paths, but in their own way, and that the time would come—and was not far off—when what one had actually always sought would be grasped with full scientific awareness. Rothe says: “What theosophy actually aims for is often difficult to discern in the older theosophists. And what is most important is that, once it has become a true science and has thus produced clearly defined results, these will gradually become part of the general consensus... Yet this lies in the bosom of the future, which we do not wish to anticipate.” So says Richard Rothe, the Heidelberg professor, regarding the theosophist Christoph Oetinger, in November 1847.

[ 31 ] What Spiritual Science seeks has always existed, only in a different form. Today it is up to humanity to seek it in the way that it must be sought in our time. And I have often explained: Scientific thinking has now reached a point where, from the scientific mindset, a scientific form must be sought for that which has lived as science in theosophy throughout the ages. And when Rothe, as Oetinger’s editor, says that what he means should be expressed as: “Yet this lies in the bosom of the future”—what was the future in 1847 has now undoubtedly matured into the present. We are now facing a time when we can demonstrate—for it was only an example I presented today with the novella “Hofrat Eysenhardt” by Alfred von Berger—that human souls are truly ripe to approach spiritual truths, and that they simply lack the courage to truly grasp these spiritual truths.

[ 32 ] I said that the path leads into the spiritual worlds by looking beyond the veil of nature. Why do people find it so difficult to enter there, even those who have become accustomed to thinking scientifically and who need only elevate scientific thinking to an inner tool in the manner described? Why? They say that human knowledge has its limits: Ignorabimus! And why do they not want to enter the spiritual world? Yes, that lies just beyond the threshold of consciousness. Within consciousness, so-called logical reasons are cited for why one cannot enter the spiritual world—logical reasons that are well known. Beneath these logical reasons lies the true inner reason: the fear of the spiritual world. It does not rise up into consciousness, but the fear of the spiritual world holds people back—the unconscious, subconscious fear. If one were only to become acquainted with the existence of this unconscious fear, and how everything one tells oneself is merely a mask for what is in truth fear, one would recognize very much. That is one thing. The other is: As soon as one enters the spiritual world, one is grasped—just as one grasps thoughts oneself—by the beings of the higher hierarchies. One becomes, as it were, a thought in the spiritual world. The soul resists this inwardly. It fears being taken in by the spiritual world. Again, a kind of fear, a kind of helpless fear of being seized by the spiritual world, just as one is seized by physical forces when one enters the physical world through birth. Fear of the outside world and a shyness toward a certain powerlessness in being taken over by the spiritual world—that is what holds people back from the spiritual world. That is why they, like this Berger in his novella, sometimes want to splash about in the waves of the spiritual world, but want that I might say, be non-committal, and do not have the courage to truly approach the apprehension of the spiritual worlds, which can truly occur through the inner experiments often described to you, just as the apprehension of the secrets of nature can occur through outer experiments.

[ 33 ] If you add to what I have said what I explained in one of my public lectures regarding the connection between the forces of genius that arise in life and the early deaths brought about by the fact that a person’s body is taken from them—I said, by a bullet or in some other way, for example on the battlefield —, if you recall what I explained—that when inventive powers, genius-like powers, arise in a human being, these are the result of the processes that occur when a person’s physical body is taken from them—then you also have something there that remains below the threshold of consciousness. But there lies in the courage, in the whole manner in which a human being sacrifices himself for a great historical event, an instinctive expression of something that lies below the threshold of consciousness and thus cannot come to consciousness in its full form. In our time, however, the impulse in human development is that what lies below the threshold of consciousness is, to a certain degree, brought up into this consciousness so that the human being can become aware of it. And this is what I always mean when I point out that precisely in the great events of our time, in all that takes place above the threshold of consciousness, there lie significant subconscious processes, and that what the external historian can grasp of these present events will never exhaust what places these events within the larger context of human development. More than ever, the subconscious is involved in what is happening in our present. And that is why the spiritual researcher, in particular, must point out how a future era, in order to view our significant historical present-day events in the proper light of the world context, will point to the spiritual underpinning. From this perspective as well, what we have repeatedly stated at the conclusion of our reflections comes before our souls time and again:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruit of the spirit grows—
Guiding souls with spiritual awareness
Toward the realm of the spirit.