The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] In recent days I have spoken to you about how the knowledge that human beings, as earthly beings, must acquire on the physical plane is, at first, a kind of dead knowledge—a knowledge that stands in the same relationship to what we must call knowledge of the next higher world as the dead do to the living. I have tried to illustrate how this dead, quasi-mechanical knowledge of the physical human being on Earth comes to life when we seek to rise to those levels of knowledge through which a person can experience something of the so-called higher worlds.

[ 2 ] Dead knowledge! However, human knowledge of the Earth was not always as dead as it is today; rather, it has only recently become this way. And you are all familiar with the period during which human knowledge of the Earth became so dead. I have often spoken to you about how, when we go back to ancient times—to periods in the Earth’s evolution before the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place—even ordinary knowledge of the Earth was more alive, because a kind of ancient heritage [of higher knowledge] was present. Something of this ancient heritage of higher knowledge was always interwoven into ordinary knowledge of the Earth. You can trace this in the various records of human knowledge and religion. Just look at how, in the Bible, in the Old Testament, wherever the supersensible worlds are mentioned, there is always talk either of a dream or of the inspirations of the prophets. There we always see a natural recourse to living knowledge. The ancient, atavistic legacy of clairvoyance—which had been passed down to humanity as a “lunar inheritance”—had not yet died out. It died out at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 3 ] I ask you to take this statement very seriously. For if any of you were to repeat this statement elsewhere in such a way as to claim that I said the ancient atavistic knowledge had been extinguished by the Mystery of Golgotha, you would be saying the exact opposite of what I have just stated. At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, this knowledge had died out through the entirely natural course of human evolution, and the Mystery of Golgotha provided a substitute for what had gradually been lost, bringing life into the human soul from a different direction. So today we are faced with the following fact: One can go back into ancient human traditions on Earth, where one finds all sorts of scientific knowledge even before the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. But in this scientific knowledge, the ancient people did not suspect anything of a knowledge of the Most High—which is most important for human beings—but rather, these were, in essence, subordinate matters that people believed they could recognize in this way. Everything of importance, everything pertaining to the supersensible worlds, was traced back to an ancient wisdom—a wisdom that was, as it were, bestowed upon humanity through a primordial revelation. You expressed this in one of our four mysteries. And it was presented in such a way that this heritage was then passed down from generation to generation in the schools of wisdom. Already in the book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*, you will find that we sought to understand how, through the Mystery of Golgotha, a substitute was created for this ancient heritage of wisdom that was dying out; how, in a sense, the primordial mystery became a historical fact on Golgotha; and how, by the fact that the cross of initiation was erected on Golgotha in a way perceptible to all people, life was to be poured into the human soul. So that since then one can say: There is our dead knowledge, which human beings acquire through their own efforts on the physical plane, and alongside it there is something that flows into their souls because, through the Mystery of Golgotha, the Substantial—which was to enter the Earth’s aura through the Christ—has flowed into the Earth’s aura and now flows into the human soul as a second source of human knowledge.

[ 4 ] So one can say: Viewed from the perspective of Spiritual Science, the matter must be regarded in such a way that humanity’s physical knowledge of the Earth is a dead one, but that life enters into it when humanity allows this physical knowledge of the Earth to be enriched by what the Mystery of Golgotha can be for them. And then we have the next higher level of knowledge, which we call imaginative cognition. This is already something living, something truly living. And this living cognition, this imaginative cognition, concerns the very things we have been discussing over the past few days.

[ 5 ] Today I would like to emphasize once again—as I said yesterday—that this imaginative understanding of the nature of the human soul is still closely related to it. It is a return to the Moon era. And it is so closely related to the nature of the human soul that, as I described yesterday, the old, dreamlike lunar perception can reemerge in an atavistic way, and that much of what is perceived through a higher form of clairvoyance can, in a sense—if the lunar clairvoyant possesses the necessary humility—converge with what emerges through atavism.

[ 6 ] Beyond [imaginative cognition], however, lies everything that enters the human soul through inspiration. For these are, in their essential nature, the facts of the ancient solar evolution with which the human being was connected. And that which human beings absorbed within themselves as a life element during the ancient solar evolution is also [preserved] there in the depths of human nature. This must be illuminated through conscious knowledge if inspiration is to arise.

[ 7 ] I hinted yesterday that in true art, there is an unconscious bringing to the surface of those things that belong to the ancient solar realities and that humanity has preserved as its genetic heritage; that when what lies deep in the hidden recesses of the soul is brought up into the conscious life of the soul, it can become conscious to the human being as artistic inspiration. Human beings then live only in the consequences that rise up from below; they do not live in the causes. If I have already had to point out to you that a thought lying below the threshold of consciousness is very different from the thought we have when we bring something back [into consciousness] from the subconscious through memory, it must be emphasized that what truly lives in the depths of the artist’s soul is even more different—radically different—from what then rises into the artist’s consciousness.

[ 8 ] Now we must engrave one peculiarity quite deeply in our souls if we are to understand the whole concept of inspiration at all. You see, for the person who is touched by inspiration, there is no difference between an objective law of nature and that which he experiences in his soul as a thought, as a spiritual experience. They perceive the law of nature as belonging to them just as much as they perceive what lives within their own soul as belonging to them. Let me put it this way: When the person who is touched by inspiration decides on something, when they do something for whatever reason, there is a lawfulness underlying it. This lawfulness—one is initially entitled to perceive it as a lawfulness of one’s own heart, as one’s own experience. But one perceives it with the same objectivity as one perceives the rising of the sun as a lawful, objective phenomenon. I can also put it this way: When I pick up a watch, I perceive that as my own affair on the physical plane. In physical cognition, however, I do not perceive the sun rising in the morning as my own affair. But with regard to that which truly arises from the impulse of the inspired world, one perceives what happens in nature as belonging to oneself.

[ 9 ] Human interest truly extends to matters of nature. Matters of nature become part of a person’s own interests. As long as one does not feel the life of a plant within oneself as intimately as the experiences of one’s own heart, there can be no truth in inspiration. As long as one does not perceive a falling stone splashing onto the surface of the water and sending up droplets in the same way one perceives what is happening within one’s own being, inspiration does not correspond to the truth. I could also put it this way: Anything in a person that is closer to them than nature in its fullness does not belong to the realm of inspired truths. It would be utter nonsense, however, to believe that the inspired person, if someone were to smash his skull, would perceive this just as objectively as he perceives the eruption of a volcano. Subjectively, he naturally makes this distinction; but at the very moment someone smashes his skull, he is not in a state of inspiration. But for everything that, in this sense, falls within the realm of inspiration, his interest extends beyond the whole of nature. And I have already pointed out in the Hague Cycle how this expansion of interest is what expanded knowledge ultimately depends on. Anyone who cannot detach themselves, at least for a short time, from what concerns them alone cannot, of course, attain inspiration. They do not always need it; on the contrary, they would do well to sharply demarcate their own interests from that which is to be the object of their inspiration. But when a person extends their interest beyond objectivity—when they try to perceive the life of a plant in its development just as they perceive what is happening in their own life, when what grows, sprouts, develops, and fades out there is as intimately familiar to them as the life within their own being—then they are inspired by everything that comes to them in this way.

[ 10 ] But then this kind of interest is necessarily linked to a gradual ascent toward a way of judging human beings such as the Goethean judgment of human beings we have alluded to gradually became. Goethe learned to distinguish his striving [for living thoughts] from the activities of the human being as a human entity. And this is something extraordinarily, extraordinarily important! What we do or have done belongs to the objective world; it is karma put into action; what we are as personalities is in a state of constant becoming. And the judgment we pass on anything a person has done must, fundamentally speaking, be on an entirely different level than the judgment we pass on the worth or unworthiness of a human personality. If we wish to approach the higher worlds, we must learn to view the human personality as objectively as we view a plant or a stone. We must learn to be able to share in the personality even of those people who have committed acts that we may have to condemn in the most emphatic sense. It is precisely this separation of the human being from his or her deeds—and also the separation of the human being from his or her karma—that one must be able to accomplish if one wishes to be capable of establishing a proper relationship with the higher worlds.

[ 11 ] And here, if we truly wish to stand on the ground of Spiritual Science, we must once again recognize that this is one of those cases where we come into sharp contrast with the materialistic thinking of our time. This materialistic thinking of our time has, in fact, a tendency to draw the human personality more and more into the judgment of one’s actions. Just consider that in recent times, in the field of external jurisprudence, a tendency has increasingly emerged that one must not merely judge a specific act when a person has committed it, but must also observe the person’s entire human nature, take into account the state of the person’s soul, how the person came to [commit the act], whether the person is inferior or fully developed, and so on. And certain circles are even demanding that external jurisprudence not only consult physicians as experts in the assessment of offenses and crimes, but also psychologists. But it is presumptuous to judge the nature of human beings rather than their actions, which pertain solely to external life.

[ 12 ] Among the more recent philosophers, only one has shown any interest in this area. You will also find him mentioned in my *Riddles of Philosophy*, though from a different perspective. It is Dilthey who has pointed out that jurisprudence must, in turn, break away from psychological jurisprudence and everything similar to it.

[ 13 ] What a person does concerns two areas: first, their karma. This is settled by its own causality; it is none of other people’s business. Christ himself did not judge the sin of the adulteress, but inscribed it into the earth, because it will play out in the course of karma. Second, human actions concern human coexistence, and it is only from this perspective that human actions should be judged. It is not at all the place of the external social order to judge human beings as such.

[ 14 ] But Spiritual Science will gradually rise above the mere act of judgment; it will rise to the level of understanding. And those psychologists who might be called upon today to serve as experts when judgments are to be made about a person’s outward actions—they will be of no use, for they will know nothing of a person’s soul. The assessment of a person should not correspond to judgment, but to understanding; for the tendency under all circumstances should be to help, not to judge. To help, not to judge! But one can only help if one has an understanding of what is going on within a human soul.

[ 15 ] However, if one’s inclination to help is rooted in truth rather than falsehood, one will be most misunderstood by the world. For the very person who is to be helped will be the least inclined to judge correctly the one who wishes to help in the right way. The person who is to be helped will want to be helped in the way he imagines! But helping him exactly as he imagines—that may well be the worst kind of help one can offer him. An understanding gained on the basis of spiritual and mental life will often lead us to do for the person we wish to help not exactly what they expect us to do for them, but rather something entirely different. Perhaps sometimes even withdrawing from such a person will be far better help than flattery; perhaps a brusque rejection of something will be far better and more loving help than flattering accommodation and going along with whatever that person happens to want at the moment. The person who treats someone sternly under certain circumstances may show them far more love than the one who yields to them in every way. And, of course, misunderstandings are inevitable in this area; that goes without saying. Perhaps it is precisely the person who makes the greatest effort to respond to another’s soul in this way who is most misunderstood. But that is not what matters; what matters is that one seeks understanding under all circumstances and does not act as a judge.

[ 16 ] In the context of our lectures on Spiritual Science, we have often had to speak of Ahriman and Lucifer. Of course, especially in light of the explanations that have been given recently, one can see how human nature can be influenced to a greater or lesser degree by Ahriman and Lucifer. For, fundamentally speaking, life itself is a constant oscillation between Ahrimanic and Luciferic impulses, except that the state of equilibrium is sought by the very being of the world itself, and life consists precisely in maintaining this state of equilibrium. But now consider a great, an immense difference. One can do two things: One can pass judgment that a particular human action is influenced by Ahriman or Lucifer, and judge the person accordingly. Or one can do the opposite: One can recognize that a human action is influenced by Ahriman or Lucifer, and try to understand the person based on this fact. And between these two judgments lies the greatest conceivable difference. For to pass judgment that there is something Ahrimanic or Luciferic in a human being requires that one never pass this judgment from any other point of view than this: that one judges human beings no more on the basis of this insight—that Ahriman and Lucifer live within them—than one judges any plant because it blooms red rather than blue. Any kind of judgmental assessment must be excluded from the mental image that anything in human beings is Ahrimanic or Luciferic, just as any value judgment must be excluded from our assessment when we wish to recognize a plant, whether it is red or blue.

[ 17 ] Above all, we must strive to keep our understanding free from all emotion and all subjectivity. And we will be able to do this to an ever-greater extent the more we strive to do so, the more we truly endeavor to take such things—as they have just been expressed—with the deepest seriousness.

[ 18 ] Goethe, for example, strove—especially during his most mature period—to portray events between people as if they were natural phenomena. Of course, not from the perspective that there is a mechanical necessity inherent in human relationships just as there is in natural ones. That is out of the question. Rather, the human soul’s relationship to events in human life gradually becomes such that one comes to regard events in human life with the same objective love with which one observes natural phenomena, for the sake of knowledge. This gives rise to that inner tolerance which springs from knowledge itself.

[ 19 ] But this makes it possible to gradually allow into our understanding that which would otherwise be entirely excluded from it: namely, the terminology that arises from feeling and the will. When I explained psychoanalysis to you, we concluded on one particular day that we had to pass judgment on it; but we first demonstrated that this followed from the matter itself. And why could this judgment be passed? Here, too, one may express something subjective. Why, then, was I able to trust myself to express a seemingly entirely subjective judgment about psychoanalysis? Because I have made an effort—I am expressing something subjective, but then it is the case that things are perhaps most easily understood—to study psychoanalysis in the same way that I study something that is very pleasant and very appealing to me. That is to say: to show the same objective love toward one as toward the other. And we must gradually bring ourselves to do this—truly bring ourselves to do it; otherwise, we seek nothing but sensation in knowledge, seeking only what is pleasant in knowledge. But one never attains knowledge if one seeks only what is pleasant in knowledge!

[ 20 ] In our physical life, the solar aspect never enters human consciousness in any other way than by either delighting or repelling us. Only feelings come to us from the solar aspect, and we must meet the solar aspect with our understanding; we must delve into what is otherwise foreign to human beings. We said that the lunar aspect is akin to human beings, but the solar aspect is no longer akin to them. We must bring our understanding down into regions we would not otherwise enter if we wish to bring the solar aspect of inspiration closer to us.

[ 21 ] True knowledge of the higher worlds does indeed require a certain preparation in the very disposition of our soul, and without this disposition in the soul we cannot penetrate the higher worlds—and by this I do not mean merely to penetrate them clairvoyantly, but also to investigate them with understanding. One cannot understand the things described in *The Secret Science* if one attempts to take them in with the same state of mind one would otherwise reserve for something outwardly indifferent—that is to say, for something mathematical or the like; rather, one can only take them in if one first prepares one’s mind for them. Anyone who seeks to take in these inspired insights with the ordinary understanding of the physical plane is like a person who believes he can crawl into a plant with his physical body and thus be present within its life. That is why one has always sought to prepare people first before imparting to them knowledge of the higher worlds—to prepare them slowly, so that the mood of the soul was such that this knowledge of the higher worlds could act upon the mind in the proper way. It had to affect the mind, for this peculiar way in which one must approach the higher world requires a certain tension of the mind, a certain gathering together, a focusing of the inner soul forces; it requires, above all, that one not be wounded, and that a certain inner effort be made in order to approach the knowledge of the higher worlds in the right way.

[ 22 ] Therefore, it is necessary for human beings to create a counterbalance—a true counterbalance—one that, so to speak, causes their soul to tip the scales toward the other side. We must examine this matter very carefully.

[ 23 ] If one exerts one’s soul—and one must do so if one truly wishes to grasp the spiritual worlds, even if only that which is given from the spiritual worlds; one cannot follow a lecture on the spiritual worlds unless one listens carefully, unless one exerts one’s soul—if one truly makes an effort to understand what is being said about the spiritual world, one senses that one must exert oneself. One should not be surprised by this. One need not say, “Yes, this strains me,” because it is only natural that it strains one! But when it strains one so much, then—as long as we are earthly human beings—a natural consequence will arise. And this consequence is that selfishness is aroused in the human being. The more a person feels within themselves, the stronger their selfishness becomes. Just take the most common example: As long as one goes through life in good health, one is unselfish with regard to the physical body; the moment one becomes ill, when everything hurts, one becomes selfish with regard to the outer body. That is entirely natural. And it is simply nonsensical to demand that a sick person not be selfish with regard to their illness. That is simply nonsense. And if someone says, “I may be sick, but I accept my illness selflessly,” that is, of course, merely a euphemism—a false way of speaking.

[ 24 ] But the same is true when one undergoes this inner struggle that is necessary to work one’s way up into the higher worlds, to climb upward. There, too, one enters into selfishness. One should not delude oneself, but rather, especially when one wishes to enter this world, one must keep the truth before one’s eyes. One must tell oneself: You are working your way into a mood of egoism if you want to enter the higher worlds, because you must feel these efforts within yourself.

[ 25 ] I would like to compare this process of working one’s way into the higher worlds to something. I would like to compare it to a peculiar kind of artistic activity, such as that found in our friend Christian Morgenstern. This particular, peculiar quality—which I have often emphasized—was different in Morgenstern than in other poets. When he immersed himself in serious subjects, he did so in a different way than other poets; it carried him to a much greater degree into the realm of the serious. That is why he needed a counterbalance, something like what is found in “The Gallows Song”:

A weasel
sat on a pebble
amidst the babbling brook.
Do you know
why?
The moon calf
told me
in a whisper:
The clever—
animal
did it for the sake of the rhyme.

[ 26 ] These lighthearted poems, these satirical poems—that’s what he needed as a counterweight, to restore balance. Those who are always capable of pulling a “long face”—in a poetic sort of way—and gazing sentimentally up toward the higher realms are not the true poets. The true ones are those who need the counterweight, the counterpart.

[ 27 ] Now, of course, we are searching everywhere for the possibility of understanding what it is—as a manifestation of egoism—that must accompany the striving upward toward the higher worlds. One need not judge egoism when it occurs in such a region, because one must understand it as a natural phenomenon. One need not be driven by the egoism of always wanting to be free of egoism, for then one is not true to oneself. For example, we create the counterpart to certain things [through the exercises] in *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds*; first, the inner counterparts. But even in what we have created as eurythmy, there is a kind of counterpart in this unique way of bringing the etheric body into its appropriate movements and gaining an understanding of this entire human language. It will encourage young people in particular, in a natural way, to live into the spiritual realm.

[ 28 ] But one thing that must be emphasized on this occasion is that there is an element which should be particularly sought after by anyone who truly wishes to establish a proper relationship with the spiritual worlds—and do not be surprised by this, but it simply must be stated clearly, or at least more clearly than has usually been the case—and that is the element of humor. It is truly necessary not to approach the pursuit of the higher world without a sense of humor! This humorless approach is precisely what gives rise to such terrible excesses. For if the person who imagines himself to be Homer or Socrates or Goethe were to realize how infinitely ridiculous he must appear in this role, it would help him immensely in bringing his views back to a healthy state! But such insights can really only elude those who keep humor at a distance from their false, sentimental lives. For if someone were truly—yes, I would even say—to have the “misfortune” of having been Homer, and through true recognition in a later incarnation were to realize that this was indeed the case, then this realization would truly appear to him, at first, in a humorous light. Precisely if it were true, it would initially appear to him in a humorous light. One would truly laugh at oneself at first!

[ 29 ] It is difficult to speak properly about this chapter, especially in a few words. But keeping one’s spirit free and open to humor is a good way to take seriousness seriously. Otherwise, one taints oneself and distorts seriousness through sentimentality, and sentimentality is the worst enemy of true seriousness when it comes to the serious matters of life. I could even have a mental image of someone who—as a foreign lady once said—wishes to face the seriousness of Spiritual Science knowledge only “with a face down to the belly” finding it unpleasant that I have spoken these past few days of thoughts that feel like a mouse in one’s hand. But one frees oneself from the seriousness of the facts by attempting to present them in such a form. For one easily distorts the facts when approaching them with mere sentimentality, because one then feels, in that sentimentality, that one has already risen sufficiently to the higher worlds and does not believe one should also have to ascend to the spiritual worlds through flexible, elastic, and agile understanding. And truly, it is easier to speak of conquering the elemental world by being “selfless, truly selfless”; it is easier to form some vague mental images of the elemental world in this way than to actually make the matter so vivid that one experiences the transition of thought from a lifeless object to a living being. This vivid characterization is precisely what we should strive for. So that we gradually train ourselves to ascend into these spiritual worlds without any sentimentality. The seriousness will come in due course. The effort arises precisely from the arduous process of mastering Spiritual Science. And what matters is that we gain the strength to correctly understand the place of the spiritual-scientific worldview within today’s materialism and, through this strength, become a true member of the spiritual-scientific movement. We can gain this strength in no other way than by attempting to understand vividly and correctly how these spiritual worlds can be clothed in words and mental images drawn from the physical world, even though the spiritual worlds themselves are so dissimilar to the physical world.

[ 30 ] Inspiration as such concerns those inner realities in human nature that are the legacy of the ancient solar evolution, realities connected with everything that enables human beings to accomplish in the world that which is of heaven—that which is truly of heaven. To achieve this, however, a person must not only reflect on what can be developed in the individual life through the soul work that takes place between birth and death; rather, a person must reflect on what lies in the hidden depths of their soul in such a way that the divine worlds work their way into their being. Anyone who is to be a poet in the world must have the brain of a poet; that is to say, their brain must have been prepared for this purpose by the spiritual world. Anyone who wants to be a painter must have the brain of a painter. And in order to endow a human being with a painter’s brain or a poet’s brain, those forces and impulses must be at work within human nature that were already substantially present during cosmic evolution in the old Sun Age and were linked to human nature—at a time when human beings themselves were not nearly as densified as they are on Earth, when human beings themselves had only reached the density of air. Consider that during the ancient Sun Age, human beings consisted only of warmth and air. In the warmth and air that act upon human beings lies, as genetic material from the ancient Sun Age, that which can prepare the human brain so that it can become the brain of a painter or a poet.

[ 31 ] From this, however, you can see how, through this consideration of what is observed in the human being—and which extends from the microcosm out into the macrocosm—we must say: The human being is one with his surroundings through what is the ancient solar heritage; for air and warmth are present just as much outside as inside. I have often pointed this out: The volume of air I now have within me is outside of me the very next moment; it is constantly flowing in and out—exhaling, inhaling. The air takes on my form, and at the moment I exhale it, it is indeed the same air; it is then simply outside, beyond the human being. But just as surely as my bones are myself, so surely, from the moment of inhalation to the moment of exhalation, the form of the air is that which belongs to my own being. Just as surely as my bones belong to me from my birth until my death, so the stream of air belongs to me from the moment it is inhaled until the moment it is exhaled. It is just as much “I” as my bones are “I,” only the “I”-ness of that stream of air lasts only from one inhalation to the next exhalation, and the “I”-ness of my bones lasts approximately from birth to death. These things differ only in terms of time; the air-human dies upon exhalation and is born upon inhalation. And just as surely as our bones are born before our physical birth and gradually, slowly perish, so surely something is born within us when we inhale, and so surely something dies within us when we exhale. That which is born within us when we inhale dies when we exhale; it belongs to the genetic heritage of the ancient Sun and was predisposed at that time.

[ 32 ] We see how the human realm expands out into the cosmos, how humanity grows together with it. But we must learn to understand how humanity actually lives within the spiritual realm. Our age lacks even the capacity to conceive of this coexistence of humanity with the spiritual realm in the most primitive way. We must return to this as well. It would never have occurred to a person of ancient times to coin words such as those used today when it is necessary to create a term for some compound substance. Nowadays, at most, chemists seek to find appropriate names based on hypothetical assumptions when something is to be named according to the principles of chemistry. These names are, of course, very unappealing to people—sometimes they have an awful lot of syllables! Ask, for example, those among our friends who are chemists to tell you more about this! But where names are not assigned according to these principles, the names have no connection to the things themselves.

[ 33 ] It wasn’t always this way. Today I spoke to you about inspiration; I showed you how inspiration traces back to humanity’s ancient solar heritage. But on the Sun, humanity had already reached the stage of breathing. That is to say, what is now breathing—and what lives in the air element—was already present back then. So there must be a connection between human breathing and inspiration. You need only consider what the word “inspiration” actually meant originally. This word already expresses the intimate relationship between the breath and “inspiration,” for it is, in essence, the word for inhalation. Those who wish to deny the existence of spirits need only look at the development of language. We have already hinted at this from another angle: one would indeed find the spirits of language, but one would also discover how these spirits of language work within human nature! Then we will discover how we are embedded in the spiritual worlds, how the spirits work with us, and how, in everything we do in life, the spirits are at work alongside us. And we will feel in a real sense that our self has expanded into the great Self of the world. What is now theory will become a lived experience. And that is the path to truly entering the spiritual worlds.

[ 34 ] But we really must address these matters as well. We must examine them in detail; we must try to take them seriously and give serious consideration to some of what has just been said about the relationship between human beings and the spiritual worlds in terms of the simplest circumstances.

[ 35 ] This is precisely what I would like to emphasize to you at the end of these lectures, which were intended to show you, from a certain perspective, how there is a descending current and an ascending current within the human being, and how the human being stands within these ascending and descending currents.

[ 36 ] And when Faust opens the book and utters the words:

“As the heavenly forces ascend and descend
And pass the golden buckets to one another!”

[ 37 ] There you have what I have been trying to convey to you these past few days: this rising and falling of the celestial forces, which Faust initially stares at in bewilderment and cannot understand. But it is expressed so clearly in this Faust poem that we can already see in *Faust* the direction toward which the modern age must strive. It must be very close to our hearts that, through Spiritual Science, we aim for what humanity should strive toward. We cannot help but recognize that Spiritual Science must become a spiritual asset of humanity. And as soon as we have come to the point of collaborating in the creation of this new spiritual asset, we must do everything we can to bring it to fruition, to achieve this goal for humanity.

[ 38 ] And with that, I consider these reflections concluded for the time being.