The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Knowledge of the Supernatural and the Mysteries of the Human Soul

[ 1 ] Anyone who traces the development of the human spirit over the course of centuries or millennia will gain a sense of how this human spirit continues to advance toward ever-new achievements in the realm of knowledge and in the realm of action. There is no need to place too much emphasis on the word “progress” here, for that could give rise to some rather bitter doubts in these present sad times that have befallen humanity. But one will clearly see something else when considering this development of the human spirit: that the forms and shapes through which this human spirit strives change significantly from century to century. And since we are primarily concerned in this reflection today with a form of knowledge to be sought—one that, in a sense, seeks to insert itself into human development in a new way—we need only consider, by way of comparison, how difficult it is for such views, which in a certain respect contradict the old, to gain a foothold in the ever-evolving human race. Time and again, attention must be drawn to how difficult it was, for example, to establish the Copernican worldview in the face of people’s habitual ways of thinking and feeling—in certain areas, after all, it took centuries— that worldview which broke with what people had long believed, based on their sensory perception, to be the truth about the structure of the universe. Then came the time when one could no longer rely on—could not trust—what the eyes saw regarding the rising and setting of the sun, regarding the sun’s movement; a time when, contrary to appearances, one had to accept that the sun, in a certain sense—at least in relation to the Earth—stands still. People’s habits of thought and feeling do not easily adapt to such shifts in understanding.

[ 2 ] In the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, to which this evening’s reflections are dedicated, we are now even more concerned with such a radical shift that those who, based on sound scientific grounds, believe they can be convinced of the content of this spiritual science, also believe that it must necessarily intervene in the present and in the further development of human thought, perception, and feeling. One may well say—allow me to begin with these words: With something like the Copernican worldview, one was confronted with countless prejudices, with time-honored opinions that people believed, if something else were to take their place, would be due to all manner of religious notions and the like. In the case of what we are to discuss this evening, many other factors come into play. Here we are not merely dealing with the prejudices that oppose, for example, Copernicanism, but rather with the fact that in our time, quite a few people— indeed the majority of those who consider themselves enlightened and educated, not only bring their prejudices and preconceptions to bear, but that, in a sense, the enlightened and educated person today is actually ashamed to engage seriously with the field that anthroposophy must address. People believe they are excusing themselves—not merely in the eyes of the world around them, but in their own eyes—if they admit that they could know something about the things to be discussed today just as thoroughly and scientifically as they know about the things of the external natural world; they believe, in a sense, that they must regard themselves as foolish or childish.

[ 3 ] These are the things that must be taken into account when speaking today of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Anyone who speaks of it based on the insights of this science is aware of the objections that, naturally, must still arise by the hundreds and thousands today; they are aware of these objections simply because today it is not only the individual truths and findings of this spiritual science that are doubted, but because it is doubted altogether that one can arrive at any knowledge or insight regarding the realm over which anthroposophically oriented spiritual science extends. The fact that one can develop beliefs—general beliefs—regarding the realm of the eternal in the soul is certainly still recognized by very many people today as something entirely legitimate; but the idea that one can develop genuine factual knowledge about the facts that elude the sensory world in relation to the immortal and eternal in human nature is regarded in the widest circles—precisely among those who believe they are judging from the legitimate scientific mindset of the present—as something fanciful and fanciful in many respects.

[ 4 ] Tonight we will not be dealing with the fantastic or the fanciful; rather, with a field in which, I would say, the human observer—and the scientific observer in particular—is already repelled by the very first premises. I would just like to briefly mention that this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not intend to be anything sectarian. Anyone who believes that it seeks to present itself as the foundation of some new religious creed completely misunderstands it. That is not its intention. As it presents itself today, it is a necessary result precisely of what scientific development has brought about as a worldview—as a general, even popular conception held by the broadest circles of people. This development of the natural sciences, which today provides so many concepts—which in turn give rise to feelings and sensations—for the worldview of the broadest circles, sets itself the task of fathoming and explaining that which is given to the external senses, that which, in terms of natural laws, is accessible to the human intellect through the facts of the external senses.

[ 5 ] Even if one considers only the living world—in other fields this is somewhat more remote, but in the living world it becomes so very clear—one can see how natural science today must be concerned with go back everywhere to the origins, to that which, so to speak, provides the germ for what is growing, for what is becoming, for what is flourishing. If the natural scientist wishes to explain animal and human life in his own terms, he goes back to birth; he studies embryology; he studies that from which what is growing and becoming develops. Natural science traces its origins back to birth, which is the beginning of what unfolds before the senses. And if natural science aims to explain the world, it also traces back—using various hypotheses and drawing on what geology, paleontology, and the individual branches of natural science can provide—to what it can conceive of, one might say, regarding the birth of the world order. Even if some may doubt that such a way of thinking is justified—it has always been pursued. And we are, of course, familiar with the ideas that people have put forward—if not to fathom the very beginning of earthly existence, then at least to explain, in some way, the distant epochs—those in which, for example, humans had not yet walked the earth—by drawing on what preceded them, on that which lies at the root in embryonic form—to somehow explain what follows, what humanity perceives with its senses in its surroundings. The entire Darwinian theory—or, if one wishes to set that aside, the theory of evolution—is based on seeking origins, on emergence from something. I would say that everywhere there is the idea of going back to youth and birth.

[ 6 ] Spiritual science in the anthroposophical sense is placed in a different position. And simply by virtue of this starting point, it immediately provokes opposition—without people being clearly aware of it: an unclear opposition, one might say, a subconscious opposition, an instinctive opposition! And such opposition is often far more effective than that which is clearly recognized and clearly thought through. This anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must begin—in order to arrive at concepts at all, not of generally vague spiritual ideas, but of spiritual facts—it must begin with death. As a result, it stands from the outset in what one might call a fundamental contrast to what is popular today: the starting point of birth and youth, growth, and the forward march of development. Death intervenes in life. And if you look around at contemporary scientific literature, you will find everywhere that the conscientious researcher is firmly of the view that death as such cannot be placed within the series of scientific concepts in the same sense as other concepts. Now, the scholar of the humanities must actually make this death—that is, cessation, which is in fact the opposite of birth—his starting point. How death and what is related to death intervene in life in the broader sense—that is the fundamental question. But death brings to a close that which the senses can perceive; death dissolves that which is becoming, that which develops before the senses. Death intervenes as something of which one can, so to speak, form the idea that it is uninvolved in what acts, flourishes, wells up, and comes into being here in the sensory world. This gives rise to the opinion—which, within certain limits, is quite understandable, even if it is entirely unjustified—that one can know nothing about that which death, so to speak, covers up, that which death veils. And it is from this corner of human feeling that all the contradictions actually arise—contradictions that can quite naturally be raised against the findings that are being developed today as the results of a still-young science. For this spiritual science is young, and the spiritual scientist—precisely for the reasons just cited—is in a completely different position than the natural scientist, even when speaking about the subjects of his field of research. The scholar of the humanities cannot proceed in exactly the same way as the natural scientist, who presents a certain fact and then proves it on the basis of what, in a sense, every human being is convinced can be seen; for the scholar of the humanities speaks precisely about that which cannot be perceived by the senses. Therefore, when speaking about the findings of his discipline, the humanities scholar is always compelled, first and foremost, to explain how these findings were arrived at.

[ 7 ] There is now a wealth of literature on the subject I am presenting to you this evening. Critics who believe themselves to be qualified repeatedly object to what is written, for example, in my works, even though this actually only proves how inaccurately and superficially these works are read: the humanities scholar claims that things are this way or that way, but he does not prove it. — Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he does provide proof, but he does so in a different way. He first explains how he arrived at his results; he must first describe the path into the realm of facts. This path is often disconcerting, because it is unfamiliar to today’s habits of thought and feeling. First of all, it must be said: It is precisely the researcher of the spiritual realm who, through his research, arrives at the compelling conclusion that one cannot enter the supersensible realm using the methods and procedures that the researcher of the spiritual realm does not reject—but rather admires—and with which the natural sciences have achieved their brilliant results. Indeed, spiritual science arises precisely from this realization of how limited the methods of scientific thinking are; but not in the way it is often done today, where one simply says, with regard to certain things at which the natural sciences reach their limits: “Here lie the limits of human knowledge”—no, but rather in such a way that one attempts, precisely at these limits, to arrive at very specific experiences that can only be attained at these very limits. I have spoken at some length about these limits of human knowledge, in particular in my latest work, *On the Mysteries of the Soul*, which is being published in the coming weeks.

[ 8 ] Well, those people who have not regarded knowledge as something that simply came to them from outside, who have wrestled with knowledge, who have wrestled with the truth—they have always had certain experiences, at least at these boundaries. One simply has to say: Times change; the development of humanity changes. — Even relatively recently, the most outstanding thinkers and those who wrestled with knowledge found themselves at such boundaries in such a way that they held the view that one cannot go any further at these boundaries—‘one must stop there.’ Those among the esteemed audience who have heard me speak here often know how little it is in my nature to touch on personal matters. However, if the personal is connected in any way to the factual, then a brief mention may well be permitted. I may say: Precisely what I have to say about such experiences at the frontiers of knowledge is, for me, the result of more than thirty years of intellectual research. And it was more than thirty years ago that precisely these problems, these challenges, these riddles—which arise at the frontiers of knowledge—made a profound impression on me. Of the many examples one can cite regarding such frontiers, I would like to highlight one pointed out by a true wrestler with knowledge: Friedrich Theodor Vischer, the famous aesthetician, who was also a very significant figure as a philosopher, even though he may have been underappreciated during his lifetime and quickly forgotten. Friedrich Theodor Vischer—known as “V-Vischer”—wrote a very interesting treatise decades ago on a very interesting book that Volkelt wrote about “dream fantasy.” In doing so, Friedrich Theodor Vischer touched on many things that are of no further interest to us here. But I would like to highlight one sentence—a sentence one might skim over, yet one that can also strike the human mind like a bolt of lightning when it is imbued with a quest for knowledge, a true, inner quest for knowledge. It is the sentence that comes to Vischer’s mind as he ponders and reflects on the nature of the human soul. From what had become clear to him regarding what modern science has to say about human beings, he deduces: “That this human soul cannot exist solely within the body is quite clear; but that it cannot exist outside the body either is equally clear.”

[ 9 ] Well, we are thus faced with a complete contradiction—a contradiction that cannot be easily resolved. We are faced with the kind of contradiction that arises with inescapable necessity when one seriously strives for knowledge. V-Vischer was not yet able—for the time was not yet ripe—to advance beyond what I would like to call: standing at such places of knowledge, at such borderlands; to advance from cognition in the ordinary sense of the word to the inner experience of such a contradiction. Even today, when the vast majority of contemporary seekers of knowledge encounter such a contradiction—and there are indeed hundreds upon hundreds of them— Da Bois-Reymond, the brilliant physiologist, once spoke of the seven mysteries of the world, but one can multiply these seven mysteries into hundreds—today’s contemporary scholar says: “This is as far as human knowledge goes; it cannot go any further.” — He says this simply because, at the boundaries of human cognition, he cannot bring himself to move beyond mere thinking and mere imagination to actual experience. One must begin at a point where a contradiction—one that has not been contrived but has revealed itself through the world’s mysteries—stands in the way; one must try to live with such a contradiction again and again, over and over, just as one wrestles with the habits of everyday life, grappling with it, immersing one’s soul completely in it, so to speak. One must—and this requires a certain inner courage of thought—immerse oneself in the contradiction, without fear that this contradiction might shatter the soul’s imagination, that the soul might not be able to get through it, or anything of the sort. I have described this struggle in such borderline situations in detail in my book *On the Riddles of the Soul*.

[ 10 ] Then, when a person arrives at such a threshold—not through mere imagination, mere intellectual speculation, or fixation, but with their whole soul—then they move forward. But they do not move forward by mere logical means; they move forward along the path of a life of knowledge. And what they experience there, I would like to express through a comparison; for what spiritual research entails are genuine experiences of knowledge, are facts of knowledge. Language today does not yet have many words for these things, because words are shaped for external sensory perception. One can therefore often express what stands clearly before the inner eye only in comparative terms. When one immerses oneself in such contradictions, one feels as if at the boundary where the spiritual world makes its presence felt—a world that cannot be found in sensory reality, where it does make its presence felt, but in a sense from the outside. It is as if—whether or not the idea is well-founded from a scientific standpoint is irrelevant; it can be used by way of comparison—it is as if a lower living being has not yet developed the sense of touch, but experiences things only inwardly, through the constant, stirring movement within, and experiences the boundary of the physical world, the surface of individual things. A being that has not yet developed the sense of touch and thus experiences the surface of sensory objects is still entirely self-contained; in a sense, it cannot yet feel or touch the sensory impressions that exist out there. In exactly the same way—and here we must not think of anything material at all—the wrestler with knowledge feels purely in a spiritual-soul-like way when he is at a stage such as the one I have just described. But just as, in the case of lower living beings, the organism, so to speak, breaks through by coming into contact with the external sensory world and differentiates itself into the sense of touch—through which one feels the surface, through which one knows whether something is rough or smooth, warm or cold on the surface—so too does that which lives only within open up to the outside world; so one gains the ability, as it were, to break through precisely at such points and acquire a spiritual sense of touch. Only then—after perhaps struggling for years at such thresholds of cognition to break through into the spiritual world—does one arrive at the reality of spiritual organs. I am speaking only in very basic terms about how this sense of touch develops. But to use these or other expressions in a more complete sense, one can say that through ever-increasing inner work—working one’s way out of self-containedness—spiritual eyes and spiritual ears develop. Today it still seems absurd to many people to speak of the soul as initially being just as undifferentiated an organ as the organism of a lower being, which forms its senses out of its own substance, and that from this substance, soul concepts and spiritually differentiated spiritual organs can emerge, which then bring it into contact with the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] It is fair to say that the humanities, when presented systematically and with full scientific legitimacy, are today taking their place anew within the progress of knowledge in human development. But they are not something new in every respect. The struggle for them, the striving toward them—we see this precisely in the most outstanding thinkers of the past. And I have already pointed to one of them, Friedrich Theodor Vischer. I would like to demonstrate once more, using his own words, how he stood at such a boundary of knowledge, how he nevertheless came to a halt before it, and how he did not make the transition from the inner rain to breaking through the boundary, to spiritual intuition. And here I would like to read to you the very passage from Friedrich Theodor Vischer’s essays where he describes how he came to such a boundary—where the spirit comes into contact with the human soul—in the course of his struggle with the findings of the natural sciences. It was during a time when materialistically oriented natural science presented many puzzles to those earnestly seeking knowledge, a time when numerous people said that one could not speak of the soul in any other way than as merely a product of material processes.

[ 12 ] Here are his words: “No mind where there is no nerve center, where there is no brain, say the opponents. No nerve center, no brain, we say, if it were not prepared from below through countless stages; it is easy to speak mockingly of a rumbling of the spirit within granite and limestone—no harder than it would be for us to ask mockingly how the protein in the brain soars to become ideas. Human understanding cannot fathom the measurement of these gradual differences. It will remain a mystery how it comes to be and how it works that nature—under which the spirit must surely slumber—stands as such a perfect counterforce to the spirit that we bump our heads against it;”—I ask you to note how the wrestler of knowledge describes that we bump our heads against it; here you have an inner experience of a wrestler of knowledge: this collision of a wrestler of knowledge! — “It is a distortion of such an appearance of absoluteness that, with Hegel’s ‘otherness’ and ‘being outside oneself’—however ingenious the formula—virtually nothing is said; the harshness of the apparent dividing wall is simply concealed. The proper recognition of the edge and the impact in this counter-blow is found in Fichte, but no explanation for it.”

[ 13 ] Here we have a description of a person’s struggle for knowledge during the time before the decision—the spiritual-scientific decision—could take shape: not merely to reach this point of back-and-forth, but to break through the barrier separating us from the spiritual world. — I can only speak about such matters in very general terms; you will find them explained in detail in my books. Specifically in *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* and in the second part of my *Outline of Esoteric Science*, you will find a detailed exposition of what the soul must undertake through inner activity, through inner practice—if I may use that expression—in order to truly transform that which is undifferentiated within it into spiritual organs capable of perceiving the spiritual world.

[ 14 ] But a great deal is necessary if one truly wishes to conduct research in this way. So much is necessary because, in our time, due to the habits that have developed specifically in the field of the natural sciences—and in the realm of the scientific worldview, which is fully justified in its own field—a particular way of thinking has taken hold in human life that is opposed to the paths leading into the spiritual world; so that it is only natural that from the scientific side one hears only things that, in fact, have no interest in the spiritual world as it truly is, in its realities. I will mention just one thing—as I said, you will find more details in the books cited—I will mention that human beings must, so to speak, attain a completely different way of conceiving things. In everyday life, people are satisfied with concepts and ideas if they can say to themselves: These concepts, these ideas are such that they are a reflection of some external fact or external thing. — The spiritual researcher cannot be satisfied with this. Even these ideas and concepts become something entirely different in his soul than they are according to the current habits of thought. If I may once again use a comparison, I would like to illustrate how the spiritual researcher faces the world today. Materialists, spiritualists, pantheists, individualists, monadists, and so on—all such people believe they can somehow penetrate the mysteries of the world; they attempt, using specific ideas and concepts, to form a picture of the processes of the world. Thus, the spiritual researcher cannot simply grasp concepts as they are, but must approach a concept in such a way that he is always clearly aware: In a concept, in a mental image, he has nothing other than what one has in the external sensory world; for example, when one photographs a tree or another object from a certain angle, one obtains an image from that angle, a different image from another angle, yet another from a third angle, and yet another from a fourth angle. The images differ from one another; only when combined in the mind do they together yield the tree as a formed mental image. But one can very well say that one image contradicts the other! Just look at how different an object often appears when you photograph it from one side and then from another! The researcher of the spirit regards all these concepts of pantheism, monadism, and so on in such a way that they are nothing other than different perspectives on reality. For spiritual reality does not, in truth, present itself to the life of imagination or the life of concepts in such a way that one can say any single concept is a representation; rather, one must always approach the matter from all sides, forming the most diverse concepts from various perspectives. This enables one to develop a much greater inner, spiritually active life than one is accustomed to in the outer sensory world; but it also compels one to make these concepts something much more alive. They are no longer mere images, but by experiencing them, they become something much more alive than they are in ordinary life and its objects.

[ 15 ] I can explain this in the following way. Suppose you have a rose in front of you, cut from the rosebush; you form a mental image of it. Well, you can form this image; and you will often have the feeling, when you think of it, that it expresses something real—that the rose is something real. The spiritual researcher can never make progress on his path if he is satisfied with such ideas that the rose is something real. The rose, imagined on its own as a flower with a short stem, is in and of itself not real at all; as it is, it can only exist on the rosebush. The rosebush is something real! And the spiritual researcher must now accustom himself, with regard to all individual things about which people form ideas—believing them to be real as well—to always be aware of the limited sense in which such a thing is real. When he has the rose with its stem before him, he must feel: this is not something real; he must sense, feel, and experience the degree of unreality contained in this rose as a mere flower.

[ 16 ] But by extending this to one’s entire view of the world, the life of the imagination itself is enlivened; as a result, one does not end up with the already enfeebled, the dead concepts with which today’s scientific worldview is content, but rather with concepts that live and breathe with the things themselves. Admittedly, when one starts from the current habits of thought, one initially experiences all sorts of disappointments—disappointments that arise because what one experiences in this way is, in fact, quite different from the current habits of thought. One must sometimes speak in quite paradoxical terms when speaking from the insights of the spiritual world in relation to the things that are generally spoken of and believed today.

[ 17 ] One can be a very learned man today—let’s say in the field of physics—an extraordinarily learned man, and one can rightly inspire admiration through one’s scholarship; yet one can work with nothing but concepts that have not been drawn upon or developed in the way I have described: the bringing to life of the world of the imagination. I have, after all, said only something quite elementary; but for the researcher of the spirit, this elementary principle must extend to one’s entire worldview. Let me give an example: Professor Dewar delivered a very significant lecture in London at the beginning of the century. This lecture, I would say, reveals in every sentence the great scholar of our time, who is as well-versed in physical concepts as one can possibly be. The scholar attempts, based on the physical concepts that a contemporary physicist can arrive at, to speak about the Earth’s final state—or rather, about some future state in which much of what may still exist today must have perished. He describes this very accurately, because he bases his arguments on thoroughly well-founded premises; he describes how, after millions of years, a state of the Earth must eventually arise in which the temperature has dropped by so many hundred degrees, and how—as can be calculated very precisely—certain substances must have changed. This can be calculated, and he describes how milk, for example, could no longer be liquid as it is today but would have to be solid; how egg white, when used to coat walls, would become so luminous that one could read newspapers by its light without needing any other source, since light would be emitted by the egg white itself; and many other such details. Things that today would not even withstand a few grams of pressure will be so strong in their consistency and material composition that one could hang hundreds of kilograms from them; in short, Professor Dewar provides a magnificent description of a future state of the Earth. From a purely physical standpoint, one cannot raise the slightest objection; but for those who have absorbed living thought into their souls, the matter presents itself differently. For those who have embraced living thought in their souls, the moment they take in such conceptual frameworks as those presented by this professor, it necessarily occurs to them that they must now articulate something that, in its method and perspective, would be very similar to the reasoning and way of thinking of this scholar.

[ 18 ] Suppose, for example, that one were to take a twenty-five-year-old person and observe them closely—such observations are already possible today; I need only mention X-rays— one were to closely observe how certain organs—let’s say the stomach—change from year to year, over the course of two, three, four, or five years; they take on different configurations. One can describe this, just as a physicist does, by comparing the Earth’s successive states and then calculating what the Earth must look like after millions of years. Now one can do the same with human beings: one observes how, say, the stomach or heart changes from year to year; then one calculates what, say, the person must look like after two hundred years based on these changes. One arrives at an equally well-founded result when calculating what a person must look like after two hundred years, provided one correctly combines the individual observations—only by then the person will have long since died and will no longer be here!

[ 19 ] You see what I mean. The point is that in one case, we know from direct experience that such calculations do not correspond to reality—because after two hundred years, the human body, with all these changes, would no longer exist—yet we apply this calculation to the Earth. But people fail to consider that, as a physical entity, the Earth itself will have long since perished after two million years—it will no longer exist; thus, all this scholarly calculation regarding this state has absolutely no value in reality, because the reality to which it is applied no longer exists.

[ 20 ] Things go very far. You might as well calculate backward in human history as forward; you could calculate what a person would have looked like based on the small changes that occurred two years ago—two hundred years ago—but that person wasn’t even there yet! Yet the Kant-Laplace theory is based on the same method—the theory that assumes there was once a nebular state, calculated from the present state. The calculation works out quite well, the observations are entirely correct, only—for the researcher of the spiritual realm, it becomes apparent that back when this entire primordial nebula is supposed to have existed, the entire Earth had not yet been born, and the entire solar system did not yet exist.

[ 21 ] I wanted to use these calculations only to show you how the entire inner life of the soul must emerge from abstraction, how it must immerse itself in living reality, and how the ideas themselves must come to life. In my book *The Mystery of Man*, which was published two years ago, I distinguished between concepts that correspond to reality and those that do not. In short, what matters is that the spiritual researcher must point out that his path is such that the means of knowledge he uses must first be awakened, that he must first transform his soul in order to be able to look into the spiritual world. Then the results come in such a form that one can see: the spiritual researcher does not speculate about whether the soul is immortal or whether the soul passes through birth and death; rather, his path of research leads him to the eternal in the human soul, to that which passes through births and deaths; his path of research shows him what lives in the human being as the eternal. So he seeks out the object, the thing, the being itself. Once one has the being, one can recognize its qualities in it, just as one recognizes the color of a rose. This is why it often appears as though the spiritual scientist is merely asserting that this is so, for in presenting evidence, he must always point out the path by which one arrives at these things; he must, so to speak, begin where other sciences end. But then a true penetration becomes possible into those realms which, I would say, have death as their starting point just as much as what lies within the realm of the natural sciences has birth and youth as its starting point. One must simply be clear that this death is by no means merely the event that brings the external, sensory forms of perception to a close—as it is usually viewed—but that it is something that participates in existence, just as the forces brought into being at birth participate in existence. We do not merely encounter death when it seizes us as a singular event; rather, we carry within us the forces of death—destroying forces, ever-destroying forces—just as we carry within us the forces of birth, or those given to us at birth, as constructive forces.

[ 22 ] To understand this, however, one must truly be able to conduct research at the intersection of the natural sciences and the humanities. Of course, today I can only cite the findings of a few; my intention is merely to inspire. If I were to explain in full detail what I am trying to convey, I would have to give many lectures. So, if one wishes to pursue what has been hinted at, one must venture into the borderland between the natural sciences and the humanities. It is so widely believed—and has long been believed—that the human nervous system, this human nervous apparatus, is simply a tool for thinking, feeling, and willing; in short, for psychological experience. Today, science has for the most part moved beyond these notions; only popular worldview movements still hold a position that science abandoned decades ago. The one who, through such organs of the soul—through spiritual eyes and spiritual ears, as I have described them at least in principle—learns to perceive the life of the soul, who truly discovers this life of the soul for the first time, knows that to say “the brain is a tool for thinking” is just like saying: “I walk along a path that may be soft, and I leave my footprints in it.” Someone finds these footprints later and wants to explain them. How does he explain them? He explains them by saying: “Deep within the earth there are all kinds of forces that oscillate up and down, and by oscillating up and down, they produce these footprints”—which does not at all stem from forces in the earth producing these footprints, for I have made them there, but one can clearly detect my footprints right there! — This is how physiologists today explain that what takes place in the brain comes from the brain, because every thought, image, and feeling corresponds to something in the nervous system. Just as my footprints correspond to my steps, so too does something in the brain truly correspond to what the soul experiences as impressions. But the soul is the one that imprinted them there in the first place. Just as the earth is not the organ for my walking or for the footprints—just as it does not form them—so too is the brain not the organ for all manner of processes of thinking or imagining. And just as I cannot walk without the ground—I cannot walk in the air; I need the ground if I want to walk—so the brain is necessary; but not because it produces the soul, but because the soul needs the ground on which it expresses itself as long as the human being lives in the body between birth and death. It therefore has nothing at all to do with all of that.

[ 23 ] It is precisely the natural sciences—which are so brilliantly understood today—that will achieve their full enlightenment when this shift in thinking, which I have indicated here, takes place; a shift that is, admittedly, more radical than that of the Copernican worldview compared to the worldview held in the past, but which is just as justified in relation to the true worldview as the Copernican worldview was in relation to the earlier one. Then, as one advances along the path of soul research, one will also find that the processes in the brain and nervous system that correspond to the life of the soul are not constructive; they are not something that exists simply because the productive, growing, and flourishing activity is present in the nervous system just as it is in the rest of the organism. No! Rather, what the soul accomplishes in the nervous system is a destructive activity; it is, in fact, a destructive activity during our waking consciousness outside of sleep. And it is only because the nervous system is embedded within us in such a way that it is continually replenished by the rest of the organism that the catabolic, dissolving, and destructive activity—which, originating in thought, intervenes in our nervous system—can be continually balanced. Degrading activity is present—an activity that is qualitatively exactly the same as that which a person undergoes all at once when they die, when the organism is completely dissolved. Death lives continuously within us through our imagination. I would say that, divided into its atomic components, death lives continuously within us; and the singular death that overtakes us is merely the sum total of what is constantly working to break us down within us—though it is, in turn, balanced out—only the balancing acts are such that, ultimately, spontaneous death is also brought about.

[ 24 ] One must understand death as a force at work within the organism, just as one understands the forces of life. But if you look at modern science—which is entirely legitimate in its own field—you will find that it seeks only the constructive forces. That which breaks down eludes it. Consequently, that which arises anew from the process of decay—not physically, of course, for the physical is being broken down—but rather that which rebuilds itself spiritually and psychologically—cannot be observed by external natural science, for it continually falls outside the scope of observation and is accessible only to the kind of observation I described earlier. Then it becomes clear, however, that as we go about our lives, our entire soul activity is not merely assigned to the earth on which it must develop—and which it even breaks down, insofar as it is active— insofar as it is active, but that this entire soul activity is also attuned to a spiritual world that always surrounds us, in which we stand with our soul-spiritual being just as we stand with our physical body in the sensory-physical world. Spiritual science thus strives for a genuine relationship between human beings and the spiritual world that permeates all that is physical—the real, concrete, actual spiritual world.

[ 25 ] This, however, opens up the possibility of further observing how that which acts and weaves within us as a spiritual force—and which breaks down within the boundaries I have described—forms a coherent whole. What I have called soul development advances from ordinary consciousness to contemplative consciousness. I have spoken of this in my book *The Mystery of Man*. This contemplative consciousness develops the capacity for imaginative insights. These imaginative insights do not reveal what is externally perceptible to the senses, but rather—leaving aside the other world for now—they reveal in the human being themselves that which is not perceptible to the senses. To avoid any misunderstanding, I have recently referred to that which can initially be perceived through such awakened insight as the “body of formative forces.” This is the human being’s supersensible body, which is active throughout our entire life, from birth—or, let us say, conception—until our physical death; it is also the bearer of our memories, yet as a supersensible entity it stands in connection with a supersensible external world. Thus, our sensory life, with the rest of our consciousness, stands there like an island; but surrounding this island—and even permeating it—is the relationship between the human body of formative forces and the supersensible external world. Here, of course, we are led to regard the entire world of imagination—as I have described it—as connected to the physical brain, which provides the foundation for it; but we come to realize that the form-body is the bearer of human thoughts, that thoughts develop within this form-body, and that when a person thinks, they live within this form-body.

[ 26 ] The situation is quite different, however, when we move on to another aspect of the soul’s experience: feeling. Our feelings—as well as our emotions and passions—stand in a different relationship to our inner life than our thinking does. The spiritual researcher finds that the thoughts we usually form are bound to the body of formative forces, but not our feelings, not our emotions. These feelings and emotions live within us in a much more subconscious way; but they are also connected to something far more comprehensive than our life between birth and death. It is not that human beings are thoughtless in this part of their life of which I am now speaking; all feelings are permeated by thoughts; but the thoughts that permeate these feelings do not, as a rule, enter a person’s ordinary consciousness—they lie below the threshold of that consciousness. What wells up as feeling is interwoven with thought, but these thoughts are of a broader scope, for one finds them only by advancing to an even higher level of consciousness in intuitive insight: to what—and I am not referring to superstitious notions—I call inspired consciousness. You can read more details about this in my books.

[ 27 ] If one now delves into that which actually lies dormant in relation to ordinary consciousness—just as a person sleeps from the moment of falling asleep until waking with regard to ordinary sensory perceptions—one sees it welling up, just as dreams well up into sleep. Indeed, the feelings welled up—it sounds paradoxical, but it is so—from the depths of the soul. But this deeper realm of the soul, which is accessible to inspired insight, is that which lives between death and a new birth; it is that which has entered into the physical realm through our conception—or, let us say, birth—and which passes through the gate of death and exists as a spiritual being under different conditions until the human being is born again. Whoever, with inspired insight, truly looks into that which lives in the world of feeling sees not only the human being between birth and death, but also sees the human being in the periods the soul experiences between death and a new birth.

[ 28 ] This is not simply stated as a matter of fact—that is just the way it is—but rather, it points out how the forces within the soul arise that enable us to view feelings, emotions, and passions in such a way that we live right within them. Just as one sees in a plant that which has arisen through the forces of germination, so one sees something that does not arise with our birth or conception, but rather has come forth from a spiritual world.

[ 29 ] I am well aware of how much can be raised against such a conception from today’s scientific worldview. Those familiar with such scientific worldviews will readily say: Yes, here he comes, describing in an amateurish way how these aspects of his soul—which he seeks to encompass—originate from a spiritual world; he describes the particular configurations and colors of feelings as if, on the one hand, these feelings contained a reference to our prenatal life, and on the other hand, something akin to how a plant’s seed is what will become the plant of the following year. “Doesn’t this man,” people will say, “know the marvelous laws of heredity that have been established by the natural sciences? Doesn’t he know everything that those who first established the science of hereditary traits know—those who first synthesized all that the study of hereditary traits has brought to light?”

[ 30 ] If, on the one hand, the fact pointed out by natural science is entirely correct, yet the process of heredity involves our own forces—forces through which we prepare ourselves over the course of centuries and which we send down—so that from our ancestors and parents those constellations take shape which ultimately lead to the material result with which we then envelop ourselves as we descend from the spiritual world into the physical. Anyone who truly considers the marvelous findings of recent research on heredity will find that what spiritual science discovers—albeit in a completely different way, I would say, by the opposite path, starting from the soul—is fully confirmed precisely by natural science; whereas what natural science itself asserts is not confirmed by natural science at all. I can only hint at this.

[ 31 ] And when we then enter that realm known as the will, it is, of course, very far removed from what a person experiences in their ordinary consciousness. What does a person actually know about what is going on within them when the thought “I want something” takes the form of a hand movement? The actual process of the will lies dormant within a person. With regard to feelings and emotions, one could at least say that a person is dreaming within themselves. That is why the question of freedom is so difficult—because the will is dormant in relation to ordinary consciousness. One can only gain insight into what is happening within the will by advancing, through contemplative consciousness, to true intuitive consciousness—not the vague, everyday consciousness that is merely called “intuitive,” but rather what I have referred to in my writings as the three stages of cognition: imaginative, inspired, and intuitive. There one enters the realm of the will, that which is meant to work and live within us. This must first be brought up from the depths beneath the soul. But then one finds that, in addition to this element of the will—ordinary thought stands on its own—it is permeated by thoughts and by the spiritual. But just as we carry the will within us, it is not only what we have experienced in the spiritual world—what works into our feelings and emotions between death and a new birth—that now acts upon this will, but also what we have experienced in previous earthly lives. The impulses of earlier earthly lives work into the human will. And in what we develop—or, I would say, nurture—in our present volition, the impulses for subsequent earthly lives are alive. Thus, for genuine spiritual research, the entire human life breaks down into those lives that lie between birth and death, and into those which—because the entire physical existence must be built up from outside the world—are experienced in the spiritual world over far longer periods of time. Human life as a whole is composed of such lives—repeated earthly lives and repeated spiritual lives. This is not a fantasy, not a mere idea, but something one discovers when one truly learns to turn the spiritual eye toward the eternal, the imperishable, within the human soul.

[ 32 ] These things do not preclude human freedom. Just as it does not preclude my freedom when I build a house this year in which I will live in two years’ time—I will be a free person within it, even though I built this house for myself—so one earthly life predetermines the others that follow. But only a misunderstood view could portray this as an infringement on the concept of human freedom.

[ 33 ] In this way, one gradually approaches spiritual facts in spiritual research by taking death as the starting point. Even in specific cases, this observation yields a wide variety of results when one takes death as the foundation of spiritual research, just as one takes birth and embryonic life as the foundation of physical research. I will mention just a few examples, because I do not wish to speak in vague terms, but rather to cite concrete results of anthroposophical spiritual research. In ordinary spiritual life, we can distinguish between death that occurs violently due to external causes and death that occurs from within—whether through internal illness or through aging. We can thus distinguish between different kinds of death. Spiritual research that specifically addresses the nature of death finds the following:

[ 34 ] Let us take, for example, a violent death that occurs during one’s life—whether through an accident or in some other way; in short, a violent death. This is the occurrence of an event that brings an end to life in this earthly existence. The development of spiritual consciousness for the spiritual world after death depends just as much on this single occurrence of death as the foundation depends—in the way I have described it—on the forces given to us at birth, which enable us to develop consciousness during our lives. The consciousness we develop after death is of a different nature: The consciousness we develop here on Earth is grounded in the nervous system, just as I stand on the ground when I walk; in the spiritual world, the consciousness after death is of a different nature, but it is certainly a form of consciousness. When a person dies a violent death, this is not merely something that intrudes upon their perceptions. Ordinary concepts of consciousness do indeed come to an end with death, and a different consciousness begins; but it also affects their will, which, as we have seen, carries over into subsequent earthly lives. The spiritual researcher has the means to investigate, within an earthly life, what may occur if a violent death took place in a previous earthly life.

[ 35 ] When one speaks of such things today, one knows, of course, that all sorts of people will say: That is foolish, childish, fanciful. — But the findings are just as scientifically sound—and I present only such findings—as those of the natural sciences. When a violent death intervenes in a life, this manifests itself in the subsequent earthly life in such a way that this death continues to have an effect by somehow bringing about a change in the direction of life during very specific years of that subsequent life. Research is already being conducted on the life of the soul; however, it is generally conducted in such a way that only the most external aspects are taken into account. In some people’s lives, something occurs at a specific moment that changes the entire course of their destiny, leading them down different paths in life, as if challenged from within. In America, such events are called “conversions,” because people want to give them names; but we need not always think in religious terms; a person can be driven onto different life paths, into a lasting change in the direction of their will. Such a radical change in the direction of the will has its origin in a violent death in their previous life. For concrete research shows just how often what occurs at the moment of death is particularly significant for the middle of the next life. If death occurs spontaneously from within—through illness or aging—then it has far greater significance for the life between death and a new birth than for the next earthly life.

[ 36 ] I wanted to cite these examples so that you can see that we are not just talking in vague generalities, but can in fact gain very specific insights into details that arise in the context of life. And so it is that spiritual research—even for those who are convinced of the immortality of the human soul—brings into consciousness the realization that we must not merely speak of immortality in general terms, but that through an understanding of the eternal in the human soul, human life as such becomes comprehensible. All the strange occurrences one observes when one has a sense of the soul’s life course—the course of the soul’s life within the human being—all these wondrous events come into focus when one knows that one is dealing with repeated earthly lives and repeated spiritual lives. In the spiritual world—I mention this only as an aside—human beings relate to spiritual beings, not only to fellow human beings who have been brought close to them by fate and who have also passed through the gate of death, but also to other spiritual beings in the same way that they relate here to the three kingdoms: the plant kingdom, the mineral kingdom, and the animal kingdom. The spiritual researcher speaks of specific individual spirits, specific individual spiritual beings, of a concrete, individualized spiritual world, just as we speak here of individualized plant beings, animal beings, and human beings, insofar as they are physical beings between birth and death. What can shake a person above all else—it is difficult to speak of these things in such a way that they emerge in a new light, as if from the depths of the spirit—is what occurs when knowledge itself approaches the human soul in a very specific way. You have seen from what I have said that one can gain knowledge of the spiritual world. These insights have profound significance for the human soul; they transform the human soul, so to speak, into something else. It penetrates the life of the soul, regardless of whether one is a spiritual researcher or has merely heard, understood, and taken in what has been researched by spiritual researchers; it does not matter whether one has researched it oneself: one can also find it comprehensible. One can find everything comprehensible, provided one penetrates it sufficiently. One need only have taken it in. But then, when one grasps it in its full essence, it enters into this human soul life in such a way that one day one says to oneself that it is more significant than all other events in life.

[ 37 ] One may have experienced difficult or sad events that have shaken one, joyful events that have uplifted one, or sublime experiences—one need not be insensitive to them, especially if one is a spiritual researcher or a knower of the spirit, one can experience everything just as deeply as other people who are not yet spiritual researchers—but when one penetrates, in one’s full being, what spiritual knowledge gives to the soul and is able to answer the question: What does the soul gain from these spiritual insights? — if one fully realizes what the soul has become through spiritual knowledge, then this event becomes more important than all other fates, than all other experiences of fate that approach a person. Not that the others become less significant, but this one becomes greater than the others. The insight itself then enters, as a matter of destiny, through the life of the human soul. When the insight enters in this way through the life of the human soul, one begins to understand human destiny as such: from there shines the light that illuminates human destiny. From this moment on, one says to oneself: If one has this experience of destiny so purely in the spiritual realm, then it becomes clear how one is placed in life by destiny, how our destiny hangs on the threads that spin out from previous lives, previous earthly lives, and lives between death and rebirth—threads that spin back from this life into a subsequent one. — And one says to oneself: Ordinary consciousness merely dreams through its destiny; ordinary consciousness accepts its destiny without understanding it, just as one accepts a dream. The contemplative consciousness to which one awakens—just as one awakens from a dream to ordinary consciousness—also gains a new relationship to destiny. Fate is recognized as that which contributes to our all-encompassing life—the life that passes through births and deaths.

[ 38 ] This matter should not be understood in a trivial way, as if the spiritual researcher were to say: “You brought this misfortune upon yourself”—no, that would not only be a misunderstanding; it would even be a slander against spiritual research. Misfortune does not even have to be caused in any way by a previous life. It can occur spontaneously; it will simply have consequences for the next life and for all lives between earthly existences, because we very often see that misfortune, suffering, and pain give rise to what is a transformed consciousness in the spiritual world. But meaning enters our entire life, as does an understanding of our destiny—which we would otherwise merely dream through, but which we now learn to comprehend.

[ 39 ] One thing stands out above all else when this spiritual insight is taken into account. One can no longer say, for example: “Well, after death the soul may enter into another life, but we can just wait and see.” Here, one should take life as it presents itself in the physical body; as for what comes after death, one can simply wait and see. — The matter is a question of consciousness. Admittedly, what occurs after death is connected to the life we live in the body. Just as we here, through our body, have—in a certain sense—the consciousness that we experience in the ordinary waking state, so after death we have a consciousness that is not built up spatially from the nervous system, but is built up temporally, through looking back. Just as our nervous system is, so to speak, the counterforce and counteraction to our ordinary consciousness between birth and “death,” so what already resides here in our consciousness forms the foundation for our consciousness in the spiritual world between death and new birth. And just as we have the world around us here, so, when we have died, we have our very life before us as an important organ. Therefore, much depends on the consciousness within the physical body, which can extend into the consciousness that approaches us after death. For example, anyone who—as is often the case with contemporary ways of thinking—concerns themselves only with physical images perceived through the senses will have, in their consciousness, in their memory, and in everything that takes place within their soul, only images from ordinary life: they, too, construct a world for themselves after death. One constructs one’s surroundings through what one is inwardly. Just as someone who is physically born in Europe cannot see America around them, just as one’s physical surroundings are determined by the environment into which one is born, so too does one, in a sense, determine one’s surroundings—the place of one’s existence—through what one has formed within the body.

[ 40 ] Let us take the extreme case—which, however, is unlikely to occur in a human being—where someone has resisted all supersensible ideas, has become an atheist, and has not even, from the perspective of religion, developed a sense that he might even want to engage with it—I know I am saying something very paradoxical, but it also has a solid foundation in spiritual science: he condemns himself to remain in the earthly sphere, to remain there with his consciousness, while the other person, who has absorbed spiritual ideas, is transported into a spiritual environment. But the one who has absorbed only sensory impressions condemns himself to remain in the sensory environment.

[ 41 ] Just as one can act in a way that promotes growth while in the physical body—because, in a sense, the physical body serves as a protective shell against the external environment—and just as one can act in a way that promotes growth while present in the physical world within the physical body, so too does one act in a way that hinders growth if one remains present in the physical world after death. With physical images in one’s consciousness after death, one becomes a destroyer. — I have already indicated, in connection with the problem of heredity, how the forces of the human being, when in the spiritual world, intervene in the physical world. Whoever condemns themselves, through their mere physical consciousness, to remain in the physical world becomes a center of destructive forces that intervene in what happens in human life and in the life of the rest of the world. As long as we are in the body, we may have merely sensory, materialistic thoughts: the body is a protection. Oh, it is a protection to a far greater degree than we realize! It is very strange, but to those who look into the entire context of the spiritual world, one thing is clear: If human beings were not cut off from their surroundings by their senses, if the senses did not hold them back—since in ordinary consciousness they are incapable of taking in living concepts but only dead ones, which are meant to prevent them from penetrating the spiritual environment—if human beings could make their ideas immediately effective, if they did not merely hold them within themselves as inner thoughts, after things have already passed through the senses—then human beings, even here in the physical world, would—if they developed their life of imagination—have a killing, paralyzing effect through their ideas. For these ideas are, in a certain sense, destructive and degrading to everything they grasp. It is only because these ideas are held back within us that they are not destructive; they are destructive only when they find expression in machines, in tools, which must, after all, be something dead taken from living nature. This is, admittedly, only a metaphor, but one that corresponds to reality. Yet if a person enters the spiritual world with merely physical ideas, he becomes a center of destruction.

[ 42 ] So I cite this one example—just one among many—to show that we must not say, “We can wait”—but rather that it lies in the nature of the human being whether he develops sensory or supersensory perceptions; in either case, he is preparing for the next life. This is, of course, a completely different life, but it is developed out of the life here; that is the essential point one must grasp. Many things are presented differently in spiritual science than one might expect. Therefore, I must make a few concluding remarks.

[ 43 ] One might very easily come to believe that anyone who is now entering the spiritual world must necessarily become a spiritual researcher themselves. That is not necessary, although in my book *How Does One Gain Insight into the Higher Worlds?* I have described so much of what the soul must do within itself in order to truly enter that world. And today, to a certain extent, anyone can do it—but not everyone needs to. What one has developed as a spiritual quality is a purely inner matter; but what arises from this is that the truths explored are formed into concepts, that what the spiritual researcher can offer is clothed in such ideas as I have developed today. Then it can be communicated. As far as what a person needs is concerned—and I am stating a law of spiritual research here—it makes no difference whatsoever whether one has researched the things oneself or has received them from another credible source. It does not matter whether one has researched the things oneself; what matters is that one has them within oneself, that one has developed them within oneself. It is therefore a mistaken notion to believe that everyone must become a spiritual researcher. The spiritual researcher today will simply feel the need—just as I myself have felt—to give an account, so to speak, of his path of research. And not only because today, to a certain extent, anyone can follow the path I have described without any harm, but also because everyone is entitled to ask: How did you manage to arrive at such results? — that is why I have described these things. And I believe that even those who do not wish to become spiritual researchers will at least want to see for themselves how the spiritual researcher arrives at the results that are, after all, needed today by everyone who, in keeping with the current state of human development, wishes to lay the foundation for the life that must unfold within human souls.

[ 44 ] The time has now passed when, in ancient times, spiritual research was so strictly restricted that it hindered the development of the soul. In ancient times, it was strictly forbidden to reveal what was hidden. Even today, those who know these mysteries of life—and there are quite a few of them—still hold back on these matters. Anyone who has merely received this knowledge as a student from another teacher would be doing wrong under any circumstances to pass it on! Today, it is advisable to pass on only what one has discovered for oneself, what one has researched oneself. But this can and must serve the rest of humanity. |

[ 45 ] Even from the few brief hints I have been able to offer today, it may be clear what spiritual research can mean for the individual; but it is not significant merely for the individual. And to at least touch upon this other aspect in a few words at the end, I would like to point out something that is given very little consideration today.

[ 46 ] There is a peculiar phenomenon to which I would like to draw attention in the following way: In the second half of the 19th century, we saw the rise of a certain school of thought in the natural sciences—namely, the explanation of living organisms associated with the name Darwin. Enthusiastic, learned researchers and enthusiastic students carried these ideas through the decades of the second half of the 19th century. I may have already drawn attention here to the peculiar development that took place. As early as the 1860s, a powerful ideological movement had emerged under the leadership of F. Zäckel, which sought to overturn everything old and reshape the entire worldview according to Darwinian principles. Even today, there are still numerous people who emphasize how great and significant it would have been if the world were no longer governed by a wise divine providence, but rather if everything could have been explained in terms of mechanistic forces, in the spirit of Darwinism.

[ 47 ] In 1869, Eduard von Hlartmann published his *Philosophy of the Unconscious* and took a stand against Darwinism, which viewed the world purely from an external perspective, by pointing out—albeit inadequately, since he had not engaged in spiritual research—the necessity of inner forces in a purely philosophical manner. Naturally, those who were enthusiastic about the rise of Darwinism were quick to say: “Well, the philosopher is an amateur; there’s no need to listen to him.” — Counter-essays appeared in which the amateur Eduard von Hartmann was mocked: the true, learned naturalist need not pay any attention to such things.

[ 48 ] At that time, a treatise by an anonymous author was also published, which brilliantly refuted this work by Eduard von Hartmann. Natural scientists and those who shared their views were in full agreement with this treatise, for Eduard von Hartmann had been completely refuted. Everything that could be argued there—drawn quite eruditely from the depths of natural science—was put forward in this treatise by an anonymous author against Eduard von Hartmann, just as much is argued today against spiritual research. And lo and behold, the treatise was received with great acclaim. Haeckel said: “For once, a real natural scientist has written against this dilettante, Eduard von Hartmann; there you see what a natural scientist is capable of; I myself could not have written anything better.” “Let him reveal himself to us, and we will regard him as one of our own.” In short, the natural scientists actively promoted this treatise, which served their interests well, so that it was soon out of print. A second edition was necessary. Then the author revealed himself: it was Eduard von Hartmann!

[ 49 ] Someone once taught the world an important lesson. For the person who, as a spiritual researcher today, must endure what is written against spiritual research could, in fact, pull all the arguments raised against spiritual science out of thin air without much effort. Eduard von Hartmann, too, could have come up with everything that the natural scientists argued against him—and he did.

[ 50 ] But this is merely by way of introduction. What matters to me is this: Oscar Hertwig is one of Haeckel’s most significant students, who has followed the diligent, honest, and noble path of scientific research. Last year, Hertwig wrote a very fine book. The book is titled *The Development of Organisms: A Refutation of Darwin’s Theory of Chance*, and in it he points to ideas similar to those already put forward by Eduard von Hartmann. Such a thing is actually quite unprecedented: that the very next generation—the one that grew up under the master’s guidance—must turn away from something that was believed to form the basis of an entire worldview and to offer insight even into the spiritual world. A good Darwinist refutes Darwinism! But he does even more than that; and that is what matters to me in the end.

[ 51 ] Oscar Hertwig writes at the end of his excellent, beautiful book *The Development of Organisms. A Refutation of Darwin’s Theory of Chance,” that something like a worldview—as Darwinism was—does not merely stand as a theoretical construct, but rather permeates the whole of human life, encompassing, so to speak, what people do, want, feel, and think. He says: “The interpretation of Darwin’s doctrine, which is so ambiguous due to its vagueness, also allowed for a very versatile application in other areas of economic, social, and political life. From it, anyone could—as from a Delphic oracle—draw practical applications to social, political, hygienic, medical, and other issues as they saw fit, and invoke the science of Darwinian biology, with its immutable laws of nature, to support their claims. But if these supposed laws are not actually laws, might there not also be social dangers associated with their versatile application to other fields? Surely one cannot believe that human society can use phrases such as “relentless struggle for existence,” “selection of the fit, the useful, and the expedient,” “perfection through selective breeding,” etc.—applied to the most diverse areas, such as daily bread—for half a century without being deeply and lastingly influenced in the very direction of its thought processes! Evidence for this assertion could easily be drawn from many phenomena of modern times. Precisely for this reason, the question of whether Darwinism is true or false extends far beyond the realm of the biological sciences. »

[ 52 ] What comes to light in such a theory is evident everywhere in life. This raises a question that also impacts life, from the perspective of spiritual science. We are living today in a sad time, a time that is tragic for humanity. It is a time that has, after all, developed out of human conceptions, out of human ideas. Those who study these connections from the perspective of spiritual science know this; they understand the connection between what we now face externally and the tragedy humanity is currently experiencing. We experience so much; people believe they know, they believe they can encompass reality with their concepts—but they do not. And because they do not encompass it—since reality can never be encompassed by concepts of a natural-scientific nature—reality grows beyond their grasp and shows them, as events overwhelm them, that while people may indeed become embroiled in such events, the result is the very chaos that surrounds us today. Spiritual science does not arise solely—as is indeed true—out of an inner necessity; it would have arisen out of this very inner necessity even if external events were not now standing before us as a magnificent, powerful sign. The fact that the old worldviews, while great in the realm of the natural sciences, can never intervene in a world-shaping way in the social, legal, or political spheres—and that reality overwhelms people when they seek to do so—is what, from the other side, points in powerful signs toward spiritual science, which seeks concepts in keeping with reality, concepts that are drawn from reality and will therefore also be capable of sustaining the world in the social and political spheres. No matter how much one may believe, using the concepts commonly employed outside of spiritual science today, that one can emerge from chaos, one will not succeed; for in reality, the spirit reigns supreme. And because human beings, through their actions, intervene in this reality themselves—in social and political life—they need, in order to arrive at fruitful concepts in these fields, such ideas, such feelings, and such impulses of the will that are drawn from the spirit. Politics and the social sciences will, in the future, require what only the science of the spirit can lay the foundation for. This is what is also of particular importance for contemporary history.

[ 53 ] For my part, in this lecture—which has already gone on long enough—I can only offer a few suggestions today. I wish merely to point out that what appears today as spiritual science in a systematic form is the result of the best intentions. If it were up to me alone, I would give this spiritual science a specific name. For more than thirty years now, I have been developing—to ever greater and greater extent—those ideas that Goethe derived from reality in his magnificent theory of metamorphosis, in which he already sought to bring the concept to life in contrast to dead concepts. At that time, this was only possible in a rudimentary way. But if one does not view Goethe merely from a historical perspective, if one regards him as still present today, then Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis is now taking shape precisely as what I call “living concepts,” which then find their way into spiritual science. I would most like to call “Goetheanism” what I mean by spiritual research, because it is based on the sound foundations of a conception of reality as Goethe intended it. And the building in Dornach, which is to be dedicated to this spiritual research—and through which this spiritual research has become better known than it might have been without it—I would most like to call the Goetheanum, so that people might see that what appears today as spiritual research is fully embedded in the healthy process of human development. Of course, many people today who believe they also subscribe to Goethe’s worldview still say: Goethe was the one who recognized nature above all else as the highest reality and also allowed the spirit to emerge from nature. — Well, even as a very young man, Goethe said: “She has thought and is constantly thinking”; constantly thinking, though not as a human being, but as Nature. One can agree with that form of naturalism which, like Goethe, conceives of Nature as imbued with spirit—even if one is a researcher of the spirit. And to those who always believe that one must stop at the limits of knowledge, that one cannot go any further—to them, one can well reply with Goethe’s words—and let me therefore add these words at the end, which Goethe used in response to another distinguished scholar who held the later Kantian view:

Into the heart of nature
No creative spirit can penetrate.
Blessed is he to whom she shows
Only her outer shell!

[ 54 ] In contrast, Goethe offered words that meant he knew full well that when a person awakens the spirit within themselves, they also find the spirit in the world, and realize themselves as spirit:

Into the heart of nature
No creative spirit penetrates.
Blessed is he to whom she shows
Only her outer shell!
So I have heard myself repeat for sixty years now
And curse it—but secretly—
Nature has neither core nor shell,
It is all at once.
Examine yourself above all else,
Whether you yourself are core or shell!

[ 55 ] Spiritual science aims to help people learn to seriously examine whether they themselves are the core or the shell. And they are the core when they grasp themselves in their full reality. If they perceive themselves as the core, then they will also penetrate to the spirit of nature; then, in the development of humanity with regard to spiritual research, something similar will occur to what had to occur when Copernicus pointed from the visible to the invisible—even for the visible itself.

[ 56 ] As for the supersensible, however, humanity will have to bring itself to grasp this supersensible within itself. One does not need to become a spiritual researcher to do this; however, one must set aside all prejudices that stand in the way of the soul if one is to understand what spiritual research means precisely from such a Goethean perspective.

[ 57 ] I just wanted to offer a few thoughts today. From this perspective, one can at best only offer suggestions; for if one were to explain this in full detail, one would have to give many lectures. But I believe these few remarks will have sufficed to show that something must be drawn from the process of human development that first awakens the human soul to full life. No one need believe that they are allowing their soul to wither away, that they are letting anything within themselves die—not even their religious life. For, just as Goethe said:

Whoever possesses science and art
Also possesses religion,
Whoever does not possess those two,
Let him have religion!

[ 58 ] One might say, given the way modern thinking has developed: Whoever finds the path of spiritual science will also find the path to true religious life; but as for those who do not find the path of spiritual science, there is reason to fear that they will also lose, in the future, the religious path that is so necessary for humanity!