The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Earth-Death and Universal-Life IV

[ 1 ] In one of the recent reflections we have undertaken here, I spoke of the relationship that human souls embodied here in the physical body may have—or, in fact, always have—with disembodied human souls, with those we call the dead. Today I would like to follow up on these reflections with a few additional remarks.

[ 2 ] We know from various sources—through what spiritual science has revealed to our souls—that the human spirit also undergoes its own development in the course of Earth’s evolution. We also know that human beings can only come to know themselves by fruitfully asking themselves the question: How does a human being, in a particular incarnation—in this very incarnation in which they now find themselves—relate to the spiritual worlds, to the spiritual realms? What stage of development has humanity as a whole reached when we ourselves are living in a particular incarnation?

[ 3 ] We know how a more detailed examination of this overall development of humanity leads us to the insight that in earlier times, in earlier epochs of human development, a certain kind of clairvoyance—which we have called atavistic—was bestowed upon humanity; that in earlier epochs of human development, the human soul was, so to speak, closer to the spiritual worlds. While it was closer to the spiritual worlds back then, it was also farther from its own freedom, its own free will—to which it is, in turn, closer in our time, when it is generally more cut off from the spiritual worlds. If one truly recognizes the nature of the human being in the present, one must say that in the unconscious, in the truly spiritual aspect of the human being, the same relationship to the entire spiritual world naturally exists. But in knowledge, in consciousness, human beings today generally cannot bring this relationship to mind in the same way; certain individuals can, but in general, human beings cannot bring it to mind as they were able to in earlier epochs. If we ask why human beings today cannot bring to consciousness the relationship of their soul to the spiritual world—which, of course, exists with the same intensity as ever— albeit in a different form, cannot bring this relationship to consciousness, it is because we have already passed the midpoint of Earth’s evolution, finding ourselves, so to speak, in the descending current of Earthly existence; because, with our physical organization—even though this is not, of course, noticeable in external anatomy and physiology—we have become more physical than was formerly the case, and that, during the period between birth or conception and death, we no longer possess the constitution necessary to fully bring our connection with the spiritual world into our consciousness. We actually experience today—and we must be very clear about this—in the subconscious regions of the soul, and no matter how materialistic we may be, far more than what we are generally able to become aware of.

[ 4 ] But it goes even further than that. And this brings me to a very important point in the current development of humanity. It has reached the point where people today are generally not able to truly think through, sense, or feel everything that could actually be thought, sensed, or felt within them. People today are predisposed to much more intense thoughts, feelings, and sensations than they can actually experience due to—I would say—the coarse material nature of their organism. This has a certain consequence, namely that at the present stage of human development, we are not capable of fully developing our potential during our earthly lives. Fundamentally, it makes little difference whether we die at a young age or as elderly people. For those who die young or old alike, the fact remains that human beings today, due to the coarse material nature of their physical organism, cannot fully experience what they would experience if they were organized in a finer, more subtle way with regard to their body. And so—whether, as I said, we pass through the gate of death young or old—a certain residue of unprocessed thoughts, unprocessed sensations, and feelings remains during our earthly existence, which, for the reason stated, we are simply unable to process. Today, we all die, in a sense, leaving thoughts, feelings, and sensations unprocessed. These thoughts, feelings, and sensations—and I must emphasize again and again that whether we die young or old, it amounts to the same thing—remain unprocessed, and once we have passed through the gate of death, we all actually still have the urge to continue thinking, feeling, and sensing in the earthly realm.

[ 5 ] Let us consider the implications of this. It is only after death that we become free to fully develop certain thoughts, feelings, and sensations. We would accomplish much more on Earth if we could fully experience these thoughts, feelings, and sensations during our physical lives. We cannot. In fact, every person today could accomplish much more on Earth than they actually do, depending on the potential within them. This was not the case in earlier epochs of human development, when organisms were more refined, a certain conscious insight into the spiritual world existed, and people were able to act from the spirit. Back then, people generally accomplished everything they were capable of according to their innate abilities. Even though people today are so proud of their innate abilities, the reality is as described.

[ 6 ] Given this state of affairs, however, one will be able to recognize—even in the present day—the necessity that what the dead carry unprocessed through the gate of death should not be lost to earthly life. This can only happen if, in the sense often mentioned, we truly cultivate and maintain the connection with the dead according to the guidance of spiritual science, and if we strive to make the connection with the dead—with whom we are karmically linked—a conscious, fully conscious one. Then the unlived-out thoughts of the dead are channeled through our soul into the world, and through this channeling, these stronger thoughts—these thoughts that the dead may have because they are freed from the body—can then take effect in our souls. We cannot bring our own thoughts to full development either, but these thoughts can take effect,

[ 7 ] We can see from this: What materialism has brought us should, at the same time, make us realize just how necessary—how absolutely necessary—it is for the present and the near future to seek a concrete, a real relationship with the spirits of the dead. The only question is: How can we appropriately allow the thoughts, sensations, and feelings that wish to enter from the realm where the dead reside to enter our souls? We have already outlined some perspectives on this as well, and in a recent reflection here, I spoke of the important moments that a person should pay close attention to: the moment of falling asleep and the moment of waking up. Today I would like to describe in greater detail some aspects related to this.

[ 8 ] The dead cannot enter directly into this world—the world of our ordinary waking life, which we perceive from the outside and in which we act through our will, which is based on our instincts. Having passed through the gate of death, they have been removed from this world. But we can still share a world with the dead if, inspired by spiritual science, we make the effort—which is, admittedly, a difficult endeavor in our present materialistic age—to bring both the inner world of our thinking and the world of our life somewhat under control, rather than letting them run wild, as we are accustomed to doing. We can develop certain abilities that provide us with common ground with the spirits who have passed through the gate of death. Of course, especially in the present day, there are an extraordinary number of obstacles in everyday life that prevent us from finding this common ground. The first obstacle is one I have perhaps touched upon even less. But what needs to be said about it is already evident from other reflections that have also been made here. The first obstacle is that, in general, we are too wasteful with our thoughts in our lives. Today, in our present time, we are all wasteful with regard to our thought life; I could also say: We are dissolute with regard to our thought life. — What does that actually mean?

[ 9 ] People today live almost entirely under the influence of the saying: “Thoughts are duty-free.” That is to say, one should actually let almost anything pass through one’s mind that wants to. Just consider for a moment that speech is a reflection of our inner life, and consider what kind of inner life the speech of most people today suggests when they chatter away, jumping from topic to topic, letting their thoughts just fly as they come—in other words, squandering the power that has been granted to us for thinking! And we are constantly wasting this energy; we are utterly undisciplined in our mental life. We allow ourselves to have whatever thoughts come to mind. We pursue whatever happens to occur to us at the moment, or we abandon it by inserting another thought. In short, we are reluctant to exercise any control over our thoughts. How unpleasant it is, for example, when someone starts talking about something; you listen to them for a minute or two, but then they’ve moved on to a completely different topic. Yet you still feel the need to continue discussing what you started talking about. That might be important. You then have to point out: “What did we actually start talking about?” — Things like this happen all the time today, so that if we are to bring true seriousness into our lives, we must recall the conversation we began. This squandering of mental energy, this wandering of the mind, prevents those thoughts from rising up to us from the depths of our inner life—thoughts that are not our own, but which we share with the spiritual realm, with the universally reigning Spirit. This hopping from thought to thought in a haphazard manner prevents us from waiting, while awake, for thoughts to rise up from the depths of our soul life; it prevents us from waiting for inspirations, if I may put it that way. But this is something that—especially in our age, for the reasons I have indicated—should be actively cultivated, cultivated in such a way that one truly develops within the soul the disposition that consists in: being able to wait while awake until thoughts, as it were, rise up from the deep recesses of the soul, clearly revealing themselves as that which is given to us, which we have not created.

[ 10 ] One should not think that cultivating such a state of mind can happen overnight. It cannot. Something like this must be nurtured. But if it is cultivated—if we truly strive simply to be awake, not to fall asleep the moment we exclude involuntary thoughts, but simply to be awake and wait for what is imparted to us—then this state of mind gradually takes shape. Then the capacity develops within us to receive into our soul thoughts that arise from the depths of the soul—and thus from a world that extends beyond our ego. If we truly cultivate something like this, we will already perceive that what exists in the world is not merely what we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and perceive with our external senses—and how our intellect combines these perceptions—but that an objective web of thought exists in the world. Very few people today have this as their own personal experience. This experience of the universal web of thought, within which the soul actually resides, is not yet some particularly significant or occult experience; it is something that every person can have if they cultivate the suggested state of mind within themselves. They can then have the experience of saying to themselves: In everyday life, I stand in the world that I perceive through my senses and have synthesized with my intellect. But then I find myself in a situation as if, standing on the shore, I were to plunge into the sea and weave there in the undulating water. Thus, standing on the shore of sensory existence, I can plunge into the weaving sea of thoughts; and there I am truly immersed in a surging sea. — One can then have the feeling of at least sensing a life that is stronger and more intense than mere dream life, yet one that has a boundary between itself and external sensory reality just as dream life has a boundary with sensory reality.

[ 11 ] If one wishes, one can speak of such experiences as dreams. But it is not dreaming! For the world into which one is immersed—this world of surging thoughts, which are not our own thoughts but rather the thoughts into which one has plunged—is the world from which our physical-sensory world arises, arising, as it were, in condensed form. Our physical-sensory world is like blocks of ice, lumps of ice in water: the water is there, the lumps of ice harden and float in it. Just as ice consists of the substance of water, merely arranged in a different state of aggregation, so our physical-sensory world rises from this surging, undulating sea of thought. That is the true origin. Physics speaks only of its “ether” and of swirling atoms because it does not know what the true primordial substance is. Shakespeare was closer to this true primordial substance, for he had one of his characters say: “The world of reality is woven from dreams.” — People are all too willing to delude themselves regarding such matters. They would like to find a crude, atomistic world behind physical reality. But if one is to speak at all of such a “behind physical reality,” one must speak of the objective weaving of thought, of the objective world of thought. One can only arrive at this, however, by ceasing the excess and wastefulness in regard to thoughts and by developing that state of mind that arises when one is able to wait for what is popularly called inspiration.

[ 12 ] For those who are somewhat involved in spiritual science, it is not so difficult to develop the state of mind described here. For the kind of thinking one must cultivate when engaging in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science guides the soul to develop such a state of mind. And when one seriously pursues this spiritual science, one comes to feel the need to develop such an intimate weaving of thoughts within oneself. This weaving of thoughts, however, offers us the shared sphere in which we are, on the one hand, the so-called dead—and on the other hand, ourselves. This is the common ground where one can meet the dead. The ‘dead’ do not enter the world we perceive with our senses and process with our intellect; but they do enter the world I have just described.

[ 13 ] A second example can be found in what I discussed once last year: the observation of subtle, intimate connections in life. You may recall that, to illustrate what I actually mean by this, I referred to an example found in the psychological literature. Schubert also draws attention to this; it comes from older literature, but one can find such examples time and time again in life. — A person is accustomed to taking a certain walk every day. One day, as he is taking it again, upon reaching a certain point along his route, he has the feeling that he must stop, step aside, and the thought occurs to him as to whether it is actually right to spend his time on this walk. At that very moment, a rock that had broken off from the cliff falls onto the path; it would certainly have struck him had he not been prompted by his thoughts to take a step to the side.

[ 14 ] This is a profound experience that catches the attention of anyone to whom something like this happens in life. But such experiences, even if they are more subtle, intrude into our everyday lives on a daily basis. We usually do not take notice of them. We only take into account what actually happens in life, but not what could have happened and did not, because something else occurred that prevented us from doing this or that. We take into account what actually happened—for example, when we were delayed at home for a quarter of an hour and now set out a quarter of an hour later than intended. Time and again, something very remarkable would come to light if we were to reflect on what might actually have turned out differently had we not been delayed and had left home a quarter of an hour earlier.

[ 15 ] Try, for once, to systematically observe in your own life what might have turned out differently if, at the very last moment when you were about to leave, someone—perhaps someone you were very angry with—had arrived and held you up for a few minutes. Constantly, everything that could have been different pushes its way into human life according to its own nature. We look for a causal connection between what actually happens in life. We do not think to go through life with the subtlety that would lie in accepting the interruption of predetermined chains of events, so that—I would say—an atmosphere of possibilities is constantly poured over our lives.

[ 16 ] If we take this into account, then we actually always have the feeling that when we do something at noon, after having been delayed for ten minutes that morning: What we do at noon is often—though it can also be otherwise—influenced not only by preceding events, but also by the countless things that did not happen, the things from which we were prevented. By considering the possible—not just the outwardly sensory reality—in connection with our lives, we are led to the realization that we are actually so deeply immersed in life that seeking connections between what follows and what preceded is a rather one-sided way of viewing life. When we truly ask ourselves such questions, something within our minds is stirred that would otherwise remain dormant. We come to observe, as it were, between the lines of life; we come to know life in all its ambiguity. We then begin, in a sense, to see ourselves within our surroundings—how they shape us, how they move us forward in life, step by step. We usually pay far too little attention to this. Most of the time, we focus only on the inner driving forces that guide us from one stage to the next. Take any simple, ordinary example that illustrates how you relate the external world to your inner world only in a very fragmentary way.

[ 17 ] Try taking a moment to consider the way you’re used to imagining getting out of bed in the morning. When you try to bring this to mind, you’ll usually get a very clear picture of it: the idea of how you’re driven to get out of bed—though you might still imagine this in rather vague terms. But just try, for a few days, to reflect on the thought that actually drives you out of bed each time; try to make it completely clear to yourself which specific thought actually drives you out of bed—in other words, realize this: Yesterday you got up because you heard coffee being made in the next room; that caught your attention; that made you feel compelled to get up; today something else happened to you. I mean, make it clear to yourself—not what drove you out of bed, but what the external impetus was. People usually forget to look for themselves in the outside world, which is why they find so little of themselves there. Anyone who pays even a little attention to such things will easily develop once again that state of mind toward which people today have an almost sacred—no, an “unholy”—aversion: that state of mind which consists in having at least one underlying thought about life as a whole that one does not actually have in ordinary life. For example, a person enters a room, goes to some place, but gives little thought to it: How does the place change when he enters it? — Other people sometimes have a sense of this, but even this external perception is not very widespread today. I do not know how many people have a feeling for it: When a group of people is in a room, one person is often twice as strongly present as another; one is strongly present, the other weakly so. — This is something that depends on the imponderables. You can easily experience it: A person is in a group; they flit in, they flit out again, and you have the feeling as if it were an angel who flitted in and out. Some, on the other hand, have such a strong presence that they are there not only with their two visible legs, but also with all sorts of invisible legs—if one may put it that way. Others generally pay very little attention to this, even though it may be quite perceptible to them, but the person themselves certainly does not notice it on their own. People usually lack that—subtle awareness—of the change they bring about in their surroundings through their presence; they remain absorbed in themselves and do not ask their surroundings what kind of change they are causing there. But one can train oneself to perceive the echo of one’s existence in the surroundings. And just think how much more intimate external life would become if such an awareness were cultivated more systematically—if people did not merely populate places with their presence, but had a sense of what it means to be in a place, to make their presence felt there, and to bring about a change simply by being there.

[ 18 ] This is just one example. One could cite such examples for all kinds of situations in life. In other words, one can—in a perfectly healthy way—not by constantly tripping oneself up, but in a perfectly healthy way—intensify the fabric of life so that one feels the impact one’s own actions have on life. Through this, one begins to understand what a sense of karma and a sense of destiny are. For if one were to fully sense what happens as a result of doing this or that, of being here or there—if, so to speak, one always had before one’s eyes the image that one creates in one’s surroundings through one’s “doing” and one’s “being”—then one would have a clear sense of one’s karma before one, for karma is woven from this shared experience. |

[ 19 ] But now I simply want to point out how life is enriched by the inclusion of such intimate details—when we observe life this way, reading between the lines; when we learn to look at life in such a way that we become aware, as it were, that we are here—that we are here with a “conscience.” Then, through such awareness, we in turn develop a sense of the shared sphere with the dead. And if, in such an awareness—which may look toward these two pillars I have just described: conscientious attention to life, and frugality rather than a wasteful indulgence in thought—if we develop such an inner disposition, then it will be accompanied by success—the success necessary for the present and the future—when we approach the dead in the manner described. If we then form thoughts that connect us—not merely to a mental togetherness with a deceased person, but to an emotional, engaged togetherness—if we spin out such thoughts regarding life situations with the deceased, thoughts about how we lived with them, so that a certain emotional tone existed between us—if we connect not to indifferent interactions, but to moments when we were interested in how they thought, lived, and acted, and when they were interested in what we inspired in them—then we can use such moments to, so to speak, continue the conversation of thoughts. And when we can then let this thought rest, so that we slip into a kind of meditation—where this thought is, as it were, offered up on the altar of our inner spiritual life—then the moment comes when we receive, as it were, a response from the deceased, when he can once again communicate with us. We need only build the bridge from what we develop in connection with the deceased to that through which he, in turn, can come back to us. This return, however, will be particularly aided if we are able to truly develop, in the depths of our soul, an image of the deceased’s essence. This is, after all, something that is truly very foreign to our time, because—as I have already said in earlier reflections—people pass each other by; they are often together in the most intimate circles of life and then go their separate ways without really knowing one another. Getting to know one another does not, after all, have to be based on analyzing one another. Anyone who knows that they are being analyzed by those living with them—if they are a more sensitive soul—will also feel tormented. So it is not a matter of analyzing one another. The best understanding of another is gained when hearts are in harmony; there is no need to analyze one another in any way.

[ 20 ] I have assumed that maintaining such a relationship with the so-called dead is particularly necessary in our time, precisely because we live in the age of materialism—not by choice, but simply as a result of human evolution—and because we are unable to fully develop and shape all our capacities for thought, feeling, and sensation before we pass through the gate of death. Because something remains even after we have passed through the gate of death, it is necessary for the living to maintain contact with the dead, so that people’s everyday lives may be enriched by this contact with the dead. If only one could impress upon the people of the present that life must become impoverished when the dead are forgotten! And only those who were somehow karmically connected to the dead can truly develop a proper remembrance of them.

[ 21 ] If we strive for direct communication with the dead that takes the same form as communication with the living—I have also spoken about how things are usually perceived as particularly difficult precisely because they are not conscious; but not everything that is real is also conscious, and not everything that is [not] conscious is therefore unreal—if we cultivate communication with the dead in this way, then it exists, and the thoughts of the dead that were not developed during their lives influence this life. Admittedly, what is being said here is quite a demand on our time. Yet one says such things when convinced by spiritual facts: that our social life, our ethical life, and our religious life would be infinitely enriched if the living were to seek counsel from the dead. Today, people are already reluctant to allow individuals to reach a certain age before seeking advice. Just consider that today it is regarded as the only right thing for a person to enter municipal and state affairs as young as possible, because—even by today’s standards—they are ready for all manner of things at that age. In eras when people had a better understanding of human nature, they waited until people had reached a certain age before allowing them to serve on this or that council. Now people are even expected to wait until others have died before seeking their counsel! Yet our time, of all times, should be willing to heed the counsel of the dead. Salvation will only be possible when we are willing to heed the counsel of the dead in the manner described. |

[ 22 ] Spiritual science does indeed demand a great deal of energy from human beings. This must be understood; it must be grasped. Spiritual science requires, in a certain sense, that human beings truly strive for consistency and clarity. And today we are faced with the necessity of seeking clarity amid our catastrophic events, for this search for clarity is of the utmost importance. More than one might think, matters such as those discussed again today are connected to the great demands of our time. I have already pointed this out here this winter, explaining how, many years before this global catastrophe struck, I attempted in my lecture series on the European national souls to allude to many things that can be found today in the broader context of humanity. If you pick up that lecture series on “The Mission of Individual National Souls in Connection with Germanic-Nordic Mythology,” which I once gave in Kristiania, you will be able to gain a certain understanding of what is unfolding in today’s events. It is not too late, and many things will unfold for which you will still be able to gain insight from this lecture series—even in the coming years.

[ 23 ] Given the way people on Earth relate to one another today, their relationships are comprehensible only to those who are truly capable of perceiving the spiritual impulses. And the time is drawing ever closer when it will become somewhat necessary for people to ask themselves: How, for example, do the feelings and thinking of the East relate to the thinking and feelings of Europe—specifically Central Europe? And how does this, in turn, relate to the thinking of the West, to the thinking of America? This question should present itself to the human soul in all its possible variations. One should already begin to ask oneself: How does the Eastern person view Europe today? The Eastern person, who looks closely at Europe, has the impression today that European cultural life is leading itself into a dead end, that it has led itself to an abyss. The Eastern person feels today that he must not lose the spirituality he has brought down from his ancient times if he is to adopt what Europe can offer him. The Eastern person does not despise European machines, for example, but he tells himself today—and these are the very words of a famous Eastern thinker that I am quoting here—: “We are willing to accept what the Europeans have created in the way of machines and tools, but we want to put them in sheds, not in temples and not in our homes, as the Europeans do!” — The Oriental says that the European has lost the ability to see the spirit in nature, to see the beauty in nature. While the Eastern thinker looks at what only he can see—just as the European wishes to remain fixed only on the outwardly mechanical, on the outwardly sensual in action and contemplation—for that is all he can see—the Eastern thinker believes that he is called to reawaken the ancient spirituality, to save the ancient spirituality of humanity on Earth. The Eastern person, who speaks concretely of spiritual beings—Rabindranath Tagore, for example, did so recently—says: The Europeans have incorporated into their culture those impulses that can only be incorporated by harnessing Satan to the front of their cultural chariot; they use the power of Satan to move forward. The Eastern thinker is called upon—according to Rabindranath Tagore—to eliminate this Satan once again and “bring spirituality to Europe.”

[ 24 ] This is indeed a phenomenon that, unfortunately, is largely overlooked today. We have experienced many things—I will speak about that soon—but, for example, in the course of our development, we have neglected much that we would have incorporated into this development if, for instance, we had truly brought spiritual substance—such as that which comes from Goethe (I will mention only this one name)—to life in our cultural development. Now someone might say: An Eastern person today can look at Europe and know that Goethe lives on in this European life. — They can know it. But do they see it? One might say that the Germans, for example, have founded a society called the “Goethe Society”—I do not mean the “Goethe Association.” And let us suppose that the person from the East wanted to get to know it—the great question of the East and the West has already been set in motion; after all, it ultimately depends on spiritual impulses—he wanted to learn about the Goethe Society and face reality head-on. Then he would say to himself: Goethe’s influence was so powerful that even in the 1880s, the opportunity arose to make Goethe fruitful for German culture in a rare way, a favorable circumstance, so to speak, arising from the fact that a princess, along with her entire entourage—as was the case with Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxe-Weimar—had come forward in the 1880s to take charge of Goethe’s estate and to care for it as no one had ever done before. That is a fact. But let us consider the Goethe Society as an external instrument. It, too, is there. Now, a few years ago, the position of president of this Goethe Society was once again vacant. Within the entire breadth of intellectual life, only a former finance minister could be found, and he was made president of the Goethe Society! That is what is seen from the outside. Such things are more important than one might actually think. What would be more necessary is, for example, for the Oriental—who is passionate about spirituality and knowledgeable about it—to have the opportunity to know that within European culture there is indeed such a thing as an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. But of course he cannot know that. It cannot reach him because it cannot penetrate what else is there—not just in that one manifestation, of course. It is merely symptomatic that the president of the Goethe Society is a former finance minister, and so on. I could go on and on with such examples.

[ 25 ] This, I would say, is a third requirement: thorough thinking grounded in reality—a way of thinking that does not come to a standstill in the face of ambiguities or unclear life compromises. On my last trip, someone handed me something regarding a fact with which I was already quite familiar. I’ll just give you this one brief excerpt from it here: “Anyone who has ever sat in the desks of a high school will find those hours unforgettable, as they ‘enjoyed’ the dialogues between Socrates and his friends in Plato—unforgettable because of the fabulous boredom that emanates from these dialogues. And one might recall that one actually found Socrates’ dialogues thoroughly stupid; but of course one didn’t dare express this opinion, for after all, the man in question was Socrates, the ‘Greek philosopher.’ The book *Socrates—the Idiot* by Alexander Moszkowski (Dr. Eysler & Co., Berlin) thoroughly dispels this entirely unjustified overestimation of the good Athenian. In this short, entertainingly written work, the polymath Moszkowski undertakes nothing less than to strip Socrates almost entirely of his philosophical dignity. The title “Socrates—the Idiot” is meant literally. One would not be mistaken in assuming that the book will spark further scholarly debate.”

[ 26 ] The next thing a person feels when they become aware of something like this is that they say to themselves: What is this strange thing, that someone like Alexander Moszkowski comes along and wants to prove that Socrates was an idiot? That is the most immediate reaction people have. But this is a compromise sentiment that does not stem from clear, penetrating thought, nor does it stem from a confrontation with true reality.

[ 27 ] I would like to compare this to something else. There are already books today that are written from a psychiatric perspective about the life of Jesus. In these books, everything Jesus did is examined from the perspective of modern psychiatry and compared to all sorts of pathological behaviors, and modern psychiatrists then use the Gospels to “prove” that Jesus must have been a mentally ill person, an epileptic, that the entire Gospels can only be understood from a Pauline perspective, and so on. There are detailed reports on this subject.

[ 28 ] Once again, it is very easy to brush these things aside with a light heart. But the issue runs a little deeper. If you fully adopt the standpoint of contemporary psychiatry—if you accept this standpoint of contemporary psychiatry as it is officially recognized—then, when you reflect on the life of Jesus, you must arrive at the same conclusion as the authors of these books. You cannot think otherwise, for otherwise you would be untruthful; otherwise, you would not be a modern psychiatrist in the true sense of the word. And you are not a modern psychiatrist in the true sense of the word—in the sense of Alexander Moszkowski’s worldview—unless you believe that Socrates was an idiot. And Moszkowski differs from those who are also adherents of these theories but do not consider Socrates an idiot only in that the latter are untruthful—and he is truthful; he makes no compromises. For there is no way to be truthful, to stand on the standpoint of Alexander Moszkowski’s worldview, and not to regard Socrates as an idiot. If one wants both—if one wants to be a proponent of the modern scientific worldview and yet accept Socrates without regarding him as an idiot—then one is untruthful. Likewise, one is untruthful if one is a modern psychiatrist and accepts the life of Jesus. But modern man does not want to arrive at this clear standpoint; for otherwise he would have to ask himself the question in an entirely different way. He would then have to say to himself: “Very well, I do not regard Socrates as an idiot; I am getting to know him better. But this also requires me to reject a worldview such as Moszkowski’s; and I see in Jesus the greatest bearer of ideas who has ever come into contact with earthly life; but that requires me to reject modern psychiatry—I must not accept it!”

[ 29 ] This is what it’s all about: realistic, clear thinking that does not settle for the usual lazy compromises that do exist in life, but which can only be removed from life if one can grasp them in truth. It is easy to think or to be indignant when one is asked to accept the proof that, according to Moszkowski, Socrates is an idiot. But it is correct, when one draws the consequences of the modern worldview, to see Socrates as an idiot from its standpoint. Yet people do not want to draw such consequences: to reject something like the modern worldview. Otherwise, they might find themselves in an even more uncomfortable situation: they would then have to make compromises and perhaps come to terms with the fact that Socrates is not an idiot; but what if they then came to the conclusion that—Moszkowski is an idiot? He is, after all, not a powerful man, but if it were more powerful people, all sorts of things—and much worse—could happen!

[ 30 ] Yes, to enter the spiritual world, realistic “thinking” is necessary. This, in turn, requires clearly seeing things as they are. Thoughts are realities, and untrue thoughts are evil, inhibiting, destructive realities. It does no good to obscure the fact that one is oneself untrue by attempting to accept both Moszkowski’s worldview and Socrates’s worldview. For it is an untrue thought to place both side by side in one’s soul, as modern man does. One becomes truthful only when one realizes that, if one stands on the standpoint of pure scientific mechanism like Moszkowski, one must then regard Socrates as an idiot; then one is truthful. Or, if one knows from other sources that Socrates was not an idiot, then one must clarify for oneself just how strongly the other view must be rejected. Truth is an ideal that the soul of modern man should set before itself. For thoughts are realities. And true thoughts are healing realities. And untrue thoughts—even if they are cloaked in the mantle of indulgence toward one’s own nature—untrue thoughts, conceived within the human being, are realities that hold the world and humanity back.