The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Spiritual Exercises in Thinking, Feeling, and Willing

[ 1 ] Philosophy did not originate in the form in which it is practiced today. It is practiced today as a sum, a system of ideas whose intrinsic, substantial reality is not experienced by philosophers, but for which they seek a theoretical justification to show that it relates to reality. As a result, the philosopher is unable to demonstrate his ideas in relation to reality in such a direct way as one can always do when confronted with any actual reality. People may certainly harbor individual illusions about an actual reality, but they can easily reach an understanding when faced with it. In philosophy, ideas—which are actually derived solely from tradition, despite what one might believe—can be related to reality in various ways, precisely because one does not experience this reality. And thus arise the various divergent philosophical systems, none of which can actually be proven to be absolutely valid, because one can always counter the arguments put forward in favor of one system or another with opposing arguments to refute it. And since only relative correctness exists, one can say that the proponent and the refuter are, for the most part, equally justified. In this way, one may indeed arrive at a way of philosophizing that diverges from that of one philosopher or another in the present, but not at anything that would be felt directly as real and that could have a convincing effect with the same immediacy.

[ 2 ] Philosophy emerged from a state of consciousness entirely different from that of abstract thought, in which it is developed today. One must learn to live with the soul once again in this state of consciousness. However, since humanity has since advanced in its evolution, one cannot simply revert to the old state of consciousness from which philosophy arose. Although one must achieve something similar if one wishes to have a philosophy today, it must nevertheless be something entirely different.

[ 3 ] The ancient state of consciousness from which philosophy arose—and through which the philosopher experienced the inner activity of the etheric organism—was semi-unconscious. Compared to modern consciousness, in which we think scientifically, this state of consciousness had something dreamlike about it. What must be our ideal for a new philosophy is to be able to experience philosophy once again within the etheric body—but not in that dreamlike manner in which it was experienced in ancient times. One must simply be clear that these dreams of the ancient philosophers were not dreams in the same sense as today’s dreams are. Today’s dreams are pictorial images, but their reality is never guaranteed by the content of the dream images themselves. These images can be all sorts of reminiscences of life; they can relate to processes within the physical organism. One never finds a convincing indication of reality within the dream image itself. This was different in that state of consciousness from which philosophy was developed in ancient times. These images were also pictorial, but they appeared in such a way that the image itself simultaneously provided complete assurance of a reality of a spiritual, ethereal nature to which the image pointed. Today we cannot allow ourselves to sink into this dreamlike, semi-conscious state of the soul. Our scientific mode of thinking demands that we think in a fully conscious manner—and indeed live in our souls in a fully conscious manner—if we wish to engage in cognitive work. Therefore, in order to arrive at a new philosophy, we must bring about a process of imagination that takes place within the etheric organism but is at the same time as fully conscious as the scientific thinking we apply in mathematics or the natural sciences.

[ 4 ] Today, within anthroposophical research, we attain such fully conscious, pictorial thinking—which relates to an etheric reality—through meditative inner soul exercises. These meditative exercises essentially consist of the soul concentrating on a mental image that is relatively straightforward to grasp. I will describe this form of meditation in more detail in the following lectures. You can also find it in my book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and in my Outline of Esoteric Science. Here I wish only to state the principle that the aim is to gather all the soul’s powers together, to disregard and abstract from everything else that makes an impression from without or within, and to allow the soul’s powers to rest upon a clearly comprehensible mental image. If one repeats such a meditative exercise—which in each individual case need only be brief—over and over again for months, perhaps even years, with the necessary energy and perseverance, one will eventually come to realize that one has become completely independent of the physical organism in one’s soul-spiritual life, and that one can now truly understand: When I think within the physical organism, I make use of this physical organism; although thinking itself does not take place within the physical organism, this physical organism, through its finer organization, provides a reflection of this thinking; through this, I become aware of it.

[ 5 ] Without the physical organism, the thinking of ordinary consciousness cannot take place. Therefore, ordinary consciousness is bound to the physical organism. Just as clearly as one realizes that all ordinary thinking takes place only with the aid of the physical organism, so clearly it becomes apparent that in meditation one engages in an imaginative-conceptual activity, in that through meditation—through that ever-recurring resting of the soul upon a readily comprehensible mental image—one has become free in one’s inner soul activity from the physical body. And now one experiences a world of images around oneself that, in terms of its imagery, is similar to that of the ancient thinkers who derived their philosophy from it, but which is experienced with complete clarity and composure, just like any clear mental image in scientific observation and experimentation. Now, within this world of images that one has before oneself, one gains an overview of those forces within one’s own being that have been at work as forces of growth since birth, causing our organism to grow larger and larger. One also gains an overview of the forces at work in metabolism, nutrition, and the digestive processes. In other words, through visual imagery, one gains a complete overview of the life forces that permeate the human being from the spiritual-etheric world and, as a distinct etheric organism, actually build him up, giving rise to his form and his life. What was present in a dreamlike state among the ancient philosophers—of whom later philosophers took up only what is now widely known as philosophy, in a more abstract form—is rekindled in the human being, but now with full consciousness. In other words, one ascends to the level of supersensible knowledge known as imaginative knowledge, or the knowledge of the imagination. In imaginative cognition, one thus surveys one’s own forces of growth and life.

[ 6 ] But what one perceives there as the etheric or life organism is not separated from the external etheric world in such a strict sense as one separates the objective from the subjective in sensory perception. In sensory perception, I know: The object is there—I am here. In ethereal, imaginative perception, one’s own ethereal organism, so to speak, merges with the ethereal of the cosmos; one feels equally at home in one’s own ethereal organism and in the ethereal of the cosmos within it. What one now experiences through the convergence of one’s own etheric organism and the etheric weaving and activity in the cosmos—one is now able to translate this into sharply defined mental images and then clothe it in human language, expressing it in such a way that it can appear in human language. In this way, one can once again arrive at a philosophy.

[ 7 ] This philosophy can thus be rediscovered by the human being striving to develop imaginative thinking. But when the imaginative thinker, the thinker at the level of exact clairvoyance—which can indeed be called imagination—expresses his insights through language and thought forms, then the matter is presented in such a way that even those who cannot themselves think imaginatively can take what the philosopher says and bring it into ordinary consciousness, into the full consciousness of ordinary thinking. And because it is different, it is also perceived, felt, and experienced differently. Yet through linguistic communication and the reception of what is communicated in language, that reality is also experienced in ordinary consciousness—the reality that the imaginative thinker can imbue his words with by drawing his mental images from the real etheric world.

[ 8 ] In this way, a philosophy can once again be derived from the etheric world, from the human etheric organism, and from the etheric cosmos—a philosophy that has such an effect on the listener that, as he takes it in with his ordinary, sound common sense, he senses: This has been drawn from the supersensible, initially etheric reality. — And so, when imaginative thinking is attained, a true philosophy that vouches for reality will once again be gained for the world.

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[ 9 ] For cosmology, the meditative life must be expanded. This can be achieved by the soul becoming accustomed not only to resting—with the full extent of its powers—on a comprehensible idea or a comprehensible complex of ideas, and resting on it again and again in order to enter into a heightened, intense activity that is ultimately torn away from the physical organism and takes place in the purely etheric realm, but the soul must also come to to remove such ideas, upon which it rests, from consciousness once again. The soul must learn, in the same voluntary manner, to allow the ideas on which it is fully concentrated to remain present in consciousness and then to remove them again from consciousness, entering a state in which there is mere wakefulness, mere full consciousness, without any soul content acquired in the same way as sensory content or thought content. The soul must be awake, but must contain none of the contents that are acquired through ordinary consciousness.

[ 10 ] Thus, when the soul, while fully awake after meditation, brings about a state of empty consciousness and achieves a certain strengthening through inner power in maintaining this emptiness of the soul while fully awake, then it ultimately reaches a point where a spiritual-soul-cosmic content—one that has been completely unknown until now—flows into this empty consciousness: a new spiritual world, a spiritual external world. This is then the stage of inspiration, which follows the stage of supersensible knowledge through imagination.

[ 11 ] If one possesses this ability to infuse the emptied consciousness with a spiritual-soul-cosmic content through inspiration, then one also brings in that organization which I referred to yesterday as the human astral organism—that astral organism which lived in a spiritual -soul world before it descended to Earth and clothed itself in a physical and etheric body. One comes to know the spiritual-soul life of one’s own human being prior to embryonic life, prior to birth. One comes to know the astral organism, which in turn leaves the physical human being at death and continues to live in the spiritual-soul world. Thus, through inspired insight, one comes to know the astral organism, which expresses itself in ordinary consciousness through thinking, feeling, and willing.

[ 12 ] But in doing so, one also comes to know the spiritual cosmos. Just as one has the physical cosmos before one through one’s senses and through thinking bound to the senses, so now one has the spiritual cosmos before one; only what takes place from this spiritual cosmos with the physical human organism—and also with the etheric human organism—is much more real than the sensory impressions one otherwise receives in ordinary consciousness. One might even say: What flows into a person through inspiration—through which they attain a soul life independent of their body—can be compared to the inhalation of actual oxygen. Through this inspired insight, one now also gains a more precise understanding of precisely what the human respiratory process is, and of the process—such as the circulation of blood—that follows the respiratory process in a rhythmic manner. Through inspired insight, one gains a true understanding of the rhythmic human being and of all the rhythmic processes within the human being. One gains an insight into how the astral organization functions within the rhythmic human being. Furthermore, one gains an insight into how the astral organism, clothed within the physical and etheric organisms, is connected to the respiratory system—and indeed to the entire rhythmic organization—and how it finds its place precisely within the rhythm of respiration and blood circulation.

[ 13 ] This, however, also enables us to discern, through insight, what in the human physical and etheric organism is merely heredity—that which is subject to the laws of heredity that are earthly— and what the human being brings with them from the supersensible, the cosmic, and the extraterrestrial worlds as a soul and spiritual being who enters the earthly world and merely clothes themselves in the physical and etheric organisms—or, perhaps better said, clothes themselves within them. One can then distinguish between what constitutes inherited characteristics in a human being and what the human being has brought with them from a spiritual world into their physical existence.

[ 14 ] In what we now recognize through our astral organization and through its reflection in the rhythmic processes of the human being, we have something that we can now integrate into the spiritual cosmos that surrounds us and is given to us through inspiration: we arrive at a cosmology that can encompass the human being. One arrives at a cosmic image that encompasses the way in which the astral organism of humanity, together with the “I”—which I will discuss shortly—flows into the physical organism on the waves and surges of respiration and the other rhythmic processes. One sees the cosmos, in its actual laws, continuing into the human being through the human rhythmic processes. One arrives at a cosmology through which one understands the astral organism, but through which one also understands the rhythmic processes in the individual human being.

[ 15 ] In this way, inspired knowledge becomes the source of a truly modern cosmology, which in turn can stand on equal footing with the ancient cosmology—a cosmology that, through similarly dreamlike soul forces, integrated human beings in a similar way into the entire cosmos, into a soul-spiritual cosmic world. But what is attained in inspired insight is attained in full consciousness and can then be beheld in its reflection in the human etheric body. What is experienced in inspiration is projected in images onto the etheric body. And so what is gained from the cosmos through inspiration connects with what is experienced as imagination in the activity of the etheric body. What is inspired from the cosmos—which is, in a certain sense, internally fluid—cannot immediately be brought into sharp contours, but only when it connects with what is experienced as imagination in the etheric body. But then cosmology, too, can be given sharp contours, and this gives rise to a cosmic philosophy entirely suited to modern humanity—a philosophical cosmology formed in this way through the convergence of inspired knowledge with what is experienced pictorially in the etheric body through imagination. I have attempted to present such a cosmology in my book Outline of Esoteric Science, which has also been translated into French as Science Occulté.

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[ 16 ] In order to establish a rational foundation for religious life, further development of the meditative life—the spiritual exercises—is necessary. However, this meditative life and these spiritual exercises must now be extended to include the human will. Up to now, the focus has been on a type of spiritual exercises characterized by a specific training of the life of thought. Now, for the spiritual researcher, the soul life—insofar as it manifests itself in the will—must also be separated from the life of the physical organism and from the life of the etheric organism. This is achieved by applying the will in a way that is not otherwise employed in ordinary consciousness. I will illustrate this with an example.

[ 17 ] Try to take the events of the external world—which you normally follow as they occur in sequence, with the earlier ones first and the later ones afterward, and which you also follow with your thinking—and try to imagine these events in reverse order, so that you first imagine the last one, then the one immediately preceding it, then the one before that, and so on in reverse order all the way back to the first. In this way, through an effort of the will within the soul, one accomplishes what one does not do in ordinary consciousness. In ordinary consciousness, one follows the course of external events with the will that lives in thought. Through this backward thinking—thinking differently from the course of events in nature—one detaches the will from the physical and etheric organisms, and thereby connects the will, which is otherwise only a reflection of the astral organism, with this astral organism. And since the astral organism, through the other forms of meditation, emerges from the physical and etheric organisms, one carries the will out of the physical organism into the spiritual world outside. By driving the will out of one’s own organism into the astral body in this way, one also takes what constitutes the actual spiritual human being—or the “I”—out of the physical and etheric organisms, so that one can now live together with the “I” and the astral organism in the spiritual world alongside the spiritual beings. Just as one lives alone in one’s own body in the physical world, so, through such a development of the soul life, one now learns to live together out there, in the spiritual world, with all the beings who first revealed themselves in imagination and inspiration. Through this, one comes to lead a life in the spiritual world that is independent of one’s own physicality.

[ 18 ] Such exercises can be further enhanced by exerting the will in a different way, and the more effort required for this evolution of the will, the better it is for experiencing the spiritual world outside the physical and etheric organism. You can transform your habits by making a fully conscious resolution: You will reshape this or that habit you have had for many years through an energetic exertion of the will, so that in four, five, or ten years it will be transformed to such an extent that, with regard to this habit, you will appear to be a different person. — These may be small, insignificant habits, perhaps even those small, insignificant habits that persist without one giving them much thought. When one works on them, they are most suitable for the kind of supersensible knowledge I am now describing. For example, one has certain styles of handwriting. You resolve with all your energy to adopt a different handwriting style than the one you are accustomed to and have cultivated since childhood. — If one devotes oneself to such exercises of will over the course of years, the soul eventually becomes strong enough to live in the spiritual outer world—outside the physical and etheric organism—with the spiritual beings out there, to live with human souls, either before they have entered physical existence, or after they have passed through death and now live in the spiritual world before returning to physical existence, or even to live with those spiritual beings who exist only in the spiritual world and inhabit that world in such a way that they do not, like human beings, clothe themselves in an etheric and physical organism.

[ 19 ] In this way, one comes to live with one’s soul-spiritual being in that world where one experiences what constitutes the content of religious consciousness. One enters fully consciously into that world which the ancient religious teachers described to humanity as the divine world—at that time through a more dreamlike immersion, now through an immersion as fully conscious as the kind of full consciousness we cultivate only in mathematics or in the exact natural sciences of the modern era. In this way, one comes to develop the third stage of supersensible knowledge: true intuition.

[ 20 ] Through this true intuition—through which one learns to live in the divine-spiritual world—one can bring experiences from that divine-spiritual world into this life to make them the substance of religious consciousness. Furthermore, one comes to recognize an essential aspect of human nature: how a human being can live with their true “I” and their astral organism in a purely spiritual world. One now gains an insight into what a human being is like in the waking state and what they are like in the sleeping state. One comes to understand how, during the waking state, the “I” and the astral organism clothe themselves in what I described earlier as the processes of respiration and circulation—as rhythmic processes—but how, as the “I” creates an image of itself in the physical organism, the metabolic processes that are active in the circulation of the blood are incorporated into this reflection. What a person calls the “I” in ordinary consciousness is only a faint reflection of their true “I.” The true “I” is rooted in the spiritual-divine world just described. In ordinary consciousness, this “I” is perceived through the fact that the human circulatory system is permeated by metabolic processes. In these metabolic processes—which pulsate within the circulation itself—one senses, perceives, and feels what ordinary consciousness perceives as the “I.” But this is only a faint reflection of the true “I.”

[ 21 ] In the waking state, the image of this “I” lives within the metabolism that circulates rhythmically within the human being. That is to say, the real “I” is alive, but ordinary consciousness contains only the image produced by the metabolism. But when the human physical and etheric organisms utilize what occurs in the processes of respiration and circulation—which are permeated by metabolism—and when the physical and etheric organisms—as is the case during sleep—draw upon the forces of this rhythmic human being themselves, then the true “I” lives with the astral body in the spiritual outer world. Then respiration and circulation, with the metabolism pulsating within them, sustain the physical and etheric organisms on their own, and the true “I” and the astral organization exist alongside the physical and etheric organisms in the spiritual world. One perceives these alternating states through true intuition: how the physical and etheric organisms require respiration and blood circulation—along with the metabolism they contain—to renew their forces. During this time, the true “I” and the astral organism dwell in the spiritual world and exist there. And then, when the forces of the physical and etheric organisms have been regenerated through the rhythmic human being to such an extent that further rhythmic processes are no longer necessary, the astral body and the “I” return and permeate the metabolism that pulsates within the processes of respiration and blood circulation, and the human being is then once again an awake human being.

[ 22 ] In this way, one observes how the true “I” and the astral organism pulsate within the metabolic processes. In this way, one learns to recognize the world that the ancient religions referred to as the divine world, in which the human “I”—the true “I”—has its very own home. And since what is thus grasped intuitively manifests itself in mirror images—in the physical and etheric bodies, just as in a mirror—one can also put into words what is experienced in the purely spiritual world, independent of all human physicality, and express it in images and concepts. Then it can in turn be grasped by sound common sense, can be felt and sensed, can be experienced in the human mind, and thus forms the content of religious consciousness, which is thereby grounded in knowledge.

[ 23 ] It is not necessary for everyone to immerse themselves in the divine-spiritual world through intuition. This is something that must be done by those who become spiritual researchers. But when the spiritual researcher puts into words what he experiences in the divine-spiritual world in the manner just described, it takes on such forms that what is revealed in this way is experienced with consciousness by the ordinary person: Words are spoken that do not refer to this world, but which, through the power of their inherent reality, take on a life of their own in the human mind. — And this is the power with which what is brought forth from the spiritual world through spiritual research—through the intuitive experience of this spiritual-divine world—acts upon consciousness in a religious sense.

[ 24 ] If humanity wishes to return to a primal religious life grounded in knowledge, then it must accept what the spiritual researcher—through true intuition—is able to proclaim from his experiences in the divine-spiritual world. Then religion will return to what it once was. Every religion, at its starting point, was a revelation from the divine-spiritual world—a revelation of those experiences that can be had with the beings in the spiritual world, with those beings who first reveal themselves to imaginative and inspired knowledge, but with whom one comes into contact only through intuition.

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[ 25 ] The kind of thinking that can operate in abstractions—the kind we primarily use today in scientific research and on which we base our observations and experiments—was actually only acquired in the course of human development. It was not present in the people from whom those ancient philosophical researchers and religious teachers emerged—those who laid the foundations of ancient philosophy, ancient cosmology, and ancient religious life, and much of whose work has been preserved through a kind of tradition. At that time, there were semi-conscious, dreamlike, imaginative, inspired, and intuitive experiences. It was from these that ancient insights in a wide variety of fields were gained, and it is really only since the emergence of modern natural science that we have come to experience what we today call abstract thinking. One must not believe that this abstract thinking exists only among scientists. Today it is absorbed by ordinary schools and by the simplest, most primitive people who still live far from any urban education, out in the countryside.

[ 26 ] Just as human consciousness is shaped by this abstract thinking throughout the civilized world today, so it was not the case in any part of humanity as late as the 8th and 9th centuries A.D. Everywhere, people lived according to what had been derived from the three other states of consciousness. But that full consciousness which we must today regard as the true expression of what it means to be human could only be attained through the integration into human life of abstract thinking—which today is the hallmark of scientific life. In other words: A way of thinking that makes use of the physical human organism and requires this physical organism for thinking—as is the case today—such thinking did not exist in earlier times. Back then, human beings thought only through those aspects of their organism that were etheric, astral, or ego-related. Thoughts were imparted to them through what was revealed by imagination, inspiration, and intuition. This is still the case today with people who, due to certain circumstances we will mention later, possess a kind of clairvoyance—not the modern, precise kind, but rather a dreamlike form inherited from ancient states. Such individuals can never control their soul experiences, but they can have them—just as people of earlier epochs did. Then one is sometimes amazed at the incisive thoughts bestowed upon such people in their dreamlike visions—thoughts that are sometimes based on a far more spiritual logic than even a contemporary philosopher can conceive. These are precisely the thoughts revealed from the spiritual world. Only such thoughts existed in earlier times of human development: revealed thoughts.

[ 27 ] Abstract thinking, which is the only form known today, is developed using the physical body as a tool. It is experienced through the physical body, and this is the defining characteristic of what humanity has achieved in its more recent history, as it has risen to full consciousness. Thinking achieved through the physical body is, in fact, misplaced in relation to the spiritual world. For it is precisely through what I have just characterized that thinking reveals itself as belonging to the spiritual world. It is now misplaced when human beings make use of their physical organization in their thinking. As a result, thinking exists in an element that is not its own true element. But through this, the human being also attains something in this thinking that he could never attain if thinking could arise solely as a revelation from imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Because thinking is developed through the physical organism, its substantial content contains nothing from the spiritual world. It is, in essence, an activity carried out solely within the physical organism. In other words: This abstract thinking experiences nothing real; it is as if it were squeezed out, filtered out of imagination. What is experienced is an illusion. What we experience in abstract thinking is an illusory experience precisely because we become fully conscious within this thinking.

[ 28 ] We can experience two things in this kind of thinking. First, what we experience as an illusory experience in this abstract thinking—and which does not itself claim to express anything—can become a reflection of objective nature. It is only through this that humanity has achieved what it is so proud of today: an objective natural science. The natural processes outside could not be presented objectively by a thought process endowed with its own substance. We cannot recognize descriptions of natural processes, such as those given in ancient times, as objective natural science. Precisely because thought has only an illusory existence, the external world is reflected within that illusory existence. In a form of thinking that lacks its own substance, the substance of external natural phenomena appears in pictorial form. Thus, humanity owes its progress—specifically, the fact that it has attained full consciousness through an illusory experience of thought—to objective natural science. The period in which abstract thought emerged also became the era in which objective natural science was achieved.

[ 29 ] A second thing that humanity owes to this surge toward abstract thought is its experience of freedom. What one experiences as moral impulses through imagination, inspiration, and intuition—even if one experiences it as in ancient times, in a dreamlike way—where it was always experienced through the organism’s dreams, instincts, and emotions, becoming an impulse to act—always exerts a compulsion on the human being. Whatever one must base one’s actions on as a drive within one’s organism drives one, compels one here and there. And what is drawn from a real ethereal world through imagination as moral impulses compels me; one cannot help but follow them. The same is true of what arises from inspiration and intuition. But when a person, in experiencing the illusory life of abstract thought between birth and death—pure thought, which is nothing but thought, yet is carried out by the physical organism—incorporates these moral impulses into this thinking, then these impulses exist within pure thought, which has only an illusory existence and cannot compel anything—just as mirror images cannot compel anything. What impinges upon me in reality compels me; but what has merely an illusory existence, such as what we experience in pure thought, cannot compel a human being. I must decide for myself whether I wish to follow it. Thus, the possibility of human freedom is simultaneously present in this illusory experience of thought. And as moral impulses rooted in the spiritual world enter and fill the human being within this illusory experience of thought, they become free impulses.

[ 30 ] Humanity thus owes its ascent to the illusory experience of thought to two things: the age of objective natural science and the attainment of true freedom. Just as I described these relationships—as well as the ascent into the supersensible worlds—in the book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, in my Occult Science, and in Theosophy, so too have I attempted to describe the attainment of the consciousness of freedom in modern times, based on its foundations, in my Philosophy of Freedom. Thus we can say: In the age in which human beings have attained full consciousness through the descent of thinking into the physical organism and its use of that organism, in that very age, this thinking has rejected the old, dreamlike clairvoyance upon which an ancient philosophy, an ancient cosmology, and the ancient religious life were once founded. Through this, human beings have gained the ability to develop objective natural science within the physical organism between birth and death. They have also gained the ability to develop freedom. But today humanity stands at the point where it must once again tread the path upward into the supersensible world—while retaining its full consciousness—through fully conscious imagination, inspiration, and intuition, in order to attain, in addition to what it can experience through objective natural science and freedom, a new philosophy, a new cosmology, and a new religious life built upon knowledge of the supersensible world. These serve modern man as a revelation of a supersensible world in the same way that, through his full consciousness within the sensory world, he is satisfied by the attainment of objective natural science and freedom.

[ 31 ] Thus, on the one hand through the emphasis on freedom and objective natural science, and on the other hand through the emphasis on a modern spiritual science, it is simultaneously characterized how humanity must progress from the present age into the future so that, through the attainment of supersensible knowledge, it can integrate itself into the true progress of humanity demanded by the world order.