The Rudolf Steiner Archive

New and Old Initiation Science

[ 1 ] A very valid objection that might initially be raised regarding the study of anthroposophy is that what is considered anthroposophical—that is, the facts being investigated concerning the spiritual worlds— depends on undergoing the kind of human development I have described—a development that can only be drawn from deeper human powers of being before one can approach these realities of the higher worlds. So, one could say that anyone who has not yet undergone such a development—that is, anyone who has not yet managed to experience for themselves the perception of supersensible realities and beings—cannot verify whether what is said by the explorer of these worlds corresponds to the truth. And indeed, whenever the content of the spiritual world is discussed in public, or whenever statements are made about it, the objection is very often raised: What are those who cannot yet perceive this supersensible world supposed to make of these ideas about a supersensible world?

[ 2 ] This very objection is based on a complete misconception. It assumes that when one speaks to a person about the supersensible worlds, one is speaking of something completely unknown to them. But that is not the case at all. However, there is a very significant difference—with regard to the science of initiation in this context—between what is currently correct in this field and what was once correct in those ancient times I spoke of yesterday in my lecture.

[ 3 ] Do you remember how I described the path into the spiritual worlds? I said that it leads one to first see, in a powerful tableau of life, all that has been incorporated into one’s own personality through the experiences of this earthly life. One suddenly surveys all that one has gone through in this earthly life. Then I spoke of how, when one ascends from imaginative knowledge to inspired knowledge, one arrives—through empty consciousness, through absolute inner stillness and tranquility—at a view of one’s pre-earthly life; that is, one is introduced into the spiritual world of reality that the human being has passed through between the last death and their present descent to Earth.

[ 4 ] Now you must bear in mind that every human being has had these experiences before descending to Earth. There is no human being who has not had these experiences in full reality—the very ones the researcher of the spiritual world speaks of. And when the researcher of the spiritual world puts these initially unknown facts into words, he is not, in reality, appealing to something entirely unknown to human beings, but rather to that which every human being has gone through and experienced before their earthly life. And in reality, it is nothing other than the evocation of cosmic memories to which the explorer of the spiritual worlds appeals.

[ 5 ] Everything that the explorer of the spiritual worlds speaks of is within all of you; it resides in your souls. It was simply forgotten during the transition from pre-earthly life to earthly life. And, fundamentally, those who explore the spiritual worlds do nothing other than this: they remind people of something they have forgotten.

[ 6 ] Just imagine approaching someone to talk about life on Earth alone. You have a vivid memory of something you experienced with that person twenty years ago. He, the other person, has completely forgotten it. Now, as you talk with him, you are able to bring back into his own memory what you yourself still clearly remember.

[ 7 ] Exactly the same process, only transposed to a higher plane, underlies my speaking to you about higher worlds; the only difference is that what was experienced in pre-earthly existence has been forgotten much more thoroughly than what was experienced in earthly life. But simply because one feels a certain aversion or antipathy, one fails to ask oneself with sufficient intensity: Do you find anything in your soul that can agree with what the explorer of the spiritual worlds says? — simply because one has this feeling of antipathy, one does not delve deeply enough into the soul when, so to speak, listening to or reading what the spiritual researcher says. Consequently, one believes that he is speaking of something that only he alone knows, and that it cannot be verified. It can be verified quite well, provided one sets aside the prejudice arising from the antipathy just described. For, to begin with, the spiritual researcher merely recalls everything that every human being experienced in their pre-earthly existence.

[ 8 ] Now one might ask: Why should one be prompted, during one’s earthly life, to reflect on what one will experience in one’s extraterrestrial existence—through the order of the cosmos, or, one might also say, through the counsel of the gods? And then there are people who say: “Yes, why should I concern myself with such knowledge of the supersensible worlds before my death? After all, I can wait until I have died; then, if it exists at all, all of that will come to meet me.”

[ 9 ] But this is based on a complete misunderstanding of earthly life. The facts to which the spiritual researcher refers have been experienced by every human being in their pre-earthly existence, but not the thoughts about them. And those thoughts can only be experienced during earthly life. And only the thoughts about the supersensible world that we have developed during our earthly existence can we carry through the gate of death; and only then do we understand the realities we experience between death and a new birth.

[ 10 ] To put it bluntly, one might say: In the current evolution of humanity, a person’s life is, in essence, an extraordinarily difficult one if, during their earthly existence, they do not develop an understanding of the supersensible world. Once they have passed through the gate of death, they do not attain a true understanding of what surrounds them there. It surrounds them, but they do not come to understand it. An understanding of what is experienced after death must be attained during one’s earthly existence. We will see in the following descriptions that this was different for humanity in earlier times. But at this present stage of humanity’s evolution, it is precisely the case that people will increasingly have to rely on gaining, here on Earth, an understanding of what they experience in the supersensible world between death and a new birth. And so one can say: When spiritual science speaks to the public today, it is fully justified, for anyone can test it; because, if one delves deeply enough into one’s own soul, one will gradually come to say to oneself: What the spiritual researcher is saying here makes perfect sense to me. It is as if I had once experienced it myself, as if I were now simply being given thoughts about what I had once experienced. And for this reason, it is so very necessary that, when speaking about spiritual science or spiritual insights, one actually choose one’s words somewhat differently than one does in ordinary life. The point is that anyone approaching spiritual science should, simply through the way it is spoken about, get the impression: Here I am learning something that does not apply at all in the sensory world—something that is often nonsense in the sensory world. You see, the opponents then come along and say: “What is said on the basis of spiritual insight is nonsense, mere fantasy.” — As long as one knows and wants to know only the sensory world, such a statement is indeed correct, for the supersensory world does indeed look different from the sensory world. And only those who refrain from clinging to sensory prejudices and who delve deeper into their own soul nature will then say to themselves: “What the spiritual researcher says is merely a stimulus, so that I may draw out of my own soul what I already possess within it.”

[ 11 ] Of course, there are many reasons not to make such a confession to oneself. But it must be said that, when it comes to understanding the supersensible worlds, this self-acknowledgment is the most—the very, very most—essential. And one will see that even the most difficult things become comprehensible when one is willing to engage with one’s own self in this profound way.

[ 12 ] Mathematical truths are undoubtedly among the most difficult of these matters. What is recognized in mathematics is considered to be absolutely true. Now, the peculiar thing is that even mathematics—even geometry—ceases to be true once one enters the spiritual worlds. The point is—and I’d like to illustrate this with a very simple example—that we come to know the old Euclidean truth as an axiom, as it is called, as something self-evident, and we become accustomed to it from childhood onward. For example, it is presented as self-evident: If I have a point A and a point B, then the shortest path between these two points is a straight line. Any other path, any curved path, is longer.

[ 13 ] A large part of our geometry is based on this insight, which goes without saying in the physical world. In the spiritual worlds, the opposite is true. There, the straight line drawn from A to B is the longest path. Every other path is shorter, because every other path in the spiritual world can be taken freely. If, while at A, one has the intention of reaching B, one can easily get there by any winding path through this mere intention alone; but to stay on the straight path—that is, to maintain this single direction at every single point along the line—that is the most difficult thing, and it slows one down the most. That is why it takes the longest to traverse a straight line in the spiritual world, whether in two-dimensional or one-dimensional space.

[ 14 ] Anyone who reflects a little on attention and, as I have often said, delves deep into the soul to understand what attention actually means, will come to realize that what the spiritual researcher says based on his experience must also be correct in this regard. For they tell themselves: When I wander around at will, I easily cover my path—and this wandering need not refer solely to actually walking distances, but to what one does every day; after all, most people go about their business from morning to night. They go about their business in such a way that they are actually not very attentive; they tend to do what has become habitual, what they did yesterday, what people say one ought to do, and so on. That’s how work gets done quickly. But consider this: if you have to pay close attention to what you’re doing at every single moment of your daily life—try it once—you’ll see just how much slower things get done.

[ 15 ] Well, in the spiritual world, nothing exists at all without attention. In the spiritual world, there is no such thing as habit. In the spiritual world, the little word “one” does not exist—one must have lunch at this time, one must have dinner at that time, and so on. This “one”—one puts on this or that outfit on such-and-such an occasion, and so on—all of that which plays such a major role under the little word “one” in the physical world, especially in today’s civilization, none of that exists in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, every tiny step—indeed, even something smaller than a step—must be followed with one’s own attention. This is already expressed in the saying: “In the spiritual world, a straight line is the longest path between two points.” Thus, we have the contrast: In the physical world, a straight line is the shortest path between two points. In the spiritual world, a straight line is the longest path between two points.

[ 16 ] If one delves deeply enough into the soul, one becomes aware of how to draw a true understanding of these peculiarities from within the soul, and one will then increasingly come to the realization: What the spiritual researcher says is, in fact, all wisdom that resides within me. I just need to be reminded of it.

[ 17 ] At the same time, anyone can do this today, because the steps for attaining supersensible knowledge—as described in writings such as How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, which is translated as “Initiation,” and so on—anyone can follow this path today, insofar as their destiny and karma allow, as we shall yet see, and thus gain their own insight into the spiritual world. Through this, they then gain insight into the facts. An understanding of the ideas of the spiritual world, however, can certainly be attained through the self-knowledge alluded to here, which restores what was forgotten at the beginning of earthly life.

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[ 18 ] It can be said that knowledge of the spiritual world, when conveyed through ideas, can be understood by anyone; that is to say, in order to understand what the spiritual researcher presents, all that is necessary is an unbiased, sound common sense that need only delve deeply enough into the soul. To investigate spiritual facts, to enter the spiritual world—that is, to speak in an authentic way about the facts of the spiritual world—naturally requires traversing the path of knowledge itself. Therefore, it is justified to speak openly today about the spiritual worlds, once they have been made known through one means or another; for what people acquire in life today solely through their school education is precisely that power of understanding, that power of discernment, through which they can also advance to an understanding of what spiritual science presents. But in this respect, too, things were different for humanity in earlier times than they are for humanity today. Therefore, the conduct of those who taught in the mysteries—who practiced art and religion within the mysteries—was different from what that of the spiritual researcher can be today. Today, anyone who speaks to those around them about spiritual insights must be thoroughly mindful of organizing their ideas in such a way that they evoke genuine memories of pre-earthly life. Today, one must, so to speak, speak to one’s listeners in such a way—or structure what one writes for readers—that it evokes memories of pre-birth life.

[ 19 ] One might say: Any discussion of spiritual science is such that one is actually addressing the listener with the appeal: Listen to what is being said, look deep enough into your soul, and you will find that this actually resides within your own soul, and you will come to realize that you certainly cannot have learned all of this in your earthly life, since no flower, no cloud, no spring—nothing—tells you this, nor can science, which relies solely on the senses and the intellect, ever tell you this; you will come to realize that you brought this with you into earthly existence, that before your earthly existence you experienced things which, as if through a cosmic memory, leave behind in your soul that which is stirred by the spiritual researcher. It is, therefore, an appeal to the deepest innermost core of the human soul that is made by the spiritual researcher. But it is not an unreasonable demand that one should take on something foreign within oneself, but merely an appeal to remember that which is, in fact, the very deepest essence of the human soul itself.

[ 20 ] This was not the case with the people of earlier times. The initiates and priests had to proceed differently, for the people of earlier times possessed a natural recollection of their pre-earthly existence. A few millennia ago, even the most primitive human being did not doubt that there was something within his soul that he had brought down from a supersensible life into the sensible world, for he experienced this every day in dreamlike visions. He had something in his soul of which he said to himself: This was not given to me by the eye that looks at the tree, this was not given to me by the ear that hears the nightingale sing, this was not given to me by any other sense, but it is there in my soul. I could not have taken this into myself since I have been in earthly existence; it was already there when I descended into earthly existence, and when, during my embryonic period, the physical body of the Earth was given to me from another human body, that which now shines forth within me in dreamlike imaginings was already there. I have clothed that in a physical human body.

[ 21 ] In those earlier times, therefore, nothing would have been said to human beings that would have advanced their development if they had been made aware of precisely what modern human beings must be made aware of first and foremost: that they have a memory—a subconscious memory at first, but one that can be brought into consciousness through stimulation—of a pre-earthly existence. In the ancient mysteries, on the contrary, people had to be made aware of something entirely different.

[ 22 ] In earlier times, one might say, people felt a deep sorrow precisely because of the most beautiful things in the sensory world. They saw the flower. They saw it sprouting from the earth in its wondrous beauty, unfolding its blossoms. He also perceived the benefit the flower held for him. He perceived the trickling spring with all the beauty it can reveal when one encounters it in the shade of a tree. Naturally, through his senses, he perceived the refreshing quality of such a spring. But then, then he said to himself: All of this is, after all, as if it had fallen away—as if it had sinfully fallen away—from that world which I carry within me, which I brought into physical existence when I descended from the spiritual worlds. And the Mystery teachers had the task of making it clear to human beings that even in the flower, even in the trickling spring, even in the rustling of the forest, in the song of the nightingale, and everywhere, spiritual beings are at work and weaving their fabric—that spiritual beings can be found there as well. They were to teach human beings this great truth: That which lives within you also lives in the outer world of nature. For it was precisely at that time—when human beings looked upon the outer world with sorrow and suffering—that they possessed the freshest, most receptive senses for this outer world; it was at a time when the intellect had least enlightened them about the laws of nature, but rather when they perceived this outer world through their primitive senses. Its beauty—its burgeoning, sprouting beauty—penetrated his eyes, his ears, and his other senses; yet he could not help but experience all of this with sorrow. It was precisely in beauty that he felt the deepest sorrow, because he could not reconcile it with what lived in his soul as the content of his own prenatal existence. And so the initiates of the mysteries had the task of showing how the divine-spiritual dwells in everything, even in sensory things. It was precisely the spirituality of nature that the ancient sages had to make clear to human beings.

[ 23 ] But they could only do that if they took a different path than the one we take today. While today it is necessary, above all, to remind people to recall their pre-birth existence, it was necessary for these ancient mystery teachers to evoke a completely different kind of memory in the people around them.

[ 24 ] During their earthly existence, human beings live their lives rhythmically in two states—actually, in three states: waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Sleep occurs unconsciously. People of earlier epochs also experienced such an unconscious state of sleep, although it was somewhat different from that of people today. They, too, slept and fell into a state in which no experiences rose up into the soul or into consciousness. But human beings do, after all, live from the moment they fall asleep until they wake up. After all, we do not die when we fall asleep, nor are we reborn when we wake up; rather, we have a life as a soul, as a spirit, from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. And for ordinary, everyday consciousness, this experience—this personal experience between falling asleep and waking up—is completely erased. A person remembers what they experience while awake or, at most, while dreaming; but in ordinary consciousness, they do not remember what they experience between falling asleep and waking up during dreamless sleep. They do not remember that. The ancient mystery teachers treated their students—and, through the ideas they brought into the world, all of humanity who came to them—in such a way that, in those earlier times of humanity—in historical terms, “earlier times”—what was experienced in sleep was brought to mind.

[ 25 ] Modern initiatory knowledge serves to remind us of what lived within the human soul before earthly existence. The initiations of ancient times were meant to remind people, through the knowledge gained in initiation, of what they experienced in their daily sleep. Thus, all the insights that these ancient mystery teachers clothed in ideas were arranged in such a way that the students—or those who heard them—could say: “They are telling us nothing other than what we go through in every sleep.” We simply push it down into the unconscious, but we go through it during every sleep state. What the mystery priests tell us is not at all unknown; rather, through their initiation, they have come to perceive what ordinary consciousness does not perceive during sleep—what we are, in fact, experiencing.

[ 26 ] Likewise, in that ancient wisdom of initiation, it was the evocation of a memory of something a person had experienced in sleep, just as today it is the evocation of the memory of pre-earthly existence. But this is one of the distinguishing features between older initiation and newer initiation: that through the ancient initiation, a person was reminded of what they would otherwise have slept through in their everyday consciousness—that is, what they no longer remembered in their waking consciousness. The ancient mystery sages brought the night experiences up into waking consciousness, and these experiences pointed out to people: At night, you live with your soul in the spiritual world, which lives in every spring, in every nightingale, in every flower. Every night, you enter into that which you merely gaze upon, merely perceive through your senses during the day.

[ 27 ] And then human beings could be convinced that the gods they experienced in their waking dreams also exist in the natural world outside. Thus, by revealing to him the content of his sleep, the ancient mystery sage showed his disciple that there are divine-spiritual beings out there in the natural world as it is today, just as the modern spiritual researcher has the task of showing human beings that, before they descended to Earth, they lived in the spiritual world as spiritual beings among spiritual beings, and that here on Earth, through concepts and through ideas, recreate what they experienced in their pre-earthly existence.

[ 28 ] In today’s science of initiation, one comes to know the true facts that distinguish sleep from wakefulness as one ascends from imagination to inspiration. What a person truly is—as a soul, as a spirit—from the moment of falling asleep until waking up, becomes vividly clear only through genuine, inspired insight; when a person ascends to imaginative insight, they arrive at the tableau of their life. When one develops this tableau of life in mere wakefulness, in empty consciousness, in the cosmic silence as I have described it, pre-earthly existence first enters the soul as inspiration from the cosmos. But then the essence of the self also appears within this inspiration, as this essence exists—as a spiritual and soul-like entity—between falling asleep and waking up.

[ 29 ] That which remains unconscious during sleep becomes conscious through inspiration. One learns to observe what one does as soul and spirit in the sleeping state, and one then becomes aware: when falling asleep, the spiritual-soul aspect actually leaves the physical body and the etheric body. One leaves behind in bed the physical body and the etheric body—or body of formative forces—as it appears in the imagination and as I have described it to you. And those higher aspects of human nature—what one might call the astral body, as I have already mentioned—and the actual “I”-organization—these leave the physical body and the etheric body and return to these two bodies upon waking. That division of our being that we undergo every time during the rhythmic transition from waking to sleeping can only be truly perceived and recognized in its reality through inspiration. And then one perceives how everything we acquire in ordinary waking life through our thinking, through our world of thoughts, truly remains behind in bed. Our thoughts, which we work out for ourselves; our thoughts, for which we are so tormented during our school years; all that which we have acquired as our cleverness for our earthly intelligence—we must leave all of this behind with our physical body and etheric body every time we fall asleep. From our physical and etheric bodies, we take with us into the spiritual world—where we sleep—as the “I” and the astral body—only something that is entirely different from what we experience during the waking state. When we transition from waking to sleeping, we experience something that we, however, do not bring into consciousness in our ordinary state of consciousness. Therefore, as I speak to you about these experiences, I must do so in a way that presents ideas and concepts into which I must clothe the descriptions of what a person indeed experiences but is unaware of in ordinary consciousness—though, as indicated in the recollection mentioned in the first part of my lecture today, they can actually recall this within the bounds of common sense. We leave behind this reflection on the things of the world in the shadow images of truly living thoughts as we fall asleep, and we immerse ourselves in a world in which we do not actually think in the same sense as we do here in the earthly world, but in which we experience—internally experience—that which is. Indeed, during sleep, a person unconsciously experiences light. We reflect on what light does—how light, in relation to things, brings forth shadows and colors—while we are awake, and we have thoughts about light and the effects of light. As I said, we leave these thoughts behind. But in sleep, we ourselves enter into the weaving, living light. We pour ourselves into the weaving, living light. And just as we here, as earthly human beings during the day—when we carry our physical body with us—walk through the air with our soul and spirit, just as we walk upon the earth, so do we first, as sleepers, enter into the weaving, undulating light and become ourselves a being, a substance of weaving, living light. We become light within light.

[ 30 ] Only when a person is inspired by what he himself becomes every night—that is, when this rises within him in his waking consciousness—does he simultaneously realize: during sleep, you yourself live like a cloud of light within the cosmic light. But this does not merely mean living as a substance of light within the light; rather, it means living within the forces that become thoughts in waking life and are grasped in thought.

[ 31 ] The light that one experiences is permeated everywhere by creative forces—by that which now works inwardly in plants, that which works inwardly in animals, but which also exists independently as spiritual worlds. One does not experience light in the same way as one does here in the physical world; rather, the weaving, living light is—if I may put it somewhat figuratively—the body of spiritual weaving and also of individual spiritual beings.

[ 32 ] Here in the physical world, as a human being, one is enclosed within one’s own skin. One sees other people enclosed within their own skin. There, during the state of sleep, one is light within light, and other beings are light within light. But one no longer perceives the light as light, in the way one has become accustomed to perceiving it here in the physical world; rather—if I may now express myself figuratively—an essential cloud of light, which is ourselves, perceives another essential cloud of light that is objective. But this essential cloud of light, which is objective, is another human being, or is some being that animates the plant world, or is a being that never incarnates in a physical body at all, but remains constantly in the spiritual world.

[ 33 ] Light is therefore not experienced there as earthly light, but as a living, essential spirituality. And as you know, as a physical human being here on Earth, one still lives in something else. One lives in the warmth that one perceives physically. People know when they are warm and when they are cold. They heat their rooms when they are cold. So they know that, in a sensory way, they live here—for ordinary consciousness—in warmth or cold. But what they experience in the warmth or cold, they simply feel. That is the feeling, the sensation of warmth and cold.

[ 34 ] When one steps out of one’s physical and etheric bodies upon falling asleep, one lives—just as one lives as light within light—as a substance of warmth within the substance of warmth of the cosmos. One is therefore not merely a cloud of light, so to speak, but a cloud of light permeated and interwoven with warmth, and what one perceives, in turn, carries warmth within itself. But just as, in this state of being as a spiritual-soul entity during sleep, one does not experience light as light but as living spirit—just as one knows oneself to be a living spiritual being and experiences other beings as living spiritual beings when this becomes conscious through inspiration—so, too, is this experience one undergoes in relation to warmth. One cannot get by in the spiritual world—not even for the sake of inspiration—if one were to bring along only the concepts one has acquired here in the earthly world. Just as one must acquire a different conception of the shortest path between two points, so too must one acquire different contents of the soul for all things. And just as, by experiencing oneself as light within the light, one actually experiences oneself as spirit in the spirit world, so too, by experiencing oneself as warmth within the cosmic warmth, one does not experience oneself in warmth as one is accustomed to perceiving it in the sensory world, but rather in the world of weaving, powerful love; as the being of love that one oneself is in the supersensible, one experiences oneself among beings who cannot be anything other than drawing their own essence from love, who cannot be anything other than having their existence of love within a universal cosmic existence of love. Thus, one first experiences oneself, between falling asleep and waking up, in a spirit-saturated existence of love.

[ 35 ] Therefore, if we want to enter these worlds at all—worlds in which we ourselves find ourselves every day between falling asleep and waking up—we must increase our capacity for love; otherwise, this world we pass through between falling asleep and waking up will, of course, remain a foreign world to us. Here in this world, it is not spiritualized love that reigns, but rather only the instinctual state of love steeped in sensuality. Spiritualized love, however, reigns in the spiritual world just as I have just described. And if one therefore wishes to attain this—to stand within that world with consciousness, a world in which one actually stands every night through one’s experiences—one can do so only by first developing the capacity for love in the manner I described yesterday.

[ 36 ] Well, one cannot truly find oneself without the capacity for love, for that which one truly is on Earth—during the one-third of one’s life spent sleeping—would remain forever hidden from one if one could not explore it through the cultivation and elevation of the capacity for love. What a person experiences from the moment of falling asleep until waking up would remain an eternal dark mystery to earthly beings if these earthly beings did not wish to advance in their capacity for love, so as to thereby come to know their own being as they experience it in that other state between falling asleep and waking up. But the form of thought activity that we develop when we carry our physical body and our etheric or formative body with us—that is, in the waking state—we leave behind in bed; while we sleep, it enters into a unified movement with the entire cosmos. If a person could truly gain insight into what happens in the physical and etheric bodies during the night, they would be able to perceive from the outside—while living as a warming being of light—how the etheric body continues to think throughout the night.

[ 37 ] We can think even when our soul isn’t fully present, because what we leave behind in bed keeps driving our thoughts farther and farther away. It continues to think on its own. And when we wake up in the morning, we dive back into what was left behind in bed and has continued to think on its own. We encounter our own thoughts again in the morning. They haven’t died out between falling asleep and waking up. We just weren’t present. And tomorrow I will describe how, when you are not present, you can be much wiser, much more intelligent than you are when you are present with your soul in your thoughts while awake during the day. What is thought during the night, when you are not present, is often much wiser within a person than what they think from waking until falling asleep, when they are present with their soul.

[ 38 ] But in any case, today I wanted to suggest that thought continues within the etheric body and the physical body, and that when we wake up in the morning and sense a dream, this dream, in a sense, indicates: Your soul is gathering itself as it awakens and submerges into the etheric body and the physical body. There is the physical body; there is the etheric body, the body of formative forces; and there is the astral organization and the “I” organization, which submerge into the physical and etheric bodies in the morning. But as they submerge, something happens, as if a denser wave, a denser surge, were plunging into the more ethereal; a congestion arises. And this congestion that arises is experienced as a morning dream. The “I” and the astral body, which have been weaving in the light and warmth of the night, plunge into the thoughts, do not immediately understand them, confuse them, and this congestion is experienced as the morning dream.

[ 39 ] Well, as for what dreaming is all about, how this phenomenon of dreaming is actually so enigmatic throughout a person’s entire life, and what the relationship between sleep and wakefulness is, we’ll consider those questions tomorrow.

Q&A

Written questions were submitted, but the text of those questions has not been preserved.

[ 40 ] Regarding the first question about the nature of sleep:

[ 41 ] Ladies and gentlemen!

[ 42 ] Perhaps it is appropriate, after all, to say a few words about the questions that have been raised here. First, one questioner expresses surprise at how little conventional medicine pays attention to the processes that occur during sleep. — Yes, this is actually no cause for surprise, for modern science has attained its greatness precisely by disregarding everything spiritual, by limiting itself to everything that is not spiritual; but one cannot truly study the state of sleep and everything connected with it without finding the path from the physical world into the spiritual world. That is why it is quite understandable that today, in specialized medicine, one speaks at most of the borderline states between wakefulness and sleep, but not actually of what extends from the state of sleep into the state of wakefulness and vice versa. Tomorrow, in fact, I will speak about these images as part of my lecture. It is always better when these questions are discussed in context.

[ 43 ] Now, people say that there are people who don’t remember anything they experienced while asleep, but that there are also people who remember all sorts of things. Yes, but I would at least like to ask this question first: How do we know whether what a person recounts after waking from sleep—whether what they remember—is really everything they experienced while asleep? How do we know when the things they describe are accurate? Of course, if these things are to be verifiable from the outside, then we must examine the stage of their sleep. It may well be that at first, some elements from the waking state seep into sleep. But these things cannot be taken lightly; rather, they must be examined precisely—so that the common view, held from the outset, that some people recount all sorts of things about their sleep, cannot be taken at face value. Everything must be carefully examined, and I myself will have more to say in the lectures about what people experience in their sleep. And so you will see that what is likely meant by the question at hand encompasses extremely little of what a person actually experiences every night between falling asleep and waking up, when they pass into a completely different world and experience things in a completely different way. That is what must be taken into account. Therefore, it is a good idea to perhaps wait for the next lectures regarding this very question; as some things will naturally become clearer then. So it is not that I do not wish to address these questions—that is not the case at all—but rather that certain matters can only be answered in the lectures, and when addressed there, they are answered more completely and appropriately than they can be outside of that context. So it is not a matter of unfriendliness when something is postponed; rather, it is truly the most appropriate course of action.

[ 44 ] Regarding the effects of alcohol and similar substances:

[ 45 ] Now I would like to return for a moment to something that has been requested: Physical substances do, in fact, possess certain spiritual powers. The fact that something is a physical substance is really only an outward appearance; physical substances already possess spiritual powers within them. Now, as you recall, I said this morning: During ordinary sleep, the I and the astral body are separated from the etheric body and the physical body, which lie in bed, and I said that a person sometimes thinks more clearly when their soul life is not present than when it is.

[ 46 ] Now, some physical substances have the peculiarity that, without putting a person to sleep, they loosen the “I” and the astral body. Under certain circumstances, even ordinary alcohol can have this effect. If, under certain circumstances, a somewhat irregular connection between the etheric body and the organ of speech or the organ of thought still exists, then the person may, under certain circumstances, speak or write in such a way that they are detached from their ego or astral body, and what is written then reflects what continues to resonate within the etheric body—and this can certainly be something far more significant than what a person speaks or writes when their ego and astral body are fully engaged. Of course, one must not take these things to the point of practical measures; one must certainly not claim that someone can thereby become a good poet by indulging in opium in this or that way, but on the other hand, these things do indeed correspond to reality. In doing so, one enters into what are actually quite dangerous aspects of human life. And for very many phenomena in the world, it is necessary—truly necessary—to understand these connections. One cannot understand some people’s achievements at all unless one knows under what kind of substantial influence—purely external and material—they created something. It is possible, for example, in the case of Nietzsche, as well as Coleridge—at least in some of their works—to truly interpret every single mode of expression as the independent resonance of the etheric body.

[ 47 ] Well, we really have to admit: this etheric body within us is a very, very intelligent entity. And it is actually prevented—by what we are capable of doing in the astral body and through the “I” while awake—from always expressing its intelligence. It’s actually impossible to imagine just how much intelligence is present when a group of people gathers somewhere! But it is always the egos and the astral bodies that stand in the way of allowing this intelligence to come to the surface. That is precisely what I have always emphasized in my lectures: the ego is actually the baby within the human being; it is the least developed of all.

[ 48 ] Regarding the question about olfactory perceptions:

[ 49 ] With regard to the individual sensory perceptions that we are accustomed to experiencing in the physical world, it must be said that these perceptions, as they exist in the physical world, should not be sought directly in the spiritual world. It is precisely for this reason that I tried to express myself very precisely when I spoke about colors. I said that the experience in the spiritual world consists in experiencing the same thing with a spiritual impression as one experiences with a particular perception of color. And I said: When one perceives red in the physical world, one has a certain inner experience—the feeling that something aggressive is coming toward one—whereas, for example, with blue, one has the sensation that one must humbly surrender oneself to what is revealed in the color. If one becomes clear about these experiences—the aggressive quality of red, the humility-inducing quality of blue or blue-violet—then, when perceiving in the spiritual world and having the same inner experience as with red or blue in the physical world, one can say that in the spiritual world one has the counterpart to red or blue. At that very moment—and specifically when one transitions to imaginative perception—one merges with the object, and the entire experience is different from that in the physical world, so that when encountering color perceptions in the spiritual world, one actually stands within the color itself; as a result, the entire experience takes on a different character. Nevertheless, it is entirely justified to speak of color perceptions in the spiritual world—it is entirely justified to say that when spiritual beings or entities appear, one truly experiences a red, a blue, a green, and so on. This is justified for the reason that even when colors appear in the physical world, they are by no means what they are regarded as today—for example, in physics—but rather, wherever they appear, colors are always physical projections, shadows emanating from the spiritual, from the astral world. So that when one sees—let’s say—red somewhere, one is perceiving the physical shadow cast by a process in the spiritual, in the astral world, which, when experienced directly, makes a striking impression on one’s own self.

[ 50 ] One can now say the following: If thinking becomes as inwardly alive as I have described in recent days, then it resembles, in a spiritual sense, a tactile sensation. So, in fact, perception in the etheric world begins with a kind of spiritual tactile perception. And then one gradually penetrates ever deeper, differentiating these tactile perceptions and coming to be able to speak of colors, as well as tones, and so on.

[ 51 ] Now the question arises regarding the sense of smell. It must be said that, strange as it may seem, the sense of smell here in the physical world is the one most strongly influenced by the spiritual realm. The sense of smell, when it occurs directly in the physical world, is actually always caused by a spiritual-astral entity coming as close as possible to the material world. And so one can say: Fragrances are the physical manifestations of the spiritual. Consequently, one will find that for all other sensory perceptions there are corresponding phenomena in the spiritual world, and one can speak of a spiritual sense of touch, a spiritual sense of sight, a spiritual sense of sound, and so on; but it is very difficult to speak of a spiritual sense of smell, because the sense of smell actually finds its full expression in the physical world. When the spirit—if I may put it figuratively—descends deepest into the physical world, then the sense of smell arises.

[ 52 ] The spirit descends somewhat less deeply in the perception of taste. Therefore, the perception of taste is of such a nature that one can speak of a spiritual correlate in connection with it. One can speak of something that correlates with the perception of taste, though this is less true of the perception of smell. You see, I could now continue the chapter I began yesterday on language, but I want to highlight just one thing: In language, when it is experienced—in every language—there actually lives a truly spiritual element, and one does not speak of the “genius of language” merely in a figurative sense—or at least one should not speak of it merely in a figurative sense. It is truly a spiritual presence there! And there is more to language than the individual human being often understands. The way in which sounds—that is, tones, letters, and words—and syllables combine in language has a spirituality of its own; it is animated in and of itself, and we grow into this spirituality, into this animation. And so we find in language expressions and terms that actually point to deeper inner connections. And that is why, in aesthetics, we speak of “taste”—and not without reason. There you see, I would say, the sense of taste being translated, for ordinary consciousness, into the realm of the animated. But one cannot speak in the same way of an animation of the sense of smell; that is, in fact, more or less confined to the physical world.

[ 53 ] At most, our outstanding, serious, and humorous German poet Christian Morgenstern—who died in 1914 and had previously been a member of the Anthroposophical Society for a long time—used scent in a humorous and fantastical way to elevate it into the spiritual world. And just as he has expressed many other things in his humorous poems—things that do not correspond to reality but are nonetheless very humorous and entertaining— he also composed a humorous poem about an organ that cannot be heard—one that does not make itself known through sounds, nor express itself in harmonies and so on—but rather allows various scents, each with its own distinct aroma, to flow out through different holes; when one strikes the various keys, certain scents always emerge from the holes, creating a connection: fragrance harmonies, fragrance melodies, and so on. This is Christian Morgenstern’s famous “Olfactory Organ,” which he describes in a humorous way in this poem.

[ 54 ] But this matter is, in fact, quite amusing, and it must be said that smell is actually something distinct from the physical world. The spirit has descended as far as it can go there, manifests itself in the physical world, and the olfactory—that which is fragrant—cannot be elevated in the same way as, for example, taste, or, in particular, that which appears in the higher senses. It is therefore quite right—and this certainly corresponds to reality—that in literature, the evil spirits who are so eager to enter the physical world and do all sorts of things to people there are depicted as having a scent. You will indeed find references to this throughout literature, suggesting that evil spirits are particularly intrusive when it comes to the sense of smell. This is entirely in keeping with the truth in the sense that smell is actually something confined to the physical world. It is true that one can speak of it even in the higher worlds, but not very far up. However, as I said, scent is something that exists only because the spiritual descends into the material, atomizing into the tiniest particles, so that matter is at its most spiritual in scent. And that is why, especially in earlier times when people were more attuned to this, fragrance was perceived as a spiritual expression. That is what can be said, for the time being, in a few words on this subject.

[ 55 ] On the question of “being wise in one’s sleep”:

[ 56 ] I do not wish to discuss the healing method mentioned here, because that leads to a topic I do not like to talk about. It is not my habit to pass judgment on contemporaries in this or that field, but I would like to briefly touch on what might be of interest—quite apart from this specific healing method—regarding this question.

[ 57 ] If we consider the human etheric body, it is actually the vehicle of thoughts. Indeed, the etheric body is the vehicle of immediately present thoughts, and it is also what causes thoughts to be transformed into memories and to be retrieved from those memories; it is necessary for the earthly human being only that this etheric body be, so to speak, contained within the physical body. This is necessary because the human being, as an earthly being, needs, so to speak, a counterforce for what takes place in the etheric body. Just as we, as earthly human beings, cannot walk in the air but need ground on which to walk—though the ground does nothing to enable our walking; it merely provides the counterforce—so it is with what takes place in the human etheric body. The entire interplay of thoughts, the entire flow of thought, takes place in the etheric body; but thought would not come alive in the waking human being if there were no resistance, if every movement of living thought did not encounter resistance from the physical body. The physical body does nothing at all, but it provides resistance. Through this, the human being in waking consciousness becomes aware of the thoughts taking place in the etheric body.

[ 58 ] Now it is indeed the case that when a person sleeps—that is, when the physical and etheric bodies are lying in bed and the person is enclosed within their astral body, with the “I” separated from the physical and etheric bodies—the etheric body continues to think. In fact, the etheric body, with regard to its thinking—that is, to the processes taking place within it—relies on rhythm and repetition, and it retains best that which is given to it through rhythm and repetition. Therefore, it is fundamentally quite wrong for us to interpret Eastern writings—which contain many repetitions—according to our Western habits, omitting the repetitions and presenting the content only once. For the authors of these Eastern writings, it was not merely the content that mattered—which the Western writer regards as the main point—for the Westerner is a European person, and once he has thought something, he has thought it and does not wish to think it again; at most, he prays the same Lord’s Prayer every day, but on the whole, in terms of content, he is a “European” person; he does not experience his activity through rhythm; as a result, the Westerner sins every day against what the etheric body actually demands of him. The etheric body craves repetition, and in those times of the ancient East, when these habits were well understood, people therefore consciously cultivated these repetitions, because they knew what they were doing. I do not know whether this sin is also committed in England; but we have German translations that actually render the texts in the most unbelievable way. When the Buddha’s discourses contain many repetitions, the German translator renders them only once. But that is not what matters at all—the mere content of the Buddha’s discourses—rather, what matters is that one takes these discourses into oneself and actually allows each repetition to unfold—over and over again, letting each repetition unfold. And no matter how many repetitions there are, the very number of these repetitions is significant. These mysteries were known in those times. And those who translate the Buddha’s discourses into prose in this way are thereby already indicating that they do not understand the slightest thing about the entire Eastern civilization and the entire Eastern spiritual life.

[ 59 ] Now, the etheric body is, at the same time, what is actually the healing principle within the human being. And when we prepare remedies, if we do so with understanding, we aim precisely at that. Today, medicine does all of this, as it claims, empirically; they test how this or that works: if, for example, it has been effective in so-and-so many percent of cases, they declare it a remedy; if the percentage is low, they declare it not a remedy, and so on—they do not delve into the underlying connections. Now, it has been requested that I also give a lecture on anthroposophy in medicine during the course of this summer course. Such matters will then be able to be discussed there. But as I said, true healing does not lie solely in these remedies. When we prepare remedies with full awareness, we always keep in mind the goal of bringing the etheric body into particular activity at the specific part of the body where healing is to take place. Let’s say someone has a liver disease; if, through an appropriate remedy, one could bring the etheric body of the liver into particular activity, that would mean healing. Thus, it is precisely on this principle—of bringing the etheric body into activity—that the tourniquet methods, which are rightly used in many cases today, are based. If one has an injury somewhere—on a finger joint or the like—and one applies a tourniquet above the injured area, so that, to the external physical observation, a so-called “numb” limb, this causes the etheric body to become more active than it otherwise would be in the simplest possible way, because it is disconnected from the physical realm; and through this simple, mechanical constriction, the etheric body asserts itself in the simplest possible way. But one can also say: If one allows a person—especially a Western person, who is not at all accustomed to applying this in any other way in life—to repeat in the proper manner the things that pertain to their recovery, the etheric body enters into a certain rhythm; but it then also disengages from physical habit, and healing powers can awaken. That can certainly be the case. One must simply be aware that these things can work well for Westerners precisely because they are accustomed to not living in rhythm. Eastern people, who make greater use of rhythm in their spiritual life, as I have indicated, become immune to these things and must then seek other healing methods. Whatever one wishes to use as a remedy must be something that is unfamiliar, something one rarely or never uses otherwise. That is why it is also beneficial—not in the case of an acute illness, but when dealing with a chronic illness—that if one has a highly effective remedy in certain substances, one should not allow the patient in question to consume that substance for some time, that is, wean them off it; then, later, after they have abstained from it for a while, one can use it as a healing substance. These things are all interconnected.

[ 60 ] Here one can best see how the material and the spiritual are connected, in that the mere repetition of the same action related to recovery awakens healing powers in the etheric body.

[ 61 ] Of course, one must be aware of just how much amateurish practice is going on in this field today. And precisely for this reason, I do not wish to discuss individual healing methods that appear here and there, but would simply like to point out that only a genuine understanding of how the whole human being is permeated by the physical, etheric, and astral bodies and by the “I” provides the full possibility of speaking about the human being in a therapeutic context as well.