The Rudolf Steiner Archive

28. Theosophy in Germany a Hundred Years Ago

Rudolf Steiner's abstract of his lecture at the Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society

[ 1 ] Those who describe Germany’s intellectual life from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century typically see, alongside the artistic heyday represented by Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Mozart, Beethoven, and others, only an era of purely speculative thought embodied by Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and a few less significant philosophers. The prevailing opinion is often that these latter figures should be regarded as mere laborers in the field of thought. It is acknowledged that they achieved extraordinary feats in the realm of speculation; but one is all too easily inclined to say: These thinkers were quite far removed from true occult research and genuine spiritual experience. And so it is that the theosophical seeker expects little benefit from delving deeply into their works.

[ 2 ] Many who attempt to penetrate the fabric of these philosophers’ thoughts eventually set the work aside because they find it fruitless. The scientific researcher tells himself: These thinkers have lost the firm ground of experience beneath their feet; they have constructed fanciful systems in nebulous heights, without any regard for positive reality.” And those interested in the occult find that these thinkers lack truly spiritual foundations. They come to the conclusion: “They knew nothing of spiritual experiences or supersensory facts, but merely devised intellectual constructs.”

[ 3 ] As long as one limits oneself to observing only the outward aspects of spiritual development, it will not be easy to arrive at a different opinion. But if one delves down to the undercurrents, the entire epoch appears in a different light. The apparent phantoms of mere thought can be recognized as the expression of a deeper, occult life. And theosophy can then provide the key to understanding what these sixty to seventy years of spiritual life mean in the course of human development. During this period in Germany, there are two sets of facts, one of which represents the surface, while the other must be regarded as a deeper foundation. The whole gives the impression of a flowing current, on whose surface waves ripple in the most varied ways. And what is presented in the usual [histories of literature] are only these rising and falling waves; but what lives in the depths—and from which the waves actually draw their sustenance—is left unaccounted for.

[ 4 ] This depth contains a rich, fertile occult life. And this is none other than the life that once pulsed through the works of the great German mystics—Paracelsus, Jakob Böhme, and Angelus Silesius. Like a hidden force, this life was contained within the worlds of thought that Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel encountered. The way in which, for example, Jakob Böhme had expressed his great spiritual experiences was no longer at the forefront of the prevailing literary discourse; yet the spirit of these experiences continued to live on. One can see how this spirit lived on in Herder, for example. Public discourse led both Herder and Goethe to the study of Spinoza. In the work he called *God*, Herder sought to deepen the Spinozist conception of God. What he brought to Spinozism was nothing other than the spirit of German mysticism. One might say that, unbeknownst to him, [...] Jakob Böhme and Angelus Silesius guided his pen. Such hidden sources also explain why, in a mind as rationally inclined as Lessing’s, ideas about reincarnation appeared in his *The Education of the Human Race*. The term “unconsciously,” however, is only half accurate, because while such ideas and intuitions did not appear on the surface of literary discourse in Germany, they certainly thrived within the most diverse “occult societies” and “brotherhoods.” But of those mentioned, only Goethe can truly be regarded as someone who was initiated into the innermost workings of such “brotherhoods”; the others had a more superficial connection to them. Much from these circles found its way into their lives and works as inspiration, without their ever becoming fully aware of the actual sources.

[ 5 ] Schiller represents an interesting phenomenon of intellectual development in this regard. One cannot understand the true intellectual essence of his life without delving into that work from his youth which appears in his writings as “Correspondence between Julius and Raphael.” Some of what is contained therein Schiller had already written while he was still attending the Karlsschule in Stuttgart; some of it was composed only in the years 1785 and 1786. It contains what Schiller calls the “Theosophy of Julius,” by which he refers to the sum of ideas to which he had risen at that time. It suffices to cite the most important thoughts from this “Theosophy” to characterize the way in which this genius assembled his own edifice of ideas from the rudiments of German mysticism available to him. Such essential thoughts include the following: “The universe is a thought of God. After this [ideal] mental image passed into reality and the born world filled the void of its Creator—allow me this human metaphor—the calling of all thinking beings within this existing whole is to rediscover the original sketch, to seek the rule in the machine, the unity in the composition, the law in the phenomenon, and to trace the edifice backward to its blueprint... The great composition we call the world now strikes me as remarkable only because it exists to symbolically denote the [multifaceted] manifestations of that [being]. Everything within me and outside of me is merely a hieroglyph of a force that is similar to me. The laws of nature are the ciphers that the thinking being pieces together to make itself intelligible to the thinking being—the alphabet through which all minds negotiate with the most perfect Mind and with themselves... A new experience in this [realm of truth]—gravity, the discovery of the circulation of blood, Linnaeus’s system of nature—means to me, at its core, precisely what an artifact unearthed in Herculaneum from antiquity signifies: both are merely reflections of a spirit, a new acquaintance with a being similar to myself. [...] For me, there is no longer any wasteland in all of nature. Where I discover a body, there I [sense] a spirit. — Where I perceive movement, there I surmise a thought... We have concepts of the wisdom of the supreme being, of his goodness, of his justice—but none of his omnipotence. To describe his omnipotence, we aid ourselves with the piecemeal mental image of three successions: Nothing, his will [and] Something. It is formless and dark—God says, “Let there be light”—and there is light. “If we had a real idea of His active omnipotence, we would be creators like Him.”—Such are the ideas of Schiller’s theosophy as he stood at the beginning of his twenties. And from this foundation, he rises to comprehend human spiritual life itself, which he places within the context of cosmic forces: “Love, then—the most beautiful phenomenon in animated creation, the almighty magnet in the spiritual world, the source of devotion and the most sublime virtue—love is merely the reflection of this single primal force, an attraction to the excellent, founded on an instantaneous exchange of personality, a merging of beings. — When I hate, I take something from myself; when I love, I am enriched by that which I love. Forgiveness is the rediscovery of a lost possession—hatred of humanity is a prolonged suicide; egoism is the greatest poverty of a created being.” From there, Schiller then seeks a concept of God that corresponds to his feelings, which he presents in the following sentences: “All perfections in the universe are united in God. God and nature are two entities that are perfectly equal … there is one truth that, like a fixed axis, runs through all religions and systems: Draw near to the God whom you believe in.”

[ 6 ] If one compares these remarks by the young Schiller with the teachings of the German mystics, one will find that what appears in Schiller’s work as the exuberant outpouring of a more general emotional world is present in the teachings of the mystics as sharply defined contours of thought. Paracelsus, Jakob Böhme, and Angelus Silesius have before them, as a definite vision of their intuitive mind, what Schiller envisions in an indefinite premonition of feeling.

[ 7 ] What comes to light so characteristically in Schiller’s work is also present in the work of his other contemporaries. Intellectual history need only portray it in his case because, in his epoch-making works, it became a driving force of the nation. One might say that in Schiller’s era, the spiritual reality of German mysticism—as a vision, as a direct experience of spiritual life—was hidden as if behind a veil; yet it lived on in the world of feelings, in the emotions. People had retained their devotion and enthusiasm for that which they no longer perceived directly through the “sense organs of the spirit.” We are dealing with an era of veiling of spiritual insight, but also with one of feeling, of an emotional intuition of this world.

[ 8 ] This entire process is underpinned by a certain lawful necessity. For what had entered into obscurity as a spiritual vision came to the fore as artistic life during this period of German intellectual life. - In occultism, one speaks of successive cycles of involution and evolution. Here we are dealing with such a cycle on a small scale. German art in the era of Schiller and Goethe is nothing more than the evolution of German mysticism in the realm of external, sensory form. But in the works of the German poets, the deeper observer recognizes the involuted intuitions of Germany’s great mystical age. - The mystical life of the past now takes on an entirely aesthetic, artistic character.

[ 9 ] This is clearly expressed in the work in which Schiller reached the full height of his worldview: his [letters “On the Aesthetic Education of Man”]. The dogmatist of occultism may find nothing in these “Letters” but the spiritual speculations of a refined artistic mind. In reality, however, they are dominated by the endeavor to provide guidance toward a state of consciousness different from the ordinary one. One stage on the path to the “higher self” is to be described. Admittedly, the state of consciousness that Schiller depicts is far removed from astral or devachanic experience; yet it does represent something higher than everyday life. And if one approaches it with an open mind, one can certainly recognize in what Schiller calls the “aesthetic state” a preliminary stage leading to those higher modes of perception. Schiller seeks to lead people beyond the standpoint of the “lower self.” This lower self is characterized by two qualities. First, it is necessarily dependent on the influences of the sensory world. Second, it is subject to the demands of logical and moral necessity. It is thus unfree in two respects. The sensory world reigns over its drives, instincts, sensations, passions, and so on. Rational necessity reigns over its thinking and morality. However, in Schiller’s sense, the only truly free person is one who has so ennobled his sensations, drives, desires, wishes, and so on that only the spiritual finds expression in them, and who, on the other hand, has so completely internalized rational necessity that it is the outflow of his own being. A life led in this manner can also be described as one in which a harmonious balance between the “lower and higher self” has been established. The individual has so refined his nature of desire that it is the embodiment of his “higher self.” Schiller sets forth this lofty ideal in these “Letters”; and he believes that artistic creation and pure aesthetic devotion to a work of art bring one closer to this ideal. Thus, for him, life in art becomes a genuine means of education for human beings in the development of their “higher self.”—For him, the true work of art is a perfect harmony of spirit and sensuality, of higher life and external form. The sensual is merely a means of expression; but the spiritual only becomes a work of art when it has found its full expression in the sensual. Thus, the creative artist lives in the spirit; but he lives within it in a wholly sensual manner; everything spiritual becomes sensually perceptible through him. And the one who immerses himself aesthetically perceives through his external senses; yet what he perceives is sensuality completely imbued with spirit. We are thus dealing with a harmony between spirit and sensuality; the sensual appears ennobled by the spirit; the spiritual has been revealed to the point of sensual vividness. Schiller would like to make this “aesthetic state” a model for social coexistence as well. To him, a social relationship in which people base their mutual relations solely on the desires of the lower self—on egoism—appears unfree. No less unfree, however, does a state appear to him in which mere rational legislation is called upon to curb the lower instincts and passions. He presents as an ideal a social constitution within which the individual feels the “higher self” of the whole so strongly as his own being that he acts “selflessly” out of his innermost impulse. The “individual self” should progress to the point where it becomes entirely the expression of the “collective self.” Schiller regards social action driven by such impulses as the action of “beautiful souls”; and such “beautiful souls,” who bring the spirit of the “higher self” to manifestation in their everyday lives, are for Schiller also the truly “free souls.” He wishes to lead humanity to “truth” through beauty and art. One of his key maxims is: “Only through the dawn of beauty does humanity enter the realm of knowledge.”

[ 10 ] Thus, based on Schiller’s view of the world, art is assigned a lofty educational mission in the course of human evolution. One might say: What Schiller presents here is the mysticism of the earlier period of German intellectual life, transformed into an aesthetic and artistic form.

[ 11 ] It might now seem as though it is not easy to draw a connection between Schiller’s aestheticism and another figure of the same era—one who, however, must be understood no less in terms of an occult undercurrent—namely, Johann Gottlieb Fichte. At first glance, one might regard him entirely as a mere speculative mind, an intellectual thinker. Now, it is true that his domain is that of thought, and that anyone seeking spiritual heights beyond the realm of thought will not find them in Fichte. Anyone seeking a description of “higher worlds” will search in vain in his work. Fichte has no experience of an astral or mental world. In terms of the content of his philosophy, he deals only with ideas that pertain to the physical world. - The situation is quite different, however, when one considers his approach to the world of thought. This approach is by no means merely speculative. Rather, it is one that corresponds entirely to occult experience. Fichte considers only those thoughts that relate to the physical world; but he considers them in the same way an occultist would. This is why he himself is fully aware that he leads a life in higher worlds. One need only see how he expresses this himself in the lectures he gave in Berlin in 1813: “Imagine a world of people born blind, who therefore know only those things and their relationships that exist through the sense of touch. Go among them and speak to them of colors and the other qualities that exist only through light for sight. Either you are speaking to them of nothing—and that is the better outcome, if they say so—for in this way you will soon realize your mistake and, if you are unable to open their eyes, cease your futile talk. Or, if for some reason they still wish to make sense of your teaching: They can understand it only in terms of what is known to them through touch. They will want to feel the light and the colors and the other conditions of visibility; they will imagine they are feeling them, fabricating and inventing something within their sense of touch that they call color. Then they will misunderstand, distort, and misinterpret.” On another occasion, Fichte states outright that, for him, his view of the world is not merely a speculation about what the ordinary senses provide, but that a higher sense, extending beyond these, is necessary for it: “The new sense is therefore the sense for the Spirit; for which there is only Spirit and absolutely nothing else, and in which even the other—given being—takes on the form of Spirit and is transformed into it, for which, therefore, being in its own form has in fact disappeared … It is with this sense that things have been perceived ever since humans have existed, and all that is great and excellent in the world—and which alone constitutes humanity—stems from the perceptions of this sense. But it was not the case that this sense should have perceived itself and recognized its differences and contrasts with the other, ordinary sense. The impressions of the two senses merged; life disintegrated into these two halves without a unifying bond.” These final words are eminently characteristic of Fichte’s worldview in *The Life of the Spirit*. For the merely external (exoteric) philosophical endeavor of the West, it is indeed true that the sense of which Fichte speaks “has not seen itself.” In all mystical currents of spiritual life based on occult experience and esoteric contemplation, it is certainly clearly articulated; yet, as has already been explained above, their deeper foundation was unknown to the dominant literary and scholarly discourse of Fichte’s time. In fact, within the means of expression of German philosophy at that time, Fichte was the pioneer and discoverer of this higher sense. Consequently, he took a starting point for his reflections that was entirely different from that of other philosophers. As a teacher, he demanded of his listeners, and as a writer, of his readers, that they, above all, perform an inner act of the soul. He did not seek to impart to them knowledge of anything existing outside themselves, but rather demanded that they carry out an inner act. And through this inner act, they were to kindle within themselves the true light of self-consciousness. Like most philosophers of his time, he took Kant’s philosophy as his starting point. Consequently, he expressed himself using Kantian terminology, just as Schiller did in his later years. Yet, in terms of the height of inner, spiritual life, he, like Schiller, far surpassed Kant’s philosophy. If one attempts to translate what Fichte demanded of his listeners and readers from his difficult philosophical language into a more accessible form, it might take the following shape. Every thing and every fact perceived by a person imposes its existence upon that person. It is there without any intervention on the part of the person, insofar as the person’s deepest inner self is concerned. The table, the flower, the dog, a play of light, and so on exist through something foreign to man; and it falls to him only to ascertain the existence that has come into being without him. For Fichte, the situation is different with regard to man’s “I.” It is present only insofar as it bestows being upon itself through its own activity. Therefore, the statement “I am” means something entirely different from any other statement. Fichte demanded that one bring this self-creative aspect to consciousness as the starting point for any intellectual contemplation of the world. In every other form of knowledge, a person can merely be a recipient; with regard to the “I,” he must be a creator. And he can perceive his “I” only by viewing himself as the creator of this “I.” Thus, Fichte demands a completely different mode of contemplation for the “I” than for all other things. And he is as strict as possible in this demand. For he once says: “Most people would be more easily persuaded to regard themselves as a piece of lava on the moon than as an ‘I’... Anyone who is not yet at peace with himself on this point does not understand thorough philosophy, and he has no need of it. Nature, of which he is a machine, will guide him in all the tasks he has to perform without any effort on his part. Philosophizing requires independence: and this one can only grant to oneself. We should not seek to see without an eye; [nor should we] claim that the eye sees.”

[ 12 ] This clearly marks the boundary where ordinary experience ends and the occult begins. Ordinary perception and experience extend exactly as far as the human being’s sensory organs are objectively endowed. The occult begins where human beings start to develop higher organs of perception through the dormant powers within them. Within ordinary experience, human beings can only perceive themselves as creatures. When they begin to perceive themselves as creators of their own being, they enter the realm of what is called occult life. The way Fichte characterizes the “I am” is entirely in keeping with the spirit of occultism. Even though he remains within the realm of pure thought, his contemplation is not mere speculation but a true inner experience. But it is precisely for this reason that his view of the world is so easily mistaken for mere speculation. [Those] whose curiosity drives them into the higher worlds will not find what they are looking for by delving into Fichte’s philosophy. But for those who wish to work on themselves in order to discover the abilities slumbering within the soul, Fichte can be a particularly good guide. They will come to realize that what matters with him is not the content of his teachings or his dogmas, but rather the power that grows within the soul when one devotedly follows Fichte’s train of thought. One might compare this thinker to the prophet who did not himself set foot in the Promised Land, but who led his people to a summit from which they could behold its glories. Fichte leads thought to the summit from which entry into the realm of the occult can be accomplished. And the preparation one gains through him is the purest conceivable. For it rises completely above the realm of sensory perception and beyond the sphere of what stems from the human nature of desire and craving (from the astral body). Through Fichte, one learns to live and move within the entirely pure element of thought. One retains nothing of the physical world in the soul except what has been implanted in this physical world from higher regions, namely, thoughts. And these form a better bridge to spiritual experiences than the development of other psychic abilities. For thought is the same everywhere, whether it occurs in the physical, astral, or mental world. Only its content differs in each of these worlds. And the supersensory worlds remain hidden from human beings only as long as they cannot completely remove sensory content from their thoughts. Once thought becomes free of sensuality, there is only one step left to take, and the supersensory world can be entered.

[ 13 ] The perception of one’s own self, in Fichte’s sense, is so significant because, with regard to this “self,” a person is left entirely without any content of thought unless he provides it for himself from within. As for the rest of the world’s content—all perception, sensation, volition, and so on, which constitute the content of ordinary existence—the external world fills the human being. According to Fichte, the human being need be nothing more than the “machine of nature,” which “conducts its affairs without his intervention.” The “I,” however, remains empty; no external world fills it with content unless that content comes from within. The realization “I am” can therefore never be anything other than a person’s most intimate inner experience. Thus, in this sentence, something within the soul speaks—something that can speak only from within. But just as this seemingly entirely empty affirmation of one’s own self occurs, so do all higher occult experiences. They become richer in content and more vibrant with life; yet they share the same form. Through the experience of the “I,” as Fichte describes it, one can first become acquainted with the archetype of all occult experiences in the purely intellectual realm. It is therefore correct to say that with the “I am,” God begins to speak within the human being. And it is only because this occurs in a purely intellectual form that so many people refuse to acknowledge it.

[ 14 ] Yet even for the sharper minds who followed paths such as Fichte’s, a limit to knowledge had to be reached. Pure thought is, in fact, merely an activity of the personality, not of the individuality, which passes through the various personalities in ever-recurring reincarnations. Even the laws of the highest logic never change, even as human individuality ascends through the stages of reincarnation to the level of the highest sage. Spiritual insight deepens, and the capacity for perception expands, when an individuality that had reached a high level in one incarnation is reincarnated; yet the logic of thought remains the same even at a higher level of consciousness. Therefore, that which transcends the individual incarnation can never be grasped by even the most subtle thought-experience, even if it rises to the highest levels. Herein lies the reason why Fichte’s mode of thinking—and that of his contemporaries who followed in his footsteps—could not bring itself to recognize the laws of reincarnation and karma. Although various hints can be found among the thinkers of this epoch, they stem more from a general feeling and do not stand in a necessary, organic connection with their systems of thought. Rather, one may say outright that the mission of these figures in the history of ideas consisted in depicting pure experiences of thought—insofar as these can take place within a single incarnation—while excluding everything about the human being that extends beyond this one embodiment.

[ 15 ] The evolution of the human spirit proceeds in such a way that, in certain epochs, parts of the esoteric primordial wisdom are always transmitted into the collective consciousness. And at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, it fell to the German collective consciousness to shape the spiritual life of pure thought in its relationship to individual personal existence. If one considers what has already been stated here in connection with Schiller’s personality—namely, that art was to be placed at the center of spiritual life at that time—one will find the emphasis on the personal perspective all the more understandable. Art is, after all, the expression of the spirit in sensory-physical forms. The perception of these forms, however, is conditioned by the organization of the individual personality living within a single incarnation. That which extends beyond the personality into the realm of the supersensible can no longer be directly expressed in art. True, art casts its reflection into the supersensible realm; yet this reflection is carried over from one reincarnation to the next only as the fruit of artistic creation and experience, through the enduring essence of the soul. That which enters existence directly as art and as aesthetic experience is bound to the personality.

[ 16 ] For this reason, in a figure of the era in question, a theosophical worldview in the most eminent sense also takes on a thoroughly personal character. This is the case with Friedrich von Hardenberg, who is known as the poet Novalis. He was born in 1772 and died as early as 1801. In some of his poems and in a series of poetic-philosophical fragments, we find what lived within this soul, which was entirely imbued with a theosophical spirit. This spirit flows toward the reader from every page of his works; yet everything is such that the highest spirituality is paired with an immediate sensual passion, with entirely personal impulses and instincts. A truly Pythagorean way of thinking lives in this youthful nature, which was further nourished by the fact that Novalis worked his way toward becoming a mining engineer through a thorough education in mathematics and the natural sciences. The way in which the human mind develops the laws of pure mathematics from within itself, without the aid of any sensory perception, became for him the model for all supersensory knowledge whatsoever. Just as the structure of the world is harmoniously formed according to the mathematical laws that the soul finds within itself, so he conceived this to be true of all the ideas underlying the world. For this reason, man’s relationship to mathematics took on for him an almost devotional, religious character. Sayings such as the following reveal the distinctly Pythagorean essence of his disposition: “True mathematics is the very element of the magician … The highest life is mathematics … The true mathematician is an enthusiast per se. Without enthusiasm, there is no mathematics. The life of the gods is mathematics. All divine messengers must be mathematicians. Pure mathematics is religion. One attains mathematics only through a theophany. Mathematicians are the only happy ones. The mathematician knows everything. He could know it, even if he did not. … True mathematics is at home in the Orient. In Europe, it has degenerated into mere technique. Anyone who does not pick up a mathematical book with reverence and read it as if it were the word of God will not understand it. ... Miracles, as unnatural phenomena, are non-mathematical, but there are no miracles in this sense, and what is called a miracle is precisely comprehensible through mathematics, for nothing in mathematics is miraculous.”

[ 17 ] With such statements, Novalis envisions not merely an apotheosis of the science of numbers and spatial dimensions, but the view that all inner spiritual experiences should relate to the cosmos in the same way that pure, senseless mathematical mental constructs relate to the external, numerically and spatially ordered harmony of the world. This is beautifully expressed when he says: “Humanity is the higher meaning of our planet, the nerve that links this member to the higher world, the eye that it raises toward heaven.” The identity of the human self with the fundamental essence of the objective world is the leitmotif in all of Novalis’s work. Among his “Fragments” is the following saying: “One must seek God among human beings. It is in human events, in human thoughts and feelings, that the spirit of heaven is most clearly revealed.” And he expresses the unity of the “higher self” within all of humanity in the following way: “In the ‘I,’ in the point of freedom, we are all in fact completely identical—it is only from there that each individual branches off. The ‘I’ is the absolute totality, the central point.” — In Noyalis, the position that the consciousness of the time assigned to art and artistic sensibility becomes particularly evident. For him, art is something through which human beings transcend their narrowly defined “lower self” and through which they enter into a relationship with the creative forces of the world. In the creative artistic imagination, he sees a reflection of magical forces at work. Thus he can say: “The artist stands upon man, just as the statue stands upon the pedestal.” “Nature will be moral if, out of genuine love for art, it devotes itself to art and does what art wills; art, if, out of genuine love for nature, it lives for nature and works according to nature. Both must do so simultaneously—by their own choice, for their own sake, and by another’s choice, for the sake of the other… When our intellect and our world are in harmony, we are like God.” - Novalis’s lyric poetry, particularly his “Hymns to the Night,” as well as his unfinished novel “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” and the short work “The Apprentices of Sais,” which is deeply rooted in a mystical mode of thought and feeling, are imbued with such sentiments.

[ 18 ] These few figures cited here demonstrate how German poetry and thought during that period were underpinned by a theosophical-mystical undercurrent. Numerous other examples could be added to these. Therefore, it is not even possible here to attempt to provide a comprehensive account; rather, the aim is simply to characterize the fundamental tone of this spiritual epoch in a few lines. It will not be difficult to see, however, that individual personalities with a mystical and theosophical disposition and a spiritually intuitive mind discovered the fundamental theosophical ideas themselves, in their own way, through the very fabric of their lives. Thus, theosophy shines out beautifully to us from the works of many figures of this era. Many could be cited for whom this is the case. One might mention Lorenz Oken, who founded a philosophy of nature that, on the one hand, points back to Paracelsus and Jakob Böhme through its mystical spirit; on the other hand, through ingenious conceptions regarding evolution and the interconnectedness of living beings, serves as a precursor to the valid aspects of Darwinism. One could cite Steffens, who sought reflections of a cosmic spiritual life in the processes of the Earth’s development; one could point to Eckartshausen (1752–1803), who sought to explain the abnormal phenomena of natural and spiritual life in a theosophical-mystical manner; as well as Ennemoser (1787–1854) with his *History of Magic*, Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert with his works on dream phenomena and the hidden realities of nature; and the insightful writings of Justinus Kerner and Karl Gustav Carus are rooted in the same spiritual tradition. Schelling moved increasingly from pure Fichteanism toward theosophy, and then, in his *Philosophy of Mythology* and *Philosophy of Revelation*—which were published only after his death—he traced the developmental history of the human spirit and the connection between religions back to their point of origin in the mysteries. Hegel’s philosophy, too, would one day need to be viewed in a theosophical light, and one would then see how erroneous it is, from the perspective of the history of philosophy, to regard this deeply inner spiritual experience of the soul as mere speculation. All of this would require a comprehensive work if one were to treat it exhaustively. Here, however, we shall merely draw attention to a little-known figure who, at the focal point of his spirit, united the rays of theosophical worldview and created a body of ideas that in many respects fully corresponds to the ideas of theosophy, which have now been revived. This is I. P. V. Troxler, who lived from 1780 to 1866; of his works, *Insights into the Nature of Man*, published in 1812, is particularly relevant. Troxler objects to the customary division of human nature into soul and body, which he finds misleading because it does not fully account for human nature. He first distinguishes four components of the human being: spirit, higher soul, body (which for him is the lower soul), and physical body. One need only view this classification in the proper light to recognize how closely it resembles the one commonly found in Theosophical books today. The body, as he understands it, corresponds perfectly to what is now called the physical body. The lower soul—or what he calls the “body” in contrast to the “corporeal body”—is nothing other than the so-called astral body. This is not merely a construct of his own thought world; rather, he himself states that what is subjectively the lower soul should be objectively characterized by referring to the term “astral body” used by ancient scholars. “There is therefore,” he explains, “necessarily something in human beings that the sages of antiquity [had] [foreseen] and proclaimed as a σῶμα αστροιδες (Soma astroeides) [and ομραγιον σῶμα (Uranion soma)], or as a σχημα πνευματιχον ([Schema] pneumatikon) [intuitively perceived] and proclaimed—and which, as the substrate of the middle sphere of life, is the link between immortal and mortal life.” Among the poets and philosophers who were Troxler’s contemporaries, theosophy lives on as an undercurrent; he himself, however, becomes aware of this theosophy to a high degree in the spiritual world surrounding him and shapes it in an original way. Thus, he arrives on his own at much of what is found in the ancient teachings of wisdom. It is all the more fascinating to delve into his train of thought, since he does not build directly upon ancient traditions, but rather creates something like an original theosophy out of the thinking and spirit of his time.