The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. The Sources of Artistic Imagination and the Sources of Supernatural Knowledge II

[ 1 ] Since time immemorial, it has been felt that there is a certain kinship—or at least a connection—between the impulses of artistic imagination, artistic creation, and artistic appreciation, and supersensory knowledge. Anyone who encounters artistic individualities will find that there is a widespread anxiety among creative artists that artistic creation might be disrupted by drawing near to that conscious experience of the supersensible world from which the artistic imagination derives its impulses—as is sought in Spiritual Science supersensible knowledge. On the other hand, it is also widely known that certain artistic natures, who through their artistic production approach what appears to shine forth from the supersensible world, experience something akin to clairvoyance within the activity of their creative imagination. Fairy-tale writers or other artistic individuals who wish to deal more with what shines into the sensory world from the supersensible world know how the figures appear before their eyes, yet are entirely spiritual, so that they have the feeling that they are interacting with these artistic figures, or that these figures are interacting with one another. To the extent that full consciousness is present—allowing one to pull oneself away at any time from what is overwhelming one through clairvoyance—Spiritual Science can also speak of clairvoyance in such a case. It must be said that there are points of contact between artistic creation, artistic imagination, and the contemplative consciousness that is able to place itself within the spiritual world in a self-aware manner. Nevertheless, one feels compelled—precisely in the face of such a view of Spiritual Science as the one referred to here—to emphasize that the artist should not allow his originality to be robbed by what is consciously taken in from the spiritual world. Such a view overlooks the essential aspect of the relationship between artistic imagination and the visionary perception of the spiritual world. For what is meant here by this visionary perception is that which develops entirely independently through mere soul activity, independent of the physical, bodily instrument. To what extent it is possible for the soul to transport itself into the spiritual world without the body, I cannot elaborate on today. I would just like to preface this by saying that the affinities and connections that arise between genuine artistic creation and appreciation and true, authentic clairvoyance are of greater interest to anthroposophical spiritual researchers today than the relationship between clairvoyance and visionary states—abnormal states which, even if one attempts to describe them as clairvoyance, are connected only to physical states and do not represent purely soul experiences. However, in order to understand this genuine kinship between artistic imagination and clairvoyance, it is necessary to address what, in the strictest sense of the word, separates the two—and this is a very significant point.

[ 2 ] Those who create through artistic imagination do not, as is the case in ordinary sensory perception and reflection on what is perceived, simply grasp the external sensory world and reproduce it within themselves: they transform it, idealize it, or whatever else one might call it. The specific direction does not matter. Whether one adopts a realistic or idealistic approach, whether one is an Impressionist or an Expressionist—that is irrelevant—but in all artistic creation there is a transformation of what is otherwise reproduced by human beings from reality. Yet what remains alive in artistic creation is what can be called the perception of the external world. The artist adheres to the perception of the external world. What remains in this artistic creation is the image of the mental images that are based on external perception, and what is connected to them in the power of recollection, in memory. Everything the artist has absorbed in life continues to resonate in his subconscious, and the more deeply what has settled in the soul as experience continues to resonate there—the richer it is—the richer the artistic output becomes as the personality is directed toward the external sensory impressions, the powers of imagination and memory that live within the artistic imagination. This is not the case with what lives in clairvoyance within the personality that penetrates the spiritual world through supersensible perception. The essential point is that one can only penetrate the spiritual world if one can silence both external sensory perception and the mental image, which flows into the power of memory. Remembering, memory, and the capacity for perception of external sensory impressions must be completely silenced in supersensible knowledge. It is, after all, difficult enough to make it clear to our contemporaries that such a thing is possible—that the human soul, through its dormant powers, can truly achieve such a state of strength that spiritual life remains fully alive even when the powers of mental images and perception are suppressed. Therefore, even when the pursuit of supersensible knowledge is developed methodically, it should not be objected that arbitrary clairvoyance deals only with something akin to memory that surges up from the subconscious. The essential point is that the spiritual researcher who wishes to penetrate the supersensible world must learn the method that makes it possible to shut out the memory function so completely that his soul lives solely in present impressions, into which nothing from the subconscious intrudes, so that the soul, with the mental images it creates and experiences, stands in a world it consciously strives to penetrate, so that nothing remains unconscious.

[ 3 ] When one considers that some mystical, so-called theosophical pursuits involve a longing for all manner of vague and nebulous concepts, it is understandable that what is meant here by “clairvoyance” is confused with such pursuits—even by those who believe themselves to be followers. But that is not the point; what matters is what is meant by this “seership.”

[ 4 ] Here one can see how fundamentally different this form of clairvoyance is from artistic creation. Both are based on different states of mind and moods; but those who strive for supersensory knowledge in the sense intended here will have unique experiences with art.

[ 5 ] First, a fundamental insight: One cannot be a spiritual researcher from morning to night. Gazing into the spiritual world is bound to certain times; one knows the beginning and end of the state in which the soul enters the spiritual world. In this state, the soul is capable, through its own power, of completely disregarding the impressions of the external senses, so that nothing remains of all that the external senses perceive—such as colors and sounds. It is precisely through this gazing into nothingness that perception of the spiritual world arises. I would like to say: The seer can erase everything that penetrates him from the external world, everything that surges up from ordinary memory into the soul’s consciousness; but even when he enters this state, he cannot erase certain impressions that come to him from works of art that truly stem from the creative imagination. I do not mean to say that the “seer” has the same impressions of works of art in such states as the non-seer does. He has those impressions in moments when he is not in a seer-like state. But in moments when he is in a seer-like state, he has the ability to completely erase the sensory and the memory-based aspects of the external world, though not with regard to a work of art he is confronting.

[ 6 ] These are experiences that take on specific forms. It becomes apparent that the seer has certain experiences with the individual arts. It is precisely in the details of their effect that words such as “art” lose their usual meaning. From the standpoint of supersensible knowledge, the individual arts become realms in their own right. Architecture becomes something different from music, painting, and so on. However, in order to grasp what clairvoyant experience is in relation to art, it is necessary to point out that the obvious question arises: If the clairvoyant must suppress the effects of the external world and that which belongs to the power of memory, what remains for him?

[ 7 ] What is always present in the human soul—among the three soul activities described in the study of the soul—lives within the soul. Mental images and perception are not present, but feeling and willing are, albeit in a completely different way than in ordinary life. One must not confuse supersensible knowledge with that nebulous, emotional merging into the spiritual world that must be called mysticism. One must be clear that supersensible knowledge, even though it springs from feeling and willing, is something other than feeling and willing. In addition, one must take into account that, for visionary knowledge, feeling and willing must fill the soul to such an extent that the soul is at rest, and that the entire rest of the human being is also in a state of complete stillness. A state must arise in which the human being is not otherwise present when feeling and willing: feeling and willing must develop entirely inwardly. Impulses of the will usually manifest outwardly; no outward manifestations may occur in the practice of clairvoyance. Dervishism and similar practices are opposed to the knowledge of the spiritual world.

[ 8 ] As feeling and volition develop inwardly, a luminous, sharply defined activity of the soul springs forth from them. An activity of the soul springs forth that is similar to the formation of thoughts. The ordinary mental image is something faded. Something concrete—yet no less imbued with reality than ordinary thinking—springs forth from feeling and willing for the seer.

[ 9 ] It is precisely through experiences with art that one can characterize what the seer experiences in detail through his spiritual faculties. By attempting to immerse himself in architectural forms and proportions—in what the architect enshrines in his buildings—he feels a kinship with these architectural proportions and harmonies, with precisely what develops within him, the seer, as a mode of thinking entirely different from the shadowy thinking of ordinary life. One might say: The clairvoyant develops a new form of thinking that is most closely related to the forms in which the architect thinks and which he shapes. The thinking that prevails in ordinary life has nothing to do with true clairvoyance. The thinking that prevails in clairvoyance encompasses space within its creative experience. The seer knows that with these forms—which are living thought-forms—he penetrates the supersensible reality behind the sensory world, but that he must develop this thinking that expresses itself in spatial forms. The seer senses that will and emotional feelings are at work in everything that expresses itself in harmonies of proportion and form. He learns to recognize the forces of the world in such formations permeated by relationships of measure and number as they live in his thinking. Therefore, in his thinking, he feels a kinship with what the architect shapes. In a certain sense, as a new emotional life awakens within him—not that of ordinary consciousness—he feels a kinship with what architects and sculptors create in form. For supersensible knowledge, a concrete intellectuality is born that thinks in spatial forms which curve and take shape through their own life. These are thought-forms through which the soul of the seer immerses itself in spiritual reality; one feels a kinship with what lives in the forms of the sculptor. One can characterize the seer’s thinking and new sensibility by considering his experiences with architecture and sculpture.

[ 10 ] The Seer’s experiences with music and poetry are quite different. The Seer can only develop a relationship with music once he penetrates even further than into the sphere I have just described. It is true that this new spiritual intellectuality initially develops out of inward-turned feeling and will. One is able to penetrate the spiritual world through the experience that one penetrates it solely through the soul; the soul makes no use of a physical body in this process. Then comes the next stage: One would only penetrate the spiritual world incompletely if one did not advance to the next stage. It consists in not only developing this spiritual intellectuality but also becoming as conscious of one’s existence outside the body in spiritual reality as one is here of standing in the physical world, of standing with one’s feet on the ground, of grasping objects, and so on. By beginning to perceive oneself in the spiritual world in this way—and to think and feel as I just described—one comes to develop a new, profound feeling and will, but a will in the spiritual world that finds no expression in the sensory world. It is only by experiencing oneself in this will that one can have certain experiences with music and poetry.

[ 11 ] It becomes apparent that what one experiences in supersensible knowledge through music is particularly closely related to this new form of emotional feeling, which is experienced outside the body. Music is experienced differently in a visionary state than in ordinary consciousness: it is experienced in such a way that one feels united with every single note, every melody, living with the soul in the surging, resounding life. The soul is completely connected with the sounds; the soul is as if it has flowed into the surging sounds. I may well say that one can hardly gain such a precise, vivid image of Aphrodite rising from the sea foam through anything else as when one grasps with one’s inner eye the way in which the human soul lives within the element of music and rises from it, as it is perceived in the state of clairvoyance.

[ 12 ] And just as if this Aphrodite, rising above the surface of the sea, were fluttered around by creatures of the air that approach her as manifestations of life in space, so the poetic joins the musical for the beholder. As the seer feels his soul being drawn out of the musical realm, yet at the same time feels himself returning to it, feeling one with the musical realm, the poetic realm presents itself to the seer alongside the musical. He experiences this in an intense form. What he experiences depends on the degree to which his capacity for seeing has been developed. Poetry is a unique art form. Through language or other means of poetry, the poet expresses what emerges from the poetic work for the seer’s faculty. A dramatic character, for example, whom the poet brings to life and has speak only a few words, takes shape from these few words into a complete mental image of a human personality. This is why everything in poetry that is unreal, that is merely formulaic, that does not spring from creative power but is contrived, appears so unpleasant to the seer: he sees in that which is not poetry but nevertheless attempts to create something in a formulaic way a grotesque, distorted image. While the plastic transforms into spiritual intellectuality for him, the poetic transforms into the plastic and the concrete, which he must behold. He looks upon what is true, what is formed from the true creative laws from which nature creates, and sharply distinguishes this from what is created merely from human imagination—because one wishes to write poetry, even when one is not connected in one’s imagination to the creative forces of the universe. Such are the experiences with regard to poetry and music.

[ 13 ] Painting is experienced in a unique way by supersensible knowledge. It exists solely for the sake of supersensible knowledge. And because the seer—I will use a trivial comparison—is compelled, just as the geometer is compelled to use lines and a compass to visualize and transfer onto a surface what he might have in a mental image, to make the mental image tangible, the seer is also compelled to transform his experience of the spiritual world, —that which he experiences as formless—into a formed, dense world. This happens as he experiences what he perceives in this way in such a way that he transforms it into inner vision, into imagination, and fills it, if I may say so, with the substance of the soul. He does this by creating, as it were, in his inner, creative, visionary state, the counterpart to painting. The painter shapes his imagination by aligning his inner formative powers with the sensory perception he experiences, as he needs it. He proceeds from the outside inward to the point where he transforms what is alive in space in such a way that it takes effect in lines, forms, and colors. He brings this to the two-dimensional realm of painterly perception. The seer approaches from the opposite direction. He condenses what is present in his visionary activity into a spiritual coloring; he imbues what is otherwise colorless with colors, as if illustrating it from within, and forms imaginations. One need only correctly create a mental image of what the painter brings from one side coming from the opposite side in what the seer creates from the inside out.

[ 14 ] To create a mental image of this, one should read the basic concepts in the final chapters of Goethe’s *Theory of Colors* regarding the sensory and moral effects of colors, where he states that every color triggers a state of mind. The seer receives this state of mind last; with it, he imbues what would otherwise be colorless and formless. When the seer speaks of auras and the like and mentions colors in connection with what he sees, one must understand that he is imbuing with color what he experiences inwardly through these states of mind. When the seer says that what he sees is red, he experiences what one would otherwise experience with the color red; the experience is the same as when seeing red, only on a spiritual level.

[ 15 ] What the seer beholds and what the artist conjures up on the canvas are one and the same, but viewed from different perspectives. In this way, the seer encounters the painter. This encounter is a remarkable and significant experience. It reveals painting as a distinctive aspect of supersensory knowledge. This is particularly evident in a phenomenon that must pose a special problem for every soul: the incarnate, the color of human flesh, which—for those who wish to penetrate such things inwardly—possesses something both mysterious and alluring, offering a glimpse into profound natural and spiritual relationships. The seer experiences this incarnate in a special way. I would like to draw attention to one aspect of this.

[ 16 ] When people talk about the seer or clairvoyance, they think it refers to something possessed only by a few eccentric individuals, something completely detached from life. That is not the case. What constitutes serious seeing is always present in life. We could not function in life if we were not all clairvoyant in certain respects. It is crucial to understand that the clairvoyant who is to be taken seriously does not refer to something that stands apart from life, but rather to something that is simply an elevation of life in certain respects. When are we clairvoyant in ordinary life? We are clairvoyant in a situation that is so misunderstood today because, from a materialistic perspective, all sorts of fanciful notions have arisen about how one perceives another person’s “I” when facing another person’s physical form. There are already people today who say: One perceives the soul of another person’s “I” only through a subconscious inference. We see the oval of the face, the other human features, the complexion, the shape of the eyes; we have become accustomed to finding ourselves face to face with a human being when we see such physical characteristics, and so we draw the analogical conclusion that whatever takes such a form also contains a human being. — This is not the case; supersensible knowledge shows this. What appears to us in a human being in the form of human shape and coloration is a kind of perception, like the perception of color and form in a crystal. Color, form, and surface in a crystal assert themselves as what they are. Surface and coloration in a human being cancel themselves out; they become, ideally speaking, transparent. The sensory perception of the other human being is spiritually nullified: we perceive the other soul directly. It is an immediate immersion into the other soul, a mysterious, wondrous process within the soul, when we stand face to face with another human being in our own human being. There occurs a genuine stepping out of the soul, a crossing over to the other. This is a form of clairvoyance that is present in life always and everywhere. This kind of clairvoyance is intimately connected with the mystery of the incarnate being. The seer becomes aware of this when he rises to the most difficult problem of clairvoyance: perceiving the incarnate being clairvoyantly. To the ordinary observer, the incarnate being has a certain stillness; to the seer, it becomes something in motion within itself. The seer does not perceive the incarnate being as something complete; he perceives it as an intermediate state between two others. If the seer concentrates on the human being’s coloring, he perceives a constant fluctuation between paleness and a kind of blushing—a blushing that is higher than ordinary blushing—which, for the seer, merges into a kind of radiant warmth. These are the two extreme states between which the human being’s coloring oscillates, and in the midst of which the incarnate being lies. This becomes a back-and-forth vibration for the seer. Through the paleness, the seer understands what the person is like inwardly, in their soul and intellect, and through the blushing, one recognizes what the person is like as a being of volitional impulse, how they relate to the external world. What vibrates is that which, to a higher degree, constitutes the person’s inner character.

[ 17 ] One must not form a mental image of clairvoyance as consisting of “developing” oneself and then seeing all people and all things spiritually. The path into the spiritual world is a multifaceted, complicated one. The main challenge for the incarnate being is to gain insight into the inner life of another person.

[ 18 ] As you can see, the seer has the most diverse range of experiences through the arts. What is meant here is further illuminated by a phenomenon that serves to highlight the nature of seership in life: the relationship between seership and human language.

[ 19 ] Language is not, in fact, a unified entity, but rather something that exists in three distinct spheres. First, there is a state of language that allows us to view it as a tool for human communication and for scientific inquiry. One might call what the seer perceives here a paradox, but it is a genuine experience: the seer perceives this kind of language use as a means of communication and expression for ordinary intellectual science, as a sort of dumbing down of language, even as a debasement of language to something that language, by its innermost nature, is not. The seer’s insight arrives at a different understanding. Language is the instrument through which a people lives in community. What lives in language—as it takes various forms, in its intonations and so on—is, when viewed correctly, an artistic phenomenon. Language as a means of expression for a people is art, and the creative work that takes place within language is the collective artistic creation of the people who speak that language.

[ 20 ] By using language as an everyday means of communication, one demeans it. Anyone who has a sensitivity for what lives in language and reveals itself in our subconscious knows that the creative use of language is akin to poetry and to art in general. Anyone with an artistic nature feels a sense of unease when language is unnecessarily reduced to the realm of ordinary communication. Christian Morgenstern had this feeling. He was not afraid to build a bridge between artistry and visionary insight; he did not believe that artistic originality is lost through entering the spiritual world; he felt that the poetic within him was akin to the sculptural and the architectural. He, who expresses what he feels toward language by characterizing chatter as an abuse of language, says: “All chatter is based on uncertainty about the meaning and value of the individual word. For the chatterer, language is something vague. But language gives it back to him in full: to the ‘vague one,’ the ‘floater.’ One must empathize with what—to feel as he did—Morgenstern perceived as the creative power of language: that where language becomes a means of communication in prose, its degradation to a mere means takes place.

[ 21 ] Thirdly, what is experienced in the spiritual world is characterized by the seer’s experience of language. What is beheld there is not beheld in words; it is not expressed directly in words. Thus, the seer faces difficulties in communicating with the outer world, for most people think theoretically and in terms of content through words and cannot create a mental image of a life of the soul that transcends words. Therefore, the one who experiences the spiritual world through feeling perceives it as a certain compulsion to pour what he experiences into language that has already taken shape. But by silencing what otherwise lives in language—the powers of mental image and memory—he can awaken within himself the very forces that created language, those creative forces that were at work in human evolution when language first arose. The seer must place himself in the state of mind in which language first arose; he must develop the dual activity of inwardly shaping the spiritual realities he has beheld and immersing himself in the spirit of linguistic formation to such an extent that he is able to unite the two. It is therefore important to recognize that the seer’s words must be understood differently from ordinary words. In communicating his insights, the seer must make use of language, but in such a way that he allows what is creatively active in language to emerge anew by attuning himself to the formative powers of language. Consequently, it is important that he shape the spoken word by emphasizing certain things strongly and others less so, by stating certain things first and others later, or by setting aside certain details for illustrative purposes. A special technique is necessary for anyone who wishes to cast spiritual truths into language when expressing what lives within them. Therefore, it is essential that attention be paid to the “how” the seer expresses himself, not merely to what he says. What matters is that he first shapes his words; what matters is how he says things—especially those concerning the spiritual world—not merely what he says. Because this is so rarely taken into account, and because people tend to focus on the usual meanings of words, the seer is so difficult to understand. He therefore needs—though this is all relative—to develop the ability to create language so that he can express the supersensible through the way he expresses himself. It will become increasingly necessary to realize this clearly: It is not the content that is important in what is said; what is important is that, through the way the seer expresses himself, one has the vivid impression that he is speaking from within the spiritual world. Thus, language itself is already an artistic element in everyday life. The seer also has a special relationship to language.

[ 22 ] This raises the question: What is the basis for such relationships between the seer and the artist? Why is it that, fundamentally, the seer cannot look beyond the impression made by a work of art? — It stems from the fact that something akin to supersensible knowledge appears in the work of art, albeit in a different guise. It stems from the fact that human inner life is far more complex than the mental image of modern science can conceive.

[ 23 ] I would like to approach this from a different angle—one where, admittedly, seemingly scientific language is used—and which points to something that must continue to develop in order to bridge the gap between, on the one hand, the ordinary perception of reality and, on the other, the experience of artistic imagination and supersensible knowledge. I want to ask: On what does it rest that the creative musician brings forth from within himself that which lives in his tones? — Here one must be clear that what is usually called self-knowledge is still abstract. Even the mental images that the mystics or the nebulous theosophists have of this matter are very abstract. If one believes one is experiencing the divine within one’s soul, this remains, in the face of true, concrete clairvoyance, something entirely unclear and nebulous. It becomes clear that, on the one hand, a person has their inner experience—their thoughts, feelings, and impulses of will; they can immerse themselves in this, calling it mysticism, philosophy, or science. When one learns to recognize the living, one knows: All of this is too thin, even if one tries to condense it inwardly. Even with intense mysticism, one always flits above reality, cannot approach true reality, experiences only inner reflections, experiences the effects of reality, and does not experience reality even through ordinary observation of nature, which stands in contrast to material processes.

[ 24 ] It is true, as Dz Bois-Reymond says, that the observation of nature can never come to grasp that which haunts space. — When the naturalist speaks of matter that exists in space—it does not yield to the means by which we ‘seek to grasp reality.’ For ordinary consciousness, the situation remains this: on the one hand, we have inner life, which does not approach reality; on the other hand, we have outer reality, which does not yield to inner life. Between them lies an abyss. This abyss, which one must recognize, is an obstacle to human knowledge. It can be overcome in no other way than by the development of supersensible vision within the soul—a vision such as I have described today in relation to the artistic.

[ 25 ] As this way of seeing develops, one enters into an external relationship with oneself and with material reality, which exists as the body. The body becomes something new; it is no longer that which is unyielding and refuses to submit to the inner self. The inner self is no longer something that flutters above reality, but rather it becomes imbued with—and permeates itself within its own physicality—that which has a material existence within the body. But all material existence contains spiritual existence.

[ 26 ] Let us try to visualize this by drawing on the art of music. While a person develops musical or other mental images and perceives them in ordinary consciousness, complex processes are taking place within their physical being. The person is unaware of these, yet they are taking place. Clairvoyant consciousness penetrates to this inner, complex, wondrous physical experience. The cerebrospinal fluid, in which the brain is normally embedded, flows into the spinal canal during exhalation, pushes downward, and forces the blood toward the abdominal veins; during inhalation, everything is pushed back up. A marvelous rhythm takes place, accompanying everything we create as mental images and perceive. This breathing, this rhythmic movement, surges in and out of the brain. A process is taking place that plays a part in human experience. It is something that takes place in the subconscious and of which the soul is aware. Modern physiology and biology are still almost completely ignorant of these matters; but this will become a widespread science,

[ 27 ] In times that can no longer be our own, people had to seek spiritual life in a different way. However, the time for seeking Spiritual Science in the Eastern-Indian manner has passed; this can be studied later, but the belief that one must revert to Indian methods is entirely mistaken. That is not for our time; it would mislead humanity. Our methods are much more intellectual, yet one may study to understand what ancient Indian thought sought to achieve. A large part of the training for higher knowledge in ancient Indian thought consisted of a rhythmically ordered breathing pattern: they sought to regulate the breathing process. If you compare what they sought there with what I have just said, you will find that the yoga student, through an inner sensing of the breath’s path, sought to experience within himself what I have described. The Indian experienced this by attempting to sense the breathing process as it ebbs and flows.

[ 28 ] Our methods are different. Anyone who follows this with understanding will find that we are no longer to attune ourselves to the organism in this physical way, but rather to try, through meditation, to grasp with our intellect what flows downward, and through exercises of the will, what flows upward; and in this way to try to oppose the current with our soul life and to feel it as it flows up and down.

[ 29 ] This is the basis for a certain progress in human development. It is something of which science and everyday consciousness are unaware, but the soul knows it in its depths. What the soul knows and experiences there can be brought up into consciousness under special circumstances. It is brought to the surface when a person has an artistic nature with regard to music. How does this happen? — In the ordinary human condition—which one might also call the “middle-class” condition—there is a strong connection between the soul-spiritual and the physical-bodily. The soul-spiritual is strongly bound to the processes just described. When the balance is unstable and the spiritual-soul aspect becomes detached, one is, by virtue of this constitution—which is based on inner destiny—musical or receptive to music. Special artistic talent in other fields, too, is based on this unstable relationship. The person who possesses this talent is able to bring to the surface what otherwise takes place only deep within the soul—in the depths of the soul, we are all musical artists. What takes place there cannot be brought to the surface by someone who is in a stable equilibrium: such a person is not an artist. Those who are in a state of unstable equilibrium—now, as a scientific philistine, one might speak of degeneration—those who stand in the unstable equilibrium of the soul and the body, bring up more of what plays out in the inner rhythm, whether darker or lighter, and shape it through the material of sound. If we consider the flow of nerve waves from the bottom up toward the brain, we first encounter what we characterize as the musical. How the optic nerve extends within the eye and is connected to blood vessels remains in the subconscious. Something is taking place there that is extinguished when a person faces the external natural world. When confronted with the external sensory world, the external impression erases it. But what takes place between nerve waves and sensory processes has always been a poet; the poet lives within every human being. And whether what takes place there remains below, or whether it is brought up and cast into poetry, depends in turn on the balance between soul and body.

[ 30 ] Let us consider once again the process of radiation—the wave that strikes downward and collides with the branching of the blood wave: This expresses the integration of our own equilibrium into the equilibrium of the environment. Particularly intense is the subconscious experience in which a human being transitions from a crawling child to an upright equilibrium. This is a tremendous subconscious experience. The fact that we possess what is merely caricatured in monkeys—what becomes significant for humanity—namely, that the line through the body’s center coincides with the line of the center of gravity—is a tremendous inner experience. There, one unconsciously experiences the architectural-sculptural relationship. As the downward nerve impulse meets the blood flow, architecture and the sculptural are unconsciously experienced, and this is brought to the surface to a greater or lesser extent through unstable or stable conditions and given form.

[ 31 ] Painting and what it expresses are experienced internally, where nerve impulses and blood flow meet. The artistic process is conscious, but the impulses are unconscious. The visual sense consciously immerses itself in what underlies the artistic imagination as an impulse—an inner experience that cannot be characterized as abstractly as it is today, but rather so concretely that one can find every single phase reflected in the configuration of one’s own body. Ancient times correctly sensed that, with regard to architecture, every form and every dimension is present in one’s own positioning within the external world. Ancient architecture stems from a different sense of these proportional relationships than Gothic architecture, but both stem from a sense of one’s own balance in relation to the proportions of the macrocosm. Here one recognizes how the human being, in his own constitution, is a reflection of the macrocosm. That is why the body has been called the temple of the soul. There is much truth in such expressions. Thus one can say: Essentially, the sources from which the artist—who is to be taken seriously and has a relationship to reality—draws are the same sources from which the seer draws; for the seer, only that which is to remain an impulse in its effect now appears in consciousness, whereas, when the impulse remains in the subconscious, it brings forth what the artist brings to view.

[ 32 ] This shows that these realms are strictly separate in human experience. Therefore, the fear that the artist’s originality will be lost through the gift of vision is unfounded. The visionary state develops from the same states of consciousness that can be separated from artistic creation and experience, but the two do not interfere with one another when experienced correctly. On the contrary.

[ 33 ] We are at a point in time when humanity must become ever more conscious and ever more free. That is why that light must be poured out over art by the artist himself, and thereby a bridge will be built between artistry and visionary insight, which do not conflict with one another.

[ 34 ] One can understand that the artist feels disturbed when art history develops along the lines of modern natural science or rationalist aesthetics, as they are understood today. A science that penetrates true art with insight does not yet exist; one day, artists will perceive it not as disruptive, but as inspiring.

[ 35 ] Anyone who uses a microscope knows how to proceed in order to first learn to see what is there. Just as one first becomes imbued from within with the ability to observe properly under a microscope—where the inner perspective stimulates the outer gaze rather than hindering it—so a time will come when true vision will permeate and inspire the artist’s fundamental creative power.

[ 36 ] At times, however, what is meant by “clairvoyance” is misunderstood, because people tend to think of supersensible science and knowledge too much in terms of ordinary sensory science and knowledge. However, people who approach Spiritual Science sometimes feel disappointed: they do not find such convenient answers to their mundane questions, but rather they discover other worlds that sometimes hold far deeper mysteries than those in the sensory world. Through an introduction to Spiritual Science, new mysteries unfold that cannot be solved theoretically but promise to resolve themselves vividly within the process of life, thereby giving rise to new mysteries. If one immerses oneself in this higher vitality, one remains connected to art. Hebbel demands conflicts that must remain unresolved, and he finds it philistine in Grillparzer that, despite all its beauty, the latter constructs his stories in such a way that the conflicts are resolved if one is only a little wiser than his hero. — This is where true vision leads above all else: it does not provide cheap answers, but rather worldviews that complement those derived from the sensory realm. Certainly, profound artists have already sensed this. In his recently published book *Stufen*, Morgenstern states that anyone who, like the artist, truly wishes to approach the spiritual must be intent on absorbing and uniting within themselves what can already be grasped today of the divine-spiritual through supersensory knowledge. He says: “Anyone who wishes to immerse themselves in what can be experienced of the divine-spiritual today merely through feeling, rather than penetrating it through understanding, is like an illiterate person who sleeps with a primer under their pillow their whole life.”

[ 37 ] This characterizes where we stand in our culture. If one is able to respond to what our time needs, one will, like Morgenstern, have to come to the conclusion: One must not remain illiterate when it comes to clairvoyant insight; as an artist, one must seek connections to clairvoyant perception. Just as it is significant when the visionary element sheds light on artistic creation, so too is it significant when what is today regarded as “visionary philistinism”—which has nothing musical about it, at most something merely entertaining—allows itself to be enriched by artistic taste. More important than any form of pathological clairvoyance to the true connoisseur of the spirit of the future is the bridge that can be built between artistry and clairvoyance.

[ 38 ] Anyone who sees through this knows that, for the sake of humanity’s salvation in the present and future, it will flourish if spiritual matters and spiritual insight are sought more and more. The light of visionary insight must shine in art, so that the warmth and grandeur of art may have a fertilizing effect on the breadth and grandeur of the horizon of visionary insight. This is necessary for art that seeks to immerse itself in true existence—just as we need it to be able to master the great tasks that must increasingly approach humanity from indeterminate depths.