The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] According to the descriptions I have given so far, so-called imaginative insight is attained by bringing into full consciousness that which is carried out subconsciously in dreams as an involuntary activity. So, to put it more precisely, I must say: it is not dreaming, with its dream content, that is brought up into consciousness — for that would lead only to the unreal — but rather the activity that, in an unconscious manner, carries out something that cannot be defined in more detail at this point when we dream; this activity is raised to a fully voluntary activity that is carried out in the light of consciousness and thereby becomes the foundation for imaginative insight. This activity differs quite fundamentally from mere dream activity. In mere dream activity, we regard whatever appears before our consciousness as external reality, precisely because we are not actively engaged in the activity itself. But when we bring the dream-generating activity into consciousness, we know from the outset that the first thing we encounter are images created by ourselves. So, as I have already indicated, we will never regard them as reality in this form; otherwise, we would not be anthroposophical researchers but hallucinators. Now, alongside this activity practiced as meditation—which leads to living within such images—there must be another that can suppress these images, that is, one that must clear consciousness of them. If one masters this activity and, after having strengthened the soul forces through both the creation and the destruction of images, comes to live with full consciousness, then one stands right within the spiritual world. One engages in an activity that is spiritual-soul-based, independent of the body. One therefore does not perceive through the bodily organs. One does not think with the body; one thinks with the spiritual-soul aspect and yet has a content of consciousness—which is then a spiritual one.

[ 2 ] I said yesterday that the model for the anthroposophical researcher’s spiritual perception is not the dreamlike experiences of consciousness, but rather the free experiences of sensory perception, which are permeated by arbitrariness. Admittedly, in supersensible cognition we do not perceive through the senses; but we regard the freedom with which we move within sensory perception—the independence from our personality in sensory perception—as a capacity. And this can come to the forefront of our consciousness especially when we focus on a specific, individual instance.

[ 3 ] Consider the organ of sensory perception that most characteristically represents the capacity for sensory perception: the eye. This eye first reveals its relative organic independence simply by the fact that it sits within the eye socket as a self-contained unit, connected to the rest of the organism only by minor bridges. Thus, in a sense, even from its external, spatial appearance, we can already perceive the eye as something relatively independent within the human organism.

[ 4 ] Let us first set aside the inner workings of sensory perception in the eye and focus on something that appears to be external. The eye is situated near the lacrimal glands. These lacrimal glands continuously secrete a fluid consisting mainly of water and salt. This tear fluid is secreted continuously while we are awake. It flows around the eye and also around the part of the eye that is exposed to the outside world when the eyelids are open. As a result, the eye is constantly washed by the tear fluid. Dust approaching the eye from the outside is washed away by this tear fluid. And once the tear fluid has fulfilled this hygienic function—once it has washed the eye—it flows through the fine tear ducts into the nose and is thus drained. This is part of the normal functioning of the eye. But you will admit that in everyday life we are not very aware of this hygienic process taking place inside the eye—that it occurs entirely in the unconscious. We are therefore dealing with a purely organic activity that is meaningful and wise, but which is a purely unconscious organic activity.

[ 5 ] However, this activity can be increased. This can happen, for example, by applying a blow to the eye or by exposing the eye to cold. It can even be triggered by fatigue in the eye itself or in the rest of the body; in such cases, a greater amount of tear fluid is secreted. If you consider what is happening here, you must realize that the stimulus that causes this tear fluid to be secreted is already being brought more into your consciousness; you are already becoming aware of something of the stimulus and also of some of the consequences of the stimulus—namely, the secretion of tear fluid. But this entire process can be intensified even further, and this happens when a person becomes aware of their personal relationship to the world. This occurs when a person experiences moral-psychological, sad, or painful events that cause them to weep; in such cases, the tear fluid is secreted as a result of these moral-psychological experiences. You see, it is an ascent into consciousness. An activity—the secretion of tear fluid—first takes place entirely within the sphere of the unconscious; it is then increasingly raised into the sphere of the conscious—one might say, into the sphere of the moral-psychic.

[ 6 ] This simple fact, which takes place in a relatively independent part of the human organism, illustrates what happens when one rises through meditation to a soul and spiritual life that is free from the body. If you cry because you receive a letter that makes you sad, you will have to say to yourself: What is experienced through the letter lies quite outside the structure of the eye; at first, it is not in any way internally connected to the structure of the eye. Nevertheless, an effect is produced on the eye. — You can see from this that the tears need not come solely from reading, since you shed tears just as readily when you have the letter read aloud to you. So the point is really that one can demonstrate: here is something that takes place externally and which, through an external influence, triggers an organic process. However, this organic process is still such that it is brought about by something external to it.

[ 7 ] But you can imagine the situation taken even further. You can imagine the following: You have trained and practiced not to be tearful all the time, to experience life’s difficult trials in such a way that your emotional pain is no less than that of those whose eyes immediately well up with tears, but that this emotional pain is experienced purely within the soul and does not result in tears. You truly do not need to be colder because of this, but you experience things in a more spiritual and soulful way, in which what is happening in the soul is separated from the physical organism. What is happening in the soul does not immediately express itself through the organism.

[ 8 ] If you take what you can gain from this example drawn from life and extend it to the entirety of experience in the imaginative, inspired consciousness—if you conceive of such an independent spiritual-soul experience that has no effect whatsoever on the physical body, that takes place entirely outside the physical body—such as the pain of the soul experienced without tears, without overflowing into the visual system—then you have a picture of the very experience that places you within the spiritual world. From this you can see: If one proceeds correctly, one can describe the experience in the spiritual world—the world beyond the tapestry of the senses—in such a way that it becomes clear: this experience is merely a continuation of what is already present in some form in the normal, ordinary human being. One need only engage in spiritual-soul exercises to attain independence from the physical in this way.

[ 9 ] If you now continue this practice to the point where you have suppressed your self-generated imagination—reaching a state of emptiness of consciousness—and yet still experience real spiritual and soul content, then the first thing you will experience will be a tableau of your earthly life up to that point, roughly up to the time of your birth. You will not see the physical body in this vision. The physical body disappears when one reaches a state of perception free from the body. But everything one has experienced remains before the soul—what is otherwise an unconscious stream of memories from which individual memories emerge. This now comes before the soul, but not as in ordinary memory; rather, it is suddenly there—it is, so to speak, a temporal organism, a self-moving temporal organism.

[ 10 ] The spatial organism that we carry within us is an organism in that its individual parts interact with one another and are interdependent, and in that the whole comes together to form a totality. What happens in the stomach determines what happens in the head, and what happens in the head determines what happens in the stomach. In an organism, everything is interdependent. So it is also in this organism of time: what comes later, which the human being has experienced, is organically integrated with what came before. A complete tableau suddenly stands before our soul.

[ 11 ] If, by intensifying the very force with which one previously suppressed one’s own imaginings, one succeeds in suppressing this tableau of memories as well—that is, not only ceasing to see one’s own body, but making the entire tableau inwardly invisible while remaining in the waking state—then one reaches the stage of knowledge that reveals the spiritual-soul life one experienced before birth, or, let us say, before conception. The spiritual-soul world in which one existed before descending into earthly life is carried within oneself throughout one’s earthly existence. It acts and lives within us, but it acts and lives within us in the same way that hydrogen acts and lives within oxygen when water is present. During earthly life, between birth and death, one cannot examine the spiritual-soul aspect in itself any more than one can examine hydrogen when it is bound together with oxygen in water. The oxygen must first be separated from the water; in the same way, the spiritual-soul aspect must be brought forth. But then it does not transport one into the present; rather, it transports one precisely into that pre-existing existence. One thus truly perceives that which has descended into the earthly form of existence. In this way, one gains an insight into that in which one lived before coming to Earth.

[ 12 ] Now, of course, one might say that one has no intention of setting out to explore the eternal in human beings in this way. Certainly, a person is free not to want to do so. But to believe, in any case, that one can grasp the spiritual-soul aspect through ordinary cognition would be tantamount to the naïve belief that one can study hydrogen when it is bound to water without first isolating it. One must admit that the spiritual-soul aspect simply cannot be attained through ordinary consciousness. If, therefore, one does not wish to accept the findings of spiritual research, there is no alternative but to remain silent about the spiritual and psychological realms and to concern oneself solely with the material aspects of existence. This may displease some people today, but there are simply necessities of life to which one must conform.

[ 13 ] This is how we gradually enter into inspired insight. For it is already a form of inspired insight—a being inspired by something that would otherwise not enter our consciousness, but which permeates us just as thoroughly as oxygen does through respiration, which we take in materially from the outside air. We are, so to speak, filled with this inspired insight—consciously filled with the content of our prenatal, our pre-existent existence—just as we are filled with material oxygen through respiration. We breathe in our spiritual-soul life. We rise to inspiration. The name is not arbitrary, but is chosen precisely because of the characteristics that this very insight possesses.

[ 14 ] However, this insight has yet another characteristic. You will also find further insights on this in my book *How Does One Attain Insights into the Higher Worlds?*. For one must acquire something else if one wishes to attain this inspired insight. That is presence of mind. One possesses presence of mind when, placed in any situation in life, one can act quickly, rather than waiting to form a judgment until the opportunity to act has already passed. One must practice precisely through those things that require one to act quickly, to seize the moment, because what arises through inspiration fleets by quickly; in its nascent state, in the very moment of its emergence, it vanishes already. One must be able to turn one’s attention to it quickly.

[ 15 ] You can see from this: when one faces the ordinary external sensory world, it is spatially extended. When one faces the next thing that comes one’s way—one’s own life tableau—then time suddenly lies before one, and now, in inspired insight, one is outside of time. One is compelled to perceive in the moment. One is completely outside of time. Time no longer has any inner significance whatsoever for what is gained through inspired insight.

[ 16 ] When one immerses oneself in this tableau of life, one discovers that there is something in it that is far more real than in mere memory. The images of memory are neutral; they possess no inner power; they lie there, as it were, ready for us to take in, but they have no inner power. What is contained in the tableau of life, however, possesses inner power and at the same time contains those forces that shape the human being—forces that have a formative effect within—which, for example, in the case of a child, whose brain has not yet attained its full plastic development but is only formed in the course of the first years of life, act as supersensible formative forces. We now come to know these supersensible formative forces because they are contained within this tableau of life. One does not, therefore, grasp something merely abstract or conceptual, but rather a reality, a passage of time filled with forces: and this is the finer body of which we speak—the etheric body, also called the body of formative forces—which presents a complete image in space only as an instantaneous snapshot within a continuous flow. This etheric body is in constant motion. And when one tries to paint it, one is actually depicting something unreal, something that could last only a moment, for the next state is already different again, and the previous one was different as well. It is indeed a body of time, but as a body of forces—a body of formative forces—it underlies the growth and metabolism of the human organism, which we refer to as a finer, more ethereal body. The word “ethereal” should not remind us here of its use in physics, but only of what has just been characterized and named as such.

[ 17 ] When one has progressed so far in imaginative cognition that one stands within the spiritual-soul world and has, for the time being, reached the point of perceiving one’s own life tableau—that is, the etheric body or body of formative forces—then one has experienced a certain change, a “transformation” of one’s cognitive life. What one does in recognizing this ethereal being is similar—and yet, in turn, very dissimilar—not to the usual naturalistic-abstract mode of cognition, but to artistic activity. Rather, one must develop a formative way of thinking—a way of thinking that, in a certain respect, already recalls the artist’s particular mode of imagination. However, it is also, in turn, very dissimilar to the artistic mode of imagination. For what the artist creates remains within the realm of the imagination. The imaginative creative activity is, in the most eminent sense, bound to physicality; it is not an activity free from physicality. The activity one engages in through imaginative cognition is free from corporeality, and that is why it also grasps something real. The artist’s creations are not such that they can stand in the world as something real. You have never once had a mental image of the Venus de Milo beginning to walk forward and come toward you. What the artist creates is, after all, not reality. Nor, when you have seen a devil in a painting, will you have been able to harbor the fear that the devil depicted there might come to get you. It is the way the artist positions himself within reality—bound to human physical reality—but does not delve into spiritual-soul reality. What is attained through imaginative insight delves into a true reality, into an actual event.

[ 18 ] Now, one might well argue that it can be proven logically and epistemologically that cognition should not extend to artistic activity at all. For cognition means proceeding logically from one concept to another with the aid of discursive concepts; and when one crosses over into the artistic realm, one transcends the realm of permissible cognition. One can philosophize long enough, and quite well, about what the nature of cognition should or should not be: if nature, if the world, is an artist, then it will simply not yield to merely logical cognition. One cannot approach it; it eludes purely logical cognition. Therefore, no matter how logically justified it may be that cognition should not be artistic: with non-artistic cognition, one simply does not plunge into ethereal reality. What matters is how the world is, not how cognition ought to be, nor that we recognize something based on logically correct premises. Thus, one must say: an artistic moment arises when we rise from ordinary, concrete cognition to imaginative cognition.

[ 19 ] And when we elevate ourselves to the level of inspiration, the inspirations we carry within our consciousness will be such that we can again compare them to experiences that are similar to them and yet, at the same time, dissimilar; and these are moral experiences and the comprehension of moral ideas. The inspirations from the spiritual world are similar to moral ideas in that, when we experience these inspired mental images, we are doing qualitatively the same thing as when we allow moral ideas and ideals to be present in our consciousness. In terms of this qualitative aspect of inner experience, inspirations are also similar to the experience of moral ideals; but they are, in turn, entirely different in that the moral ideal we grasp lacks the inner activity to realize itself through its own power. Our moral ideal is, at first, powerless, impotent in the world. We must realize it through our physical personality. We must introduce it into the world indirectly through our physical personality. In and of itself, the moral ideal remains a mere thought. Inspiration is not like that. We bring it to fruition in such a way that it is qualitatively similar to the moral mental image, to the moral impulse; but by being embedded in the world, it proves itself to be a reality, a powerful force—that which acts just as natural forces act. One thus immerses oneself in a world that one must conceive of in the same way as one conceives of the moral world, but which is, from the outset, real by virtue of its own power.

[ 20 ] And when one has progressed so far in inspiration that one now stands within a spiritual-soul world—that is, that the spiritual-soul world provides one with content—then something else is necessary to fully experience this spiritual-soul world. Then one must bring into this spiritual-soul world something that is by no means part of our abstract world of thought. One must bring into it devotion to the object. After all, one cannot fully come to know a being or a force in the spiritual-soul world unless one can, with one’s own being, cross over completely in love and flow entirely into what presents itself to one in inspiration. Inspiration is, in a sense, initially only a revelation of the spiritual-soul realm. The inner being reveals itself to one when one pours oneself, in loving devotion, into that from which one is inspired. And by experiencing the spiritual-soul reality in this way—elevated and full of life—one is intuitively within it.

[ 21 ] This is intuitive insight. Traces of intuition are, after all, already present in everyday life, and these traces of intuition find their full expression in religious sensibility and religious feeling. That which in religious feeling is purely internal—without one being immersed in a specific world—is fully realized in spiritual intuition. Thus, spiritual intuition is similar to, yet at the same time entirely different from, mere religious feeling. Mere religious feeling remains subjective. In spiritual intuition, the inner being flows over into objectivity, living within the spiritual-soul reality there, so that one can say: The intuitive mode of supersensible knowledge is both similar to and dissimilar from religious mental images.

[ 22 ] If, then, one wishes to arrange these stages of higher knowledge in a certain systematic order, one can say: First, we have the concrete knowledge found in everyday life; this is naturalistic. We then move on to knowledge gained through imagination; this is artistic. We then move on to knowledge gained through inspiration; this is moral. And we then move on to knowledge gained through intuition; this is religious, in the sense that I have characterized it.

[ 23 ] You see: what can actually be grasped there through art-like, moral-like, and religious-like mental images—that is what has an effect on the human being; it is within him. It simply eludes ordinary consciousness. Therefore, it is precisely by becoming acquainted with these experiences of supersensible consciousness that one can grasp the whole human being. In particular, since what flows from the spiritual world into the physical world exerts a powerful influence on the child, one can come to know the child’s nature precisely by understanding the higher aspects of the human being: that which is recognizable in human beings through imagination, inspiration, and intuition. But one must place oneself in the proper relationship to how this supersensible realm relates to the physical-bodily realm.

[ 24 ] This can be seen particularly well in the example of memory. Memory, in its functioning, certainly involves the physical body. The body is involved in our act of remembering. This can be demonstrated simply through everyday experience. If we try to learn a role or a poem today, and it just won’t quite sink in, and we then sleep on it for a night, the next day it comes quickly, as if by itself. Through its regeneration, the body has prepared itself to carry out the work that, in the process of remembering, must be performed as a physical act.

[ 25 ] But even beyond that, our basic knowledge of anatomy and physiology allows us to demonstrate in detail how certain regions of the nervous system can be paralyzed or severed, and how this can also lead to the loss of certain regions of memory. In short, one can certainly see through the bond between memory and the physical organism. The body is active when the activity of memory is exercised. This activity of memory, however—this capacity for recollection—is, as is already evident from this, entirely different from what is experienced in imagination, in inspiration, or in higher consciousness; for that is independent of the physical body. What is experienced supersensually must not interfere with physicality. And this is also evident in these experiences: namely, they cannot be recalled in the usual way; they do not imprint themselves on ordinary memory.

[ 26 ] For those who conduct research in an anthroposophical manner, ordinary memory of other experiences must always run parallel; it must remain intact. In a sense, they must always have this second personality—the one they are in everyday life—beside them. But they know full well: they also live within supersensible insights, and these do not imprint themselves on ordinary memory at all. Just as you do not carry the reality of a fish you are looking at in your memory: you carry it figuratively within you; you must return to the fish if you want to perceive it. With supersensory experiences, one has perceptions, not mental images; therefore, one must return to them again and again. One can, however, remember how one went about arriving at the supersensory perception. If one does that again, it resurfaces, but passively; it does not continue to have an effect in memory. It can therefore only be attained again through active engagement. This detachment from memory is a distinctive characteristic of what supersensible insights are. One can have them again, but one must first bring them about in the same way as one did the first time. One can remember the path by which one brought them about, but not simply the supersensible experience itself.

[ 27 ] This is precisely what shows how the supersensory experience differs from what is contained within ordinary experience. It must always be borne in mind that a healthy human memory must run parallel to all genuine supersensory experience. Anyone who were to lose the ordinary flow of their memories in supersensible experiences would pour their entire personality into those experiences. They would not be an anthroposophical researcher; they would be a hallucinator who lives entirely within their visions, their images, and their hallucinations.

[ 28 ] But that is precisely what matters: that everything merely hallucinatory is ruled out, that everything experienced in the supersensible realm stands alongside what is otherwise the healthy state of the soul in life. This must be firmly upheld if one is to judge supersensible knowledge in the proper way. Anyone who objects that the imaginations and inspirations presented in anthroposophy might simply be hallucinations—anyone who says this—simply does not yet know the characteristic features of the anthroposophical path and is therefore speaking about what they do not know.

[ 29 ] It is important to understand this relationship between the supersensible and memory. For, you see, these are all realities in human life. This supersensible realm, which we bring before our soul through imagination and inspiration, does indeed exist. We merely call it into our consciousness. But when it comes to memory, we do not work on it actively alone; our unconscious mind is also at work there. Thus, what we experience in imagination remains in the spiritual world; it, so to speak, merely approaches the human being and unites with him; what becomes memory, however, flows into him, takes hold of the physical organism, and prompts the physical organism to participate actively. It penetrates down into the physical organism. It is precisely through the comparison of the imaginative with memory that one can clearly discern the difference between what is embodied and what lives on within us as the supersensible—even between birth and death—but which eludes ordinary consciousness and must therefore be revealed through anthroposophical research.

[ 30 ] It is precisely when one delves into this interplay between the human being—who can be experienced only in the supersensible realm—and the physical human being that one truly comes to know the full, whole human being, and by immersing oneself in what supersensible knowledge reveals, one also comes to know the child—the human being in the making—in such a way that one can truly treat the child appropriately through the art of education and instruction. It is precisely through a concrete example such as the relationship between the supersensible being and what is at work in memory and recollection that one can illustrate many things.

[ 31 ] Let’s suppose there is a child in some school class whom we begin to teach at a certain point. At first, we proceed in a more general way and believe we are doing the right thing. But from a certain point on, we notice that a particular, individual child is becoming paler and paler. It need not be a strikingly obvious pallor; rather, such pallor may be noticeable only to someone who has specifically trained themselves to observe such things. But it is absolutely essential for the teacher and educator to attune themselves to a more subtle perception and observation of life.

[ 32 ] Well, of course, such things—as I am about to describe them—depend on a wide variety of factors; but the one who, precisely through the knowledge of the anthroposophical, supersensible path, also finds his way into an understanding of human nature will, as a teacher and educator, through this living knowledge of the human being, have a deepening and enhancing effect on his entirely natural, elementary instincts for education and instruction. A pedagogy and didactics that cast their rules into abstract laws is, in reality, something that gradually leads the practical educator and teacher into a life situation as if he were constantly stepping on his own feet while trying to walk; it robs one of all spontaneity. If one were always to ask oneself: How, exactly, should one educate? What rules do pedagogy and didactics prescribe?”—then one simply loses that natural ease; one loses the legitimacy of what is instinctive. This is not the effect of a pedagogy and didactics built on an anthroposophical foundation; it draws much more intimately into the whole of human life, and one’s elementary educational instincts are not undermined, but rather are stirred, enlivened, warmed, and strengthened. One does not lose one’s natural spontaneity, but rather deepens and enlivens it. This is precisely what anthroposophical pedagogy and didactics strive to achieve for the teacher and the educator. Therefore, no matter how varied life may be, and no matter how varied the circumstances may be: if one has such a pale child before one—if the child has turned pale for reasons other than those I am now citing—the teacher or educator will already notice this out of their natural instinct; but the situation I am now describing may very well arise—a child becomes paler and paler. If I then take everything into account based on my pedagogical instincts, which are deepened by anthroposophical insight, I may come to the conclusion: I have overloaded this child with material for memory; I have demanded too much of his memory.

[ 33 ] You see, this is what anthroposophy is all about: bringing this interplay between the soul-spiritual and the physical-bodily into focus. Anthroposophy does not seek merely to convey information about the spiritual to human beings in any way; rather, it seeks to enable them to understand the living activity of the spiritual within the material world. And that alone can make life practical; that alone can firmly ground human beings in the world in which they are called upon to fulfill their task.

[ 34 ] One will then be able to observe that, if such a thing is not recognized in time, a child has been made pale by an excess of memory material, and that this condition will then intensify. If one continues to overfeed the child with rote material, the next stage will be a revelation of the soul: the child will develop all sorts of anxieties and states of fear and dread. These, too, need not necessarily be obvious to superficial observation, but only to the more subtle observation that the skilled educator and teacher must cultivate. And the final stage, if one continues—based on some theoretical prejudices—to cram more and more material into the child’s memory, is growth disorders. The child will, in some way, actually lag behind in growth.

[ 35 ] Here one sees the interplay between the spiritual-soul and the physical-bodily. Here one comes to understand how essential it is for the master of teaching and education to gain a mental image of how to address human tendencies toward health and illness. Severe cases of illness will, of course, be left to the physician, but in education one is constantly dealing with the manifestation of the more subtle inclinations toward health and toward illness. These must always be present in the consciousness of the teacher and the educator, always accessible to them. The teacher and educator must always know how human nature, in its totality, tends toward health through one thing and toward illness through another; how causes of illness arise, for example, in the case I have just cited. Through this kind of awareness, one will be able to refrain in the right way from overloading the child’s memory and approach the child in a different manner. And one will see that the child will, in turn, take on a healthier vitality if, in the time that follows, one does not appeal too strongly to the child’s memory but rather to what is actually being experienced. Let’s say, for example, that one day you show the child something beautiful that brings them immediate joy, and the next day something else beautiful or a variation on the previous one. In the days that follow, you do not appeal to their memory.

[ 36 ] Or suppose one is dealing with a boy whom one has been teaching from a certain point onward. After some time, upon closer observation, one notices that he blushes slightly. It is not a blush of shame that appears on his face, but rather a blush related to his overall state of health. This need not be obvious; rather, it reveals itself upon close observation: the boy’s skin tone is simply more reddish now than it was before. Of course, there may be all sorts of reasons for this; but a healthy approach to education and instruction will determine the specifics. But it may be the case that I have demanded too little of this particular boy in terms of his memory, that I have not appealed sufficiently to his memory. This has caused him to blush, and I must correct this by taking a different approach, beginning now to make use of his memory. And once again, there is an intensification of what we encounter here in—I would say—a mild blushing. The next development is, in fact, of a psychological nature: the boy begins to experience mild, yet already significant—in terms of their potential—outbursts of anger and rage. It is entirely possible that a lack of memory capacity could lead a child to outbursts of anger—to pathological, subtle fits of rage—which in turn have a harmful effect on the organism; for in human beings, between birth and death, the spiritual-psychic realm is in constant interaction with the physical-bodily realm. And the most extreme consequence that can result from this is that the child in question experiences an intensification—an irregularity—in their breathing and blood circulation. I can even instill very serious predispositions in the child in this regard if I fail to recognize what is initially expressed in the reddening of the skin, subsequently in the subtle shifts of anger and rage, and then in a slightly accelerated respiratory and circulatory process. - Some predispositions inherent in human beings—which may only lead to very serious illnesses years later when other triggering factors are present—have their roots in the practices of flawed methods of upbringing and education.

[ 37 ] Thus, anyone who wishes to be an educator and a master of teaching must have a thorough understanding of the ways in which human nature leads toward health or toward illness, and toward the development of predispositions to disease. As mentioned, extreme cases may be the domain of the physician, but in human development, the paths leading to health or to a predisposition to illness are constantly being traversed. The educator and teaching artist must be familiar with these. He must even be able to observe them in their subtlest manifestations. These are things that, first and foremost, the educator and teacher must know about the processes by which human beings become healthy or ill.

[ 38 ] To illustrate this even more clearly, I will use a drastic example—one that is, of course, open to debate—but in real life, everything can take on the most varied forms. Therefore, what I cite here may, of course, stem from entirely different causes in other cases. As one immerses oneself in anthroposophical pedagogy and didactics, one becomes accustomed to seeking the most diverse causes for whatever arises; but the connection can certainly be the one I now wish to describe.

[ 39 ] Let’s suppose a boy or a girl is sitting there in class. For a long time, he or she was paying attention quite normally, and I was thoroughly satisfied with his or her attention. Now he or she begins to act a little aloof, no longer paying enough attention. Certain things I bring up go right over his or her head. It may then happen that an untrained educator, depending on his or her worldview, resorts to corporal punishment or some other form of discipline in order to make the child more attentive again. Someone who is familiar with the connection between the spiritual-soul aspects and the physical-bodily aspects of the human being—in relation to the paths of health and illness—will resort to something entirely different. He will say to the boy or girl: “You must cut your fingernails or toenails at the right time; you wait too long before cutting your fingernails or toenails.” — For what manifests there as a growth force, which flows into human development and into the growth of fingernails and toenails, is also imbued with soul and spirit. And when the fingernails or toenails grow too long, this growth force becomes blocked; it cannot flow freely into the fingernails and toenails but is held back. And this stagnation of growth—which is only released again when one cuts the nails, when the free little surface is once more exposed—this stagnation also holds back, on the other side, the spiritual-soul aspect of attention. For attention can develop only in a full, free, uninhibited life that flows through the organism. In most cases, one will not notice such changes, such metamorphoses in attention, in children who have been taught to cut their fingernails and toenails properly.

[ 40 ] I cite this example only to show you that anthroposophical pedagogy and didactics do not aim to neglect the physical and ascend solely into the nebulous spiritual realm, but rather that the spiritual is taken into account precisely in order to understand and approach life in the right way.

[ 41 ] Thus, by learning to empathize with human nature in this way, the teacher and educator will find the right path for their profession, particularly with regard to the ways in which human beings attain health and fall ill.