The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] The leadership of the Anthroposophical Society, which has invited me here to give a series of lectures on educational topics, has also deemed it appropriate for me to deliver several public lectures on the relationship between anthroposophical Spiritual Science and the art of healing. It will be necessary for me to give a sort of introductory lecture this evening and to address the actual subject—the enrichment of medicine through anthroposophy—in the next two lectures; this is because, to the great satisfaction of the organizers, many listeners have come who are even less familiar with anthroposophy, and lectures dealing with a specific topic would fall flat if I did not first give a sort of introductory lecture on anthroposophy in general today, preceding the actual discussions that are to touch on the field of medicine. Anthroposophy does not, after all, intend to be what so many accuse it of being: some kind of fanaticism or sectarianism; rather, it aims to be a very serious, scientifically grounded view of the world—except that this view of the world is to be directed toward the spiritual realm with the same seriousness with which we are accustomed today to seeing scientific methods applied to the material realm. Now, it might seem as though, from the very outset, turning toward the spiritual implies something unscientific for many people today, simply because the general opinion is this: that one can scientifically grasp only what can be perceived through sensory experience and what the human mind—the intellect—can derive from this sensory experience. The view held by many people is that the moment one turns to the spiritual realm, scientific resignation must set in—in the sense that one says the spiritual can be determined only by a subjective opinion, a kind of emotional mysticism that each person must work out for themselves; faith must take the place of scientific knowledge. The purpose of this introductory lecture is precisely to show that this is not the case.

[ 2 ] Anthroposophy, however, does not seek to be a “science” in the ordinary sense of the word—one that is detached from the lives of individual people preparing for this or that scientific profession—but rather aims to be a way of viewing the world that can apply to every human sensibility, who yearns to find answers to questions concerning the meaning and purpose of life, the workings of spiritual and material forces in existence, and the application of these insights in daily life. And in the field of anthroposophy, we have so far succeeded in achieving quite practical applications of the anthroposophical perspective in specific areas, above all in the field of education, where we have established schools based on the worldview that will be discussed here this evening. And we have also succeeded in this, in a way that has already been widely recognized, in the field of medicine, however paradoxical that may still seem to some today. For anthroposophy does not seek to enter into any kind of conflict or opposition with what is recognized as science today; it does not wish to cultivate a trivial form of dilettantism. It certainly wants those who, in a serious sense, wish to develop anthroposophy as a form of knowledge to respect and value what has led to such great achievements—especially in recent times—in the most diverse fields through scientific methods. Thus, it cannot be a matter—not even in the field of medicine— to proclaim through anthroposophy anything of a lay nature that stands in opposition to modern science, but rather to show how, through certain spiritual methods, one is able to add to what is already recognized—something that can only be added when the realm of serious research is expanded into the spiritual world.

[ 3 ] Anthroposophy seeks to achieve this by striving for forms of knowledge that do not exist in ordinary life or in conventional science. In everyday life, as in conventional science, we make use of the knowledge that a person acquires when, through the innate human faculties and abilities they have inherited, they gain—in the course of their development—what today’s conventional primary or secondary education can provide, and what, in the sense recognized today, makes us mature human beings. Anthroposophy aims to go further; it seeks to proceed from what I would like to call intellectual humility. And this intellectual humility—which must be present from the outset if one is to develop any sense or disposition toward anthroposophy at all—I would like to characterize in the following way.

[ 4 ] Let us consider human development from early childhood onward. We see the child entering the world in such a way that, in its expressions of life—and especially in what it carries within its soul—it possesses none of the qualities by which a mature human being orients itself in the world through knowledge and action. Through upbringing and education, the abilities that a human being does not bring into the world in a mature form must first be drawn out of the child’s soul and organism. And we all admit that we cannot, in the true sense of the word, be people who actively engage with the world unless we supplement what we bring into the world through heredity with that which can only be developed within the human being through education. Then we—some sooner, others later, depending on whether we attend lower or higher schools—enter life and have a certain relationship to it, possessing the ability to develop a certain awareness of what surrounds us in the world. Now, someone who approaches the aims of anthroposophy with understanding might ask: Why shouldn’t the same thing that is initially possible for a child—that is, becoming something entirely different as the child further develops its soul qualities—why shouldn’t that also be possible for a mature adult in today’s sense? Why, when one approaches the world of the senses with today’s education—even the highest level of schooling—should one not also possess abilities hidden within the soul that can be further developed, so that through further development one can arrive at insights and a practical way of life that, in a sense, continue what one has attained in the development leading to ordinary consciousness?

[ 5 ] Thus, in the field of anthroposophy, a form of self-development is undertaken—a self-development intended to lead beyond the ordinary state of consciousness. Now, there are three faculties in the human soul that we develop to a certain degree for ordinary life, but which can be developed further. And it is anthroposophy alone that, within modern cultural and civilizational life, seeks to provide the impetus for the corresponding further development of these faculties. These faculties are thinking, feeling, and willing. All three faculties can be transformed in such a way that they become faculties of knowledge in a higher sense.

[ 6 ] First, thinking. In the kind of education we receive today, we use thinking in such a way that we actually surrender ourselves quite passively to the world through our thinking. Indeed, especially in science, it is demanded that as little inner activity as possible should be at work in thinking; rather, what exists out there in the world should speak only as the senses describe it, and one should simply surrender oneself to this sensory observation in one’s thinking. It is said that any departure from such a passive attitude leads to fantasy, to daydreaming. But what anthroposophy is concerned with does not lead to fantasy or daydreaming; on the contrary, it leads to a kind of inner activity that is as clear as any procedure in the field of mathematics or geometry can be. It is precisely the way one approaches mathematics and geometry that serves as a model in anthroposophy, except that here, rather than developing specific properties as in geometry, one cultivates universal human abilities that touch every human heart and every human sense. And fundamentally, what must first be accomplished is something that can actually be understood by every human being, provided they are open-minded enough to do so. One simply uses the ability—the power of thought—for a while, not initially to grasp or comprehend something else, something external, but rather to allow a thought to be present in the human soul—a thought that one can survey as fully as possible—and to devote oneself entirely to this thought for a certain period of time. I will describe it in more detail.

[ 7 ] Anyone who has the necessary confidence should turn to someone experienced in this field and ask: “What is the best thought for me to devote myself to?”—Then that person will give them a thought that is easy to grasp, but which should be as new as possible for someone seeking such a thing. If one uses an old thought, all sorts of memories and feelings—that is, subjective elements—rise up from the soul, and one easily slips into daydreaming. If, however, one uses a thought that is certainly new to them—one that does not remind them of anything—then one can devote oneself to it in such a way that the soul’s powers of thought are strengthened more and more in the process. In my writings, particularly in my book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and in An Outline of Esoteric Science, I call this method of cultivating thought inwardly “meditation.” It is an old word; today we shall attach to it only the meaning I intend to explain.

[ 8 ] Meditation consists of turning one’s attention away from everything experienced externally and internally, and thinking of nothing but that one thought which one places at the very center of one’s inner life. By directing all the power one has in the soul toward a single thought in this way, something happens to the soul’s powers that can be compared to repeatedly practicing a hand movement. What happens then? The muscles grow stronger; one develops powerful muscles. It is exactly the same with the powers of the soul. When one directs them again and again toward a single thought, they gain strength and become more powerful. And if this continues over a long period of time—it truly doesn’t have to take a long time at all, for it is more a matter of entering a state of mind in which one can concentrate on a single thought—then, depending on one’s predisposition—for some it may take eight days, for others success may come in three years, and so on— but through such exercises—which one performs again and again, even if only for five minutes or a quarter of an hour each day—one will come to feel something inwardly, as if the human being were filling itself with a new inner reserve of strength. One feels the strength of one’s nerves in ordinary thinking and feeling; one feels the strength of one’s muscles in grasping objects and performing various tasks. Just as one gradually feels this as one grows up from childhood, so one gradually learns to feel something that permeates one anew when one performs such thinking exercises, which I can only outline here in principle. They are described in more detail in the books already mentioned. Then one day one feels: One can no longer think about external things as one used to be able to, but one now feels that one has a completely new spiritual power within oneself, that one has something within oneself that is like a condensed, much stronger form of thinking. And finally, one feels that with this thinking, one first grasps something that one had previously known only in a very vague way.

[ 9 ] What one grasps there is, in essence, the reality of one’s own life. How does one know this own earthly life, as one has lived it since birth? One knows it through memories that extend back to a certain point in childhood. From the indeterminate depths of the soul, memories of past experiences rise to the surface. They are shadowy. Just compare how shadowy these images of life that emerge as memories are, compared to the rich, intense experiences one has day by day. If one now grasps thinking in the manner described, this shadowy quality of the memories ceases. Then one goes back into one’s own earthly life and experiences what one experienced ten or twenty years ago with the same inner power and strength as when one first experienced it. But one does not experience it now as one did back then—coming into direct contact with external objects and external beings—but rather one experiences a spiritual essence of it. And what one experiences can, as paradoxical as it may still sound today, be described quite clearly. Suddenly, as in a powerful tableau, as in a panorama, one has one’s life up to the moment of birth spread out before one. Not that one merely sees the individual events in chronological order, but rather one sees them as a unified tableau of one’s life. Time becomes space. What one has experienced is before one, but not in the sense of ordinary memory; rather, it is before one in such a way that one knows: What one has before oneself there is the deeper human essence, a second human being within the human being one has before oneself in ordinary consciousness. And then one comes to the following realization: This physical human being, whom one has before oneself in ordinary consciousness, is built up from the substances we take from the world around us. We are constantly shedding these substances and taking in new ones, and one can say quite precisely: within a period of seven to eight years, what has materially constituted our body is shed and replaced by something new. What is material within us is something that flows past. And as we come to know our own life through concentrated thinking, we arrive at that which remains—that which endures throughout our entire earthly life—but which is at the same time what builds up our organism from external substances and what breaks it down again. And this latter aspect is also what we survey as a tableau of life.

[ 10 ] Now, what we perceive in this way differs from ordinary memory in yet another respect. In ordinary memory, the events of life appear before our soul just as they come to us from the outside. We remember what this person did to us, what was inflicted upon us by that event. In the tableau that unfolds before us through concentrated thinking, we come to recognize ourselves as we are—what we have done to another person, how we have responded to an event. We come to know ourselves. That is what is important. For by getting to know ourselves, we also come to know ourselves more deeply—and come to know ourselves as we are within our forces of growth, indeed even within our nourishing forces; and how it is we ourselves who build up and break down our bodies. We thus come to know our inner being in this way.

[ 11 ] And the essential point is that, as we arrive at this self-knowledge in this way, we immediately experience something that cannot be experienced through any ordinary science or ordinary consciousness. I must admit, it is still difficult today to put into words what one arrives at, for the reason that it sounds so strange in comparison to what is currently regarded as valid for reasons of authority. But that is precisely how it is. It is an experience one has through concentrated thinking. And this experience consists in having to say the following: We have laws of nature; we study these laws of nature diligently in our sciences; we already become acquainted with them to some extent in elementary school. We are proud of this, and sober-minded humanity is rightly proud of what it has come to know as the laws of nature in physics, chemistry, and so on. I would like to emphasize this explicitly: Anthroposophy does not engage in a meaningless opposition to science. On the contrary, it acknowledges science far more strongly than science itself does. It takes science very seriously indeed, but by drawing upon deeply concentrated thinking, it comes to the conclusion that the laws of nature, as we learn them in physics and chemistry, exist only within the material world of our Earth, and they no longer apply once one ventures out into outer space.

[ 12 ] I must say something here that may not seem all that implausible to anyone who thinks about it objectively, since it is only seemingly paradoxical. When we have a light source somewhere, we know that as this light is scattered, its intensity decreases more and more; and as we move out into space, it grows weaker and weaker, so that we are eventually tempted to refer to it as twilight, or not as light at all, until finally, when we go far enough out, it can no longer be considered light at all. Just as it is with light, so it is with the laws of nature. They apply within the Earth’s sphere, but the farther we venture out into the cosmos, the less and less they apply, and when we finally go out quite far, these laws of nature no longer apply. — But those laws that we come to know through concentrated thinking are already at work in our own lives, and they show us that we, as human beings, have not outgrown the natural laws of the Earth, but rather have emerged from higher cosmic laws. We brought them with us when we entered earthly existence. And so we come to realize that, the moment we grasp concentrated thinking, we can apply the laws of nature only to the mineral kingdom. We cannot—as modern physics does, out of a very understandable error—say that the laws of nature can also be applied to the sun or the stars. We cannot do that; for attempting to apply the laws of nature to the universe would be just as naive as trying to illuminate outer space with a candle flame. As we ascend from the mineral—which, as it appears to us as a mineral, exists only on Earth—to the living, we can no longer speak of the laws of nature within the realm of the Earth, but must speak of laws that act upon earthly existence from the cosmos, from outer space. This is already the case with plants. Only when we wish to explain the mineral can we use the laws of the Earth—that is, those laws that include, for example, gravity and so on, which act from the center outward. When we turn to the plant realm, we must say: here the sphere is the center, and the laws of life act from everywhere, from all sides of the cosmos—those laws of life that we first discover within ourselves through concentrated thinking, and through which we come to understand that we build ourselves up between birth and death. Alongside the laws acting outward from the center of the Earth, we come to know those that act inward toward the center of the Earth from all sides—laws that are already at work in the plant kingdom. There we observe the plant as it sprouts from the earth and realize that this plant contains mineral substances. Modern chemistry has made great strides in recognizing these substances and their interactions. All of this is valid, all very fine and good. Chemistry will advance even further. That, too, will be very fine and good. But if we want to explain plants, we must explain their growth, and we can no longer do so through the forces that act upward from the earth, but only through those forces that act inward into earthly existence from the periphery, from the cosmos. This leads us to recognize that, in our understanding, we must rise above the earthly perspective and arrive at the cosmic perspective. And this cosmic perspective now contains what constitutes true human self-knowledge.

[ 13 ] We can make progress by also transforming our feelings. The feelings we experience in everyday life are a personal matter, not a true source of knowledge. But we can turn what is otherwise only subjectively experienced through feeling into a genuine, objective source of knowledge, in the following way.

[ 14 ] In meditation, one concentrates on a very specific thought; one arrives at concentrated thinking and thereby grasps something that acts from the periphery of the universe toward the center of the Earth, in contrast to the ordinary laws of nature, which act from the center of the Earth outward in all directions. Once one has attained concentrated thinking—once one has reached the point where one’s own life and the life of plants are spread out before the soul as if on a vast tableau—one can proceed further. One can reach the point where, after something has taken hold of one in intensified thinking, one can now switch off that intensified thought again. Anyone who knows how difficult it is in ordinary life to switch off thoughts that have taken hold of one will understand that special exercises are necessary to achieve what has been described. But it is possible; one can not only succeed in shutting out a thought on which one has concentrated with all the power of the soul, but also in shutting out the entire tableau of memories—and thus one’s own life—and withdrawing one’s attention from it. Then something occurs that one clearly perceives: one is now descending deeper into the soul, descending into those regions that are otherwise accessible only to feeling. Now, it is usually the case that in everyday life, when one allows visual impressions, auditory impressions, and so on to fade away, one usually falls asleep. But if one has developed concentrated thinking, one does not fall asleep when one now shuts out all thoughts, even the concentrated ones. One then enters a state in which neither sensory perceptions nor thoughts are active—a state that can only be described by saying: the person is merely awake, he does not fall asleep; but at first he has nothing in his consciousness; he is awake with an empty consciousness. This is a state that Spiritual Science has discovered, one that can exist within the human being and that can be developed quite systematically and methodically: to have empty consciousness in a fully lucid waking state. When one otherwise induces empty consciousness, one has fallen asleep in the ordinary state of life. From falling asleep to waking up, we do indeed have empty consciousness, but we are, after all, asleep. To have empty consciousness while awake is what is sought as the second state of knowledge.

[ 15 ] But consciousness does not remain empty for long. It fills up. Just as ordinary consciousness is filled with colors through visual perceptions and with sounds through the ear, so now this empty consciousness is filled with a spiritual world that is just as all-encompassing as the ordinary physical world here. It is only this empty consciousness that discovers the spiritual world—that spiritual world which is neither here on Earth nor in the cosmos within space, but which lies beyond space and time, and yet constitutes our deepest human essence. For whereas we previously learned, with the condensed consciousness of thought, to view our entire earthly life as a unity, we now look out with the fulfilled—and initially empty—consciousness into that world which we experienced in a soul-spiritual life before we descended into earthly existence. We now come to know ourselves as a being who existed spiritually before birth and conception, who lived in a pre-earthly existence prior to earthly life. We come to recognize ourselves as a spiritual-soul being who has received the body he bears from parents and ancestors—received it in such a way that, as mentioned, he can replace it every seven years—but who has brought with him from his pre-earthly existence that which constitutes his true essence. This is not something one comes to know through theories or speculative thinking; rather, one can only come to know it by first developing the necessary abilities with intellectual humility.

[ 16 ] In this way, we now come to know the inner human being—the true spiritual-soul being. It comes to meet us when we descend into the realm of feeling not only through feeling, but also through cognition. But first we must realize that the attainment of knowledge is connected with powerful inner experiences, which I can describe as follows. If you have had any part of your physical body bound so that you cannot move it—if, for example, someone were to tie just two of your fingers together—you would find it unpleasant, perhaps even painful. Now you are in a state where you experience the spiritual and soul realm without the body. Now you do not have your entire physical being with you, for you are living in a state of empty consciousness. The transition to this state is accompanied by a deep sense of pain. Through the experience of pain and deprivation, one gains entry into what constitutes our deepest spiritual-psychic being. Many people shrink back from this. But there is simply no other way to gain insight into the true human being than in this manner. If one learns in this way to recognize what one is in terms of the innermost essence of the human being, then one can go even further. But then one must develop a power of cognition that is not regarded as such in ordinary life: one must cultivate love as a power of cognition—the selfless reaching out into the things and events of the world. If one cultivates this love more and more, so that one can actually carry oneself into the state I have just described—where one is able to view the world free from the body—then one learns to grasp oneself completely as a spiritual being in the spiritual world. Then one knows what a human being is as spirit, but one also knows what dying means, for in death the human being actually sheds his physical body. In the insight I am now describing as the third—which is experienced through a deepening of love—one learns to recognize oneself outside one’s body; one carries out, in the imagery of insight, the separation from one’s body. From that moment on, one knows what it means to shed the body during earthly existence and to pass through the gate of death. One comes to know death, but also life in the spiritual-soul realm beyond death. One now learns to recognize the spiritual-soul nature of the human being as it will be in the life after death. Just as one has previously learned to recognize it as it exists in the spiritual world before the descent into earthly existence, so one now learns to recognize the continued existence of the human being’s spiritual-soul nature after death.

[ 17 ] Here something arises that really brings home just how imperfect our present consciousness is. It speaks of immortality out of hope and faith. But immortality is only half of eternity: the continuation from the present moment into all eternity. We have no word for this today, unlike the levels of understanding in earlier times, which added the other half of eternity to immortality: the unborn. For just as the human being is immortal, so too is he unborn; that is to say, through birth he enters physical existence from the spiritual world, just as through death he returns from the physical world to a spiritual existence. In this way, one comes to know the true spiritual essence of the human being, which passes through birth and death, and only then is one able to comprehend the whole human being.

[ 18 ] What I have described here only in principle and in brief is the subject matter of a body of literature that is already extensive today—one that has truly learned its conscientiousness and its responsibility for knowledge from the most exact science that can exist today. This touches upon a Spiritual Science that truly aspires to be on par with conventional science.

[ 19 ] But it is precisely through this that one comes to understand something else: how life actually consists of two currents. Today, people generally speak of “development”; they say: the child is small, it develops, it grows. It struggles and strives; life sprouts and shoots forth. People speak of how lower life forms have evolved into higher ones: sprouting, budding life that becomes ever more and more complex. And rightly so! This current of life—as one learns to recognize—is counterbalanced by another, which is also present in every sentient being: the decomposing current. Just as we have proliferating, sprouting, and budding life within us—life that builds up—so too do we have life that breaks down within us. Through the kind of insight I have described, one comes to realize that one cannot simply say: our life extends up into our brain and nervous system; there, the material structure organizes itself in such a way that the nervous system can become the bearer of spiritual life. That is not the case. Life sprouts and shoots forth, but woven into this sprouting, budding life is the constant process of decay. Life is constantly decaying within us. The sprouting, budding life continually makes room for decay. We are, in fact, dying in part at every moment; something within us is decaying. We simply rebuild it again and again. But as something within us decays physically, the spiritual-soul aspect has room to enter us and to be active within us. Here we come to the great error of materialism: it believes that the sprouting, budding life develops upward in the human being all the way to the nerves, and that just as muscles are built up from the blood, so too are the nerves built up—and indeed they are. But the building up of the nerves does not in itself give rise to thinking, nor does it give rise to feeling. Rather, as the nerves, so to speak, disintegrate—as it were, becoming riddled with holes—the spiritual and soul elements structure themselves into what is disintegrating. We must first break down the material so that the spiritual and soul elements can emerge within us, so that we ourselves can experience them.

[ 20 ] That will be the great moment in the development of properly understood natural science—when it recognizes the opposite of development at the appropriate point, thereby continuing that development; when it recognizes not only construction but also decay; when it recognizes devolution alongside evolution. Then one will understand how the spiritual in animals and in humans—in humans in a self-conscious way—grasps the material. The spiritual does not take hold of the material by the latter developing toward it, but rather by the material breaking down in a reverse process; and in this breakdown, the spiritual then finds its manifestation, its revelation. Thus, we are filled with the spiritual, which is present wherever there is devolution, not evolution—where there is de-development.

[ 21 ] But then we learn to see through it all—how this whole human being stands before us, how he stands before us in a polar contrast. Wherever there is building up, in every organ, there must also be breaking down. And when we look at any organ—the liver, the lungs, or the heart—it is in a constant flow, a flow composed of building up and breaking down, building up and breaking down. Isn’t it true that we actually use a strange kind of language when we say, for example, “Here flows the Rhine”? — What, then, is the Rhine? When we say, “Here flows the Rhine,” we usually do not mean: “There is the riverbed called ‘Rhine’”; rather, we mean the flowing water when we look at it. Yet that water is different at every moment. The Rhine has been there for a hundred years, for a thousand years. But what is actually there at any given moment? That which is in a state of constant change within the flow! Thus, everything within us is contained in the stream of change—in building up and breaking down—and in the process of breaking down, it becomes the vehicle of the spiritual. And so, in every normal human life, there is a state of equilibrium between building up and breaking down, and within this, the human being develops their proper capacity for the spiritual and soul life. But this state of equilibrium can be disrupted—so much so that an organ may counterbalance its proper formation with insufficient breakdown, causing it to grow uncontrollably; or, conversely, an organ may counterbalance normal breakdown with insufficient formation, in which case the organ atrophies, dries up, and we move from the physiological into the pathological.

[ 22 ] Only those who understand what this state of equilibrium is can also understand how it is disrupted by an excess of building up or breaking down. But once we recognize this, we can also turn our gaze out toward the wider world and find within it what may, under certain circumstances, have a balancing effect on the disrupted processes of formation or breakdown. For example, if we have a human organ that is disturbed because it undergoes excessive breakdown, and if we then look—with a gaze sharpened by insight into Spiritual Science—at something out in nature, at any plant, we will recognize in a particular plant: there is building up. It turns out that in certain plant species we always find building forces that correspond exactly to the building forces of human organs. Thus, if we adopt this general perspective I have now outlined, we can see that the human kidney contains building forces. Let’s suppose they are too weak; they are overwhelmed by the forces of breakdown. We look out at the plants and find, in the common field horsetail (Equisetum arvense), building forces that correspond exactly to the building forces we have in the kidney. If we prepare a remedy from Equisetum arvense and, through the circulatory process and nutrition, properly deliver the remedy to the place where it can take effect, we strengthen—through this remedy—the regenerative forces of the kidney that have become too weak. The same applies to every organ. Once we have grasped this knowledge, we have the ability—through the forces we find in the outside world—to restore balance to the processes of building up and breaking down that have become unbalanced. If, in any part of the body—such as the kidneys—the forces of building up are too strong and those of breaking down are too weak, we must strengthen the breaking-down forces. In this case, we must turn to lower plants, such as ferns, which strengthen the forces of breakdown.

[ 23 ] In this way, one can move beyond merely trying things out and experimenting to see if a particular substance or preparation is helpful. One gains insight into the human organism by understanding the balance among its organs; one gains insight into nature by understanding its constructive and destructive forces; and one thus transforms the art of healing into something that is fully understood—where one does not simply apply a remedy because statistics have shown that “in so many cases it is effective”—but rather, based on an understanding of human beings and nature, one knows exactly how, in each individual case, to transform the natural process in a natural product into a healing factor—that is, for the human organ in terms of constructive and destructive forces.

[ 24 ] I am not saying that medicine has not made tremendous progress in recent times. Anthroposophy fully acknowledges these advances in medicine as well. We do not work in a way that excludes modern medicine; on the contrary, we work with the utmost appreciation for it. But precisely when one examines what has emerged in the field of effective remedies in recent times, one finds that, in all these cases, they were discovered through slow experimentation. Anthroposophy provides clear insight into what has been fully confirmed through an understanding of human nature in those areas where medicine has already been successful. In addition, it offers a whole range of new remedies that have been made possible by this understanding of nature and the human being.

[ 25 ] But if one learns to look into the human being in this spiritual way—and I will yet show how the art of healing can be enriched in the various fields through a true understanding of the spirit—if one learns to look into the spiritual life alongside the material one, then one arrives, —and not in the old, dreamlike way that found its expression in myths, but in a precise way—to combine knowledge and medicine in a thoroughly rational manner. One learns to heal through an art that arises from a genuine, artistic view of the world. And with that, one has returned to what existed in ancient times—though not in the way one must strive for today, now that we have left that glorious science behind us—was present through a kind of dreamlike insight, where one arrived at what can lead to the application of the forces of nature and the spiritual powers toward both the healthy and the sick: toward the healthy in schools and public education, and toward the sick in the art of healing. In ancient times, we had mystery temples where a form of knowledge was cultivated that was intended to solve people’s religious riddles and satisfy the longings of their souls; alongside these mysteries, however, we had healing centers. We are right to view what was practiced back then as childish today. Yet there was a sound core to it—the core being that knowledge of the so-called normal world must extend into knowledge of the abnormal world. For is it not strange that, on the one hand, we say: human beings arise from nature in their healthy state—and yet, on the other hand, we must again explain the sick human being through the laws of nature? For every illness can, in turn, be explained by the laws of nature. Does nature contradict itself? We shall see that it does not contradict itself when a person becomes ill. But understanding must extend from the physically normal into the pathological. It is only in this way that understanding gains its true value—that alongside the place of care for what is normal in life, there is also a place for what is diseased in life.

[ 26 ] Anthroposophy is, however, still in its infancy with regard to these matters, but it is on the path toward goals that an unbiased mind can certainly recognize as legitimate. The Goetheanum near Dornach in Switzerland—which, unfortunately, was destroyed by fire—was intended to be a center of knowledge—one that will hopefully be rebuilt soon—a center of knowledge through which human beings’ longing to gain insight into the sources of their own lives could be fulfilled. Once again, we have—I would say—naturally come to affiliate with this Goetheanum the sanatorium, albeit still in a modest form, but nonetheless in the way it must be before a true understanding of the human being can be achieved: in the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim, which arose from the efforts of Dr. Wegman and which has since found its successor in the institute of Dr. Zeylmans van Emmichoven in The Hague. Thus, in Dornach, alongside a center for spiritual knowledge, the healing center has once again been established. And if, above all, courage is required for the knowledge of the spirit, then courage is also required above all for the art of healing. And this is what lives on at the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim, which is part of the Goetheanum: the courage to heal, to apply for the benefit of humanity all that flows from the whole human being in terms of the potential mastery of healing forces. Therefore, even if only in a modest way, such a center of spiritual knowledge—which in turn strives toward the Mystery — but in a modern sense — where the great questions of existence are to be cultivated alongside an appreciation of life’s small details, may be placed side by side with the healing center that strives, in a spiritual way, to deepen the art of healing accordingly, especially since what has been taking place in Dornach since last Christmas has emerged in an even deeper form.

[ 27 ] This is what already stands today as the real relationship between anthroposophy and medicine, and what is then brought to life in the field of medicine through the dedicated work of my dear colleague, Dr. Wegman, who from the very beginning—and for decades now—has immersed herself so deeply in anthroposophy that her orientation toward the art of healing has come about quite naturally.

[ 28 ] In this external juxtaposition of a center of knowledge and a center of healing, we also see the external image of how anthroposophical knowledge and the practice of healing should coexist internally —arising from a mindset in which an understanding of the human condition in sickness should also give rise to an understanding of the therapeutic, of healing, so that the two do not diverge, but rather the diagnostic process continues into the healing process. Thus, anthroposophy strives for the following: as one makes a diagnosis, in the understanding of what happens within a human being when they are in a state of illness, one simultaneously observes: this is happening within the human being as part of a process of breakdown; that is happening as part of a process of rebuilding. One then recognizes the nature of these processes, for example, where forces of breakdown are at work; one knows where destructive forces are present, and by employing these forces in the remedy, one is enabled to act in such a way that these destructive forces can counteract a constructive process within the human being. And vice versa. In this way, one discerns the state of illness in what is taking place within the human being; but by recognizing the state of illness, one simultaneously gains insight into the nature of the remedy’s effect.

[ 29 ] What can be said—based on this inner understanding of the healthy and sick human being—about the external juxtaposition of the Goetheanum and the Clinic in terms of enriching modern medicine through a deeper understanding of Spiritual Science will be the subject of the next two lectures. Today I wanted only to explore the nature of spiritual cognition and to point out how this spiritual cognition gives rise to an inner permeation of the human being, through which he approaches the forces of nature and the spirit not merely theoretically, but in such a way that he also learns to handle them, so as to shape life—in its healthy and diseased states—out of spiritual cognition. As civilization continues to develop, life is becoming more and more complicated. Even today, a longing prevails deep within many souls to find what is equal to this increasingly complex life. Anthroposophy seeks above all to take these longings into account. And one will see that, in the face of much that is destructive in today’s life, it seeks to contribute in an honest way to what is constructive, to growth and flourishing in civilization—not through empty phrases, but through action, in the practical questions of life; wherever understanding is needed, it seeks to understand in such a way that insight can flow into life; and wherever something arises in life, it seeks to understand it in such a way that it can help.