The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Spirit as a Guide: Through the Sensory World and Into the Supersensory World

[ 1 ] If you drive from here to Basel, board the electric train at Aeschenplatz, and take the route to Dornach, you will find on the neighboring hill a building that, while not yet completed, but whose exterior already reveals the intentions associated with it—a building that is intended to serve as a Free University of Spiritual Science, and which is meant to represent outwardly what is being strived for by that spiritual movement which calls itself the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science movement.

[ 2 ] Now that the movement has become visible to the outside world, one can already hear and read all sorts of things about what underlies this spiritual cultural movement. Certainly, there are also various accounts—though these must still be regarded as exceptions—that contain accurate insights into these endeavors. On the whole, however, it can still be said today that what is said or written about it in public is quite the opposite of what this movement actually strives for. It is very often portrayed as an unscientific, obscure, and—in the worst sense—mystical movement. In particular, it is very often portrayed as if it were intended to stand in opposition to this or that—to societies, creeds, and the like. In truth, this movement and this building in Dornach, the Goetheanum, through which it is represented, seek to serve those longings and those goals that today often dwell so unconsciously in the human soul, in the souls of the broadest masses—longings that in many respects have not yet found a way to express themselves, but which are connected to everything that is meant to lead present and future humanity out of the cultural chaos that is evident to any unbiased observer, and from which every unbiased person must free themselves in the present.

[ 3 ] If one is to infer from historical phenomena—in which, I might say, the main thrust of this movement lies, then one might perhaps point to something that seems quite distant to people today, something that also appears to belong to quite abstract realms of thought and mental images, but which need only be developed for the most general and broadest human interests in order to lead us right into the very heart of what today’s culture needs for its renewal, for its rebirth. I would like to point to what Goethe strove for out of the full breadth and depth of his worldview—a worldview that is still far from being sufficiently appreciated today—and to what he strove for as an understanding of the living world in contrast to the dead, the lifeless, and the inorganic world.

[ 4 ] What Goethe sought as knowledge was closely connected to his entire intellectual endeavor, and he drew the very essence of his worldview from his contemplation of art, yet he extended what he gained from that contemplation to true scientific knowledge—as he was compelled to view it precisely in light of the breadth and scope of his worldview. Goethe allowed himself to be influenced—albeit in relation to the plant world so dear to him and his contemplation of it—by everything that was available to him regarding the plant world from the science of his time; but one can say that nothing he could find in the science of his time was sufficient to explain the essence of the mysteries of this plant world. And so he turned his comprehensive gaze—arising from the primal nature of his being—toward the entire plant world, insofar as it was accessible to him, toward all its forms, and sought a unity within the diversity and variety of plants. He sought, from within the diversity of plants, that which he called his “primordial plant.” When one hears a definition of what he meant by his mental image, it might seem abstract, but it is not. By his “primordial plant,” Goethe meant a unified image of which every plant—whatever its outward form may be—is a reflection: a unified, ideal, spiritual entity through which one can survey the plant world, and which, in a sense, reveals itself in every single plant.

[ 5 ] Such a primordial plant—as Goethe wrote to his friends in Weimar from Italy—such a unified plant, which can only be created in the mind, which cannot be seen anywhere in the external world—such a plant must surely exist, he said, seemingly in the abstract—for how else could one know that a single entity is a plant?

[ 6 ] What matters, however, is not so much what abstract opinion he held about these things, but rather that he held a belief—a profound belief connected to the very essence of things—which is expressed in the following words. He said and wrote about this primordial plant: Once one has grasped it in the spirit, it must be possible not only to compare and recognize the plant forms that exist out there in the world, but also to conceive of plant forms inwardly and spiritually—forms that, even if they do not exist, could nevertheless exist.

[ 7 ] This is a weighty, a significant word. For what does a person—a discerning person—who wishes to grasp such a spiritual idea seek? They want nothing less than to awaken within their soul a thought that can lead them—to use my own expression—to invent the outer reality that can then come into being. He therefore wishes to become so inwardly attuned to what grows in the plant—and in living forms in general—that he may possess within his own spirit, in his thinking and mental images, that which reveals itself outwardly as a force in growth. He thus wishes to immerse his entire being inwardly into the outer world. This striving is far more significant than what Goethe actually achieved in specific terms. As I said, if one characterizes what Goethe intended solely in relation to the plant world—which may interest some people more than others—it might seem abstract to many. But in this kind of spiritual endeavor lies something that can be extended to the entire scope of human knowledge and the human worldview.

[ 8 ] Then one rises from the consideration of the individual, insignificant living being to that of the whole human being—the human being who, when one ascends to his or her wholeness, contains not only what modern natural science observes—which the materialistic mindset of our time often regards as the only aspect of the human being—but also encompasses body, soul, and spirit.

[ 9 ] Goethe took the natural sciences as his starting point. What is called the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science draws, on the one hand, from Goethe in that it seeks to cultivate a worldview that processes in the spirit and allows to reveal itself that which is as truly and intimately related to reality as Goethe’s idea of the primordial plant is to the individual plant; on the other hand, this spiritual movement knows itself to be in complete harmony with the genuine scientific attitude of our time, not with some obscure mysticism. And it knows itself, on the other hand, to be in full harmony with a genuine, honest, and contemporary religious striving of the human spirit in the modern age. I have also spoken here on several occasions in past years about the fact that anthroposophy—the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science—by no means underestimates the significance of natural science or its immense influence on modern culture; indeed, it appreciates natural science far more than many of those who claim to stand on the ground of natural science. Anyone who does not merely adopt the common prejudices about the natural sciences and thereby believe themselves to be a true scientist, but who, with full awareness, delves into what the natural sciences could contribute to the overall education of the human soul and spirit, must say: if this natural science—as it has developed over the past three to four centuries, but especially during the second half of the 19th century—were to fully grasp its own essence, and if those who practice it were to fully understand its true nature, then this natural science would already be proclaiming of its own accord what anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to proclaim. This natural science would speak of its own accord of the human soul and the human spirit, of that which is of eternal value in the human being.

[ 10 ] Why does natural science not do this, even though it penetrates the external, sensory reality of nature so conscientiously and with such rigorous methods? Why, on the other hand, does this natural science not rise—in the same way that Goethe did for the plant world—to such an inner processing of the idea of nature that one becomes one within oneself with creative nature itself?

[ 11 ] To answer this question, one must look back a little at the historical development of humanity in modern times. In the natural sciences themselves, great and tremendous progress has been made. One need only look back at what began with Copernicus and Galileo, and how our understanding of nature has developed right up to the present day. But at the same time, one must consider how little this scientific enterprise was actually completely free—in terms of its entire course and its entire work—within the spiritual life of modern civilization. It was not, for no unified worldview emerged in the course of recent human development that, alongside free, independent natural science, also sought to penetrate the essence of the external sensory world. In the external sensory world, there were monopolies—monopolies on the knowledge of the soul and the spirit. Religious worldviews continued to hold certain ideas about the soul and the spirit. And they succeeded in ensuring that the public—whether more or less compelled or of their own free will—acknowledged that only they had anything to say about the human soul and the human spirit.

[ 12 ] Natural scientists, just like other people, were under the influence of what I would call a “monopolistic understanding” of the soul and the spirit. And because they did not dare to ascend from knowledge of the world to knowledge of the world of the soul, to the world of the spirit, they limited themselves to saying: Yes, natural science does indeed have its limits; it must confine itself to the sensory world alone.

[ 13 ] A mind such as Goethe’s—which was certainly imbued throughout his entire life with a reverent, religious fervor in his sense of the divine in all of nature and in the entire world—always felt the need to form a unified view of the physical, the psychological, and the spiritual.

[ 14 ] One must simply look at the situation in which the natural sciences found themselves, in a certain sense, under pressure from the aforementioned monopolies on knowledge; one must look at what the natural sciences can offer humanity through their own power. Then one will understand such a unified pursuit of knowledge and spiritual development as existed in Goethe. Anyone who does not allow themselves to be oppressed—I would say—by the commandment, “You shall not know the soul and the spirit,” will, precisely through the way in which the modern spirit attempts to penetrate the mysteries of natural science, undergo an education of the spirit. And this education then provides the impetus to continue the development of the human spirit to higher stages of development than those one simply possesses by being born a human being.

[ 15 ] But in order to understand such stages of development, one needs a certain intellectual humility. This intellectual humility is very necessary for people today. This intellectual humility must lead people today to say to themselves: You are not merely a being who may have evolved from lower organisms to your present state of perfection as the world order developed, but you are a being who can continue to develop—and who has continued to develop—in this very life; so that the powers you received at birth can undergo a higher and ever-higher refinement.

[ 16 ] You see, one must be able to tell oneself the following. One must be able to look impartially at a five-year-old child who, for example, is holding a volume of Goethe’s lyric poems. This five-year-old child will truly not know what to make of Goethe’s volume of lyric poems—at least not in the same way that an adult knows how to engage with it. The child might tear the book apart or do something else with it. It must first grow up; only then will it treat Goethe’s volume of lyric poetry in the proper way. Its development must be guided. For although, as a five-year-old child, everything contained in that volume of lyric poetry is already before this person’s eyes, the capacity for this person to draw from that volume everything that might be there for them has not yet developed. Thus, the person of the present must learn to relate to the entire expanse of existence in nature and the world. He must be able to say to himself with intellectual humility: You stand before nature in such a way that, given your present stage of development, it cannot give you what it truly contains within itself; one must be able to assume the possibility of taking one’s own development into one’s own hands, so that one may then—by attaining a higher stage of development than that which one simply receives by birth—be able to treat what one always has before one, what one believes one recognizes—like the five-year-old child who does not yet know what to make of it—in such a way that it reveals to one all the mysteries it holds within. It is precisely the effort one exerts when applying the scientific method today—applying it intensively—and the depth to which one penetrates, that can lead one to feel, through the exertion of the spirit, as if a power were awakened, through which one undergoes such a development. It is truly not the fault of modern natural science that people are so reluctant to admit that human beings can undergo such a development! No, it is due to the pressure I just described, which one need only view without prejudice in order to be able to freely surrender to what lies inherent in the scientific treatment of the world itself. Then one will feel that the soul is awakened from within precisely by contemplating nature in the modern sense, that powers grow within it that were not there before. As a rule, it is precisely today’s natural scientists who do not bring themselves to awaken these powers. But if they were to do so, they would find that they, of all people, could proclaim precisely what is sought in the problem of the immortality of the soul, the eternity of the human spirit. Scientific thinking and a scientific mindset can lead to an inner awakening of the human spirit. And this can then be continued and systematically developed.

[ 17 ] I have outlined how this is possible on several occasions from this place and described it in detail in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, as well as in the second part of my The Secret Science. One can continue, through complete self-education, the process that one observes developing through modern scientific knowledge. One can apply to the spirit what is called meditation, the concentration of thought, feeling, and will. One can push that inner world of mental images to its limits—or at least the mental images one employs—by observing the stars, by working in a chemical-physical laboratory, by externally observing plants, people, or animals; one can further develop the inner mental power one employs there by devoting oneself to thoughts in such a way that one wishes to live solely within these thoughts until, at the very least, the thought leads the soul to grasp inner connections. These cannot be grasped unless one bestows such inner self-cultivation upon the soul. An awakening of inner soul culture is possible. One can indeed achieve such an awakening, so that one’s ordinary life—which one lives out even within ordinary science—seems like a sleep from which one awakens. And from this awakening, one can observe anew the world that surrounds one.

[ 18 ] This is the one thing that modern man can go through. If he applies the natural sciences in the right way—I would say, in the Goethean way—he will arrive at a religious understanding, at a true spiritual understanding.

[ 19 ] But the very life of modern man himself also reveals what leads along such a path and, I would say, toward a corresponding goal for the future.

[ 20 ] Anyone who views history from the outside, as it is usually presented today, does not see the true history. One must look more deeply into the inner lives of people throughout history. One must be able to compare, for example, the entire spiritual constitution of a person from the 9th or 10th century A.D. with that of a person of the present day—even if that person leads the simplest, most primitive life on the outside—because even the simplest person today differs quite significantly from a person of the 9th or 10th century A.D. I do not wish to go back any further. Human beings are certainly in the process of development. Today, one must not take the word “development” merely in that limited sense in which the natural sciences usually use it. One must be able to take it in a much broader sense if one wishes to penetrate the essence of human development.

[ 21 ] One must be able to acknowledge that several centuries ago—that is, during the centuries I just referred to—people were much closer to one another within certain communities. Until relatively recently, people were connected to their neighbors through blood ties and tribal kinship. This closeness—this sense of proximity that brought people together in communities until relatively recently—no longer exists in modern times. If one looks at things objectively, one can see this everywhere. Modern people are, rather, withdrawn into themselves; modern human beings have, I would say, become much more solitary in their souls. People of earlier times did not pass each other by as people of more recent times do. People of more recent times have become more alienated from one another, have grown more distant from one another. But in place of this, I would say, something else arises from a spiritual conscience—something different from what arose for human beings centuries ago. It arises—again, one can see it if one looks impartially into one’s own soul and has a sense for such things; again, one can perceive something like an inner voice—it arises as something like an inner obligation: Now that you no longer feel close enough to those immediately nearest to you through blood ties or tribal kinship, you should be able to draw near to them through the development of your soul. You should take his will into yourself through genuine love for humanity. In order to live together with him in society, you should not pass him by, but rather be able to take his will into your own, to make his thoughts your own. You should be able to think, feel, and will in harmony with his inner state of soul. You should be able to draw closer to him spiritually and emotionally.

[ 22 ] Just as engaging with the natural sciences represents a kind of awakening for the spiritual life—a kind of awakening from the ordinary consciousness one otherwise experiences in everyday life and in conventional science, if one only views conventional science correctly—so this conventional science, I would say, gives rise to inner social duties that are increasingly awakening within the human being. It represents something that can be described in contrast to this awakening—I will have to express this somewhat paradoxically now, though some of the truths that must be incorporated into cultural life today still sound paradoxical—something that can be described as a feeling that comes over us when we truly feel within ourselves: we must draw close to our neighbor in spirit and soul, we must immerse ourselves in their will and their thoughts; it is something that feels like losing oneself in the other person. This losing of oneself in the other person with their spiritual and soul aspects, this devotion to the other person, actually underlies the process of social feeling in the present, which is so often caricatured.

[ 23 ] And when people say, “Science can awaken us”—this feeling it evokes, I would say, brings about the opposite state of mind within us, a remarkable state of mind, if only one can understand it. But just as one is not aware of the awakening that arises from the scientific method, one is equally unaware of this empathy for one’s neighbor. But it will increasingly take hold of modern people. Then, in contrast to the awakening brought about by science, they will experience this as a falling asleep, as a resting in their surroundings, as a passing over of their own soul into the soul of another. And just as the mysterious life of the dream awakens, full of vitality, from natural sleep, so too can love—which expresses itself in such devotion—awaken from this devotion to the human soul, a devotion that will increasingly take hold of modern humanity as a moral imperative; it can awaken from this devotion, which, I would say, is, in a higher sense, a form of sleep. It is a kind of sleep within the human environment; yet from it something rises, like a dream arising from natural sleep. And this dream arising from natural sleep can be compared to what will emerge more and more from genuine—not caricatured—social sentiment.

[ 24 ] This dream will bring to life that which tells a person: Behold, as you attune yourself to the will that is developing alongside your own will, as you become one with the thought that is developing alongside your own thoughts, you will know how you are inwardly connected to this person.

[ 25 ] Just as Goethe sensed something—given to him through his idea of the primordial plant—that he had to describe as a “living into” the entire power of the plant world itself, so too do we “live into” our surroundings—the living environment of the human world—precisely through the most modern sensibility. And again, out of this immersion in the human world, something awakens within one that now emerges like a new insight directly from social life. One feels connected to the essence of another human being. One feels that something speaks within you, as if in a dream, from the essence of another human being, testifying to you: you were already connected to this person in times past.

[ 26 ] From this genuine experience, from this truly modern experience, what has already come to fruition for certain exceptional minds—such as Lessing—will emerge for modern humanity as an experience, as a genuine realization. If one wishes to be thoroughly pedantic—albeit in a higher sense—one might say: Lessing, such a man was certainly great, but in his old age, when he was already half-insane, he wrote his Education of the Human Race and came up with the crazy idea that humanity lives through repeated earthly lives. But for those who are not pedants, but who can truly look into the development of a man like Lessing—who, after all, rose higher and higher— it is quite clear that such a man was merely the forerunner for all those who will come to know this peculiarity, this powerful experience that will arise from a properly understood sense of social feeling, emerging from it, full of life, like a dream; but it will be a vivid dream, not merely a dreamlike state—the having been connected to people whom one meets again in earthly life, the having been connected in earlier earthly lives, with the awareness that one will be with them again in later earthly lives. The experience of repeated earthly lives will develop precisely out of the proper social life and sensibility of modern human beings.

[ 27 ] Conventional natural science has, through its research, already come to the point where it no longer wishes to be purely materialistic—at least among certain thinkers. But when the conventional natural scientist seeks to demonstrate that something of a spiritual-soul nature lives within the human being—something that is not merely an expression of the body—he does not turn to phenomena that he can prove and present, as one presents phenomena from the laboratory, the clinic, and the like; rather, he turns specifically to the abnormal phenomena of human life. And I would like to say that it has become fashionable, precisely where one attempts to point out that human beings also possess a spiritual and a soul aspect within themselves, to investigate the world of dreams, which awakens so mysteriously from natural sleep. But that means investigating everything that arises from the phenomena of suggestion, hypnosis, somnambulism, mediumship, and so on. Here, too, it is all too easy—while anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to draw upon a sound understanding of nature and a healthy experience of the human world—to confuse it with those who, in their quest for a genuine exploration of the human spiritual and soul nature, rely on phenomena such as hypnotism, somnambulism, and the like.

[ 28 ] To gain a deeper understanding of these phenomena, one can start with the world of dreams; one can point out how this world of dreams conjures up symbols before human beings—before the human soul—in the time between falling asleep and waking up, when the human being is not yet fully bound by their spiritual and soul life to their resting body. But anyone who is able to study this dream world properly—if ever asked the question, “What is this dream world?”—will answer: This dream world is something that leads the human being beyond his ordinary, external daily life. - Then—as is quite clear to the impartial observer—all sorts of things that stem merely from the lower, animal-like instincts of human nature would not have to intrude into this dream world.

[ 29 ] Just consider all the things a person is capable of doing in a dream, how he tends toward a life governed by base instincts, how he often even tends toward a life of crime in the fantasies he conjures up in his dreams. People must tell themselves: when they dream, they are not transported into some higher spiritual realm; on the contrary, they have descended into the subhuman realm. Truly, it is a dream in itself when people today—even if they mean well—claim that in their dreams they are carried away into a higher world. No, through dreaming we are transported into a world lower than the one we perceive through our senses. And this is all the more true when such an influence is exerted on a person—by some suitable fellow human being—that they are placed into the sleep-like state of hypnosis; one can then bring about, I would say, even irresponsible influences on the person by inducing a kind of sleep-like state. Then they mistake a potato for a pear and eat it as if it were a pear, simply because this idea is suggested to them, implanted in them: this potato is a pear. And all sorts of other things can be implanted in them as well! It is, after all, merely the extreme form of a state that otherwise exists—I would say—as a state that is not entirely permissible, in which one relies on the dimming of consciousness by another person and seeks to, I would say, forcibly impose ideas upon them. For those who work in the spirit of true Spiritual Science, the question arises: What kind of soul state is a person in when they are dreaming? What kind of soul state is a person in when they are in such a hypnotic or mediumistic state—which is, after all, similar to a hypnotic state—when, in such a hypnotic state, they can be influenced by another person or by their surroundings?

[ 30 ] In a hypnotic state, it is indeed possible for thoughts to be transmitted over long distances; this can be demonstrated experimentally and proven. But the question is simply: into what realms does one bring a human being—with his entire human, physical, psychological, and spiritual being—when one descends into these realms? One then brings him into a realm that is subhuman, one that represents the animal nature within the human being.

[ 31 ] In fact, human beings are reduced, hypnotized, and trivialized down to that which is animalistic within them. And it is precisely through this process that one comes to know the animalistic aspect of human beings—which is, after all, something quite different from the animalistic nature of the animal kingdom—but one enters the realm of the subhuman.

[ 32 ] In contrast to everything that is presented here, the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science referred to here aims to lead us to the soul-spiritual aspect of the human being not by suppressing what is already within the human being, in order to seemingly experience something spiritual and soulful, but rather by developing upward that which is already present in the sensory world into a higher form of perception—by training thought, will, and feeling through meditation and concentration, as described in my book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. - To lead people beyond themselves—in a healthy way, beyond what is already present in sensory perception and ordinary science—that is the aim of anthroposophical Spiritual Science.

[ 33 ] This leads her into a realm that is indeed something new compared to the external sensory world. This is very important for understanding that when a person is placed in a hypnotic, somnambulistic, or mediumistic state—or even when they simply surrender to dream imagery—they become dependent on their external sensory environment in a way that they are not when they are engaged in normal sensory life; when we engage in sensory life while awake, our will can turn our eyes away from something we do not wish to look at, and can even direct only minimal attention to what we hear. In short, we are more in control of our humanity through the will when we relate to our surroundings through the senses. What is placed within the freedom of our will—what brings us into a free relationship when we perceive sensually in the waking state—becomes a relationship of compulsion, as in the animal realm, when we are subdued in the waking state through hypnosis. There we do not discover what is truly spiritual in human beings; there we uncover that aspect of animality within us which is otherwise veiled by our free spirituality; what is otherwise veiled then rises to the surface and comes to dominate the human being. Human beings are reduced to the level of animals. Yet one does not recognize this—since human beings do not behave like animals but express themselves in a more spiritual way—that what is actually taking place is a reduction to the animal state. What anthroposophical Spiritual Science aims to do, by contrast, is to elevate human beings to a higher level of consciousness, and only through this can one recognize what manifests itself at a lower level of consciousness. For when human beings have developed their spiritual nature as I have described it in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, then a different relationship to the world also emerges. But it is not the world that presents itself when we are hypnotized, or when we are in a mediumistic state, or when we become somnambulists; it is not the world of the ordinary sensory environment that presents itself, but a new world, a spiritual world—a world that human beings did not know before, but which presents itself to him as a real world, just as the external sensory world presents itself to the senses as a real world.

[ 34 ] You see, a person can undergo this development by ascending from the human to the superhuman, just as he descends from hypnosis and somnambulism into the subhuman. This development can be undergone, and through it, a person can ascend to a direct perception and direct experience of the spiritual. Through this, the spirit can enter human consciousness.

[ 35 ] Now one might say: Certainly, a book such as this treatise, How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, describes the process of development one must undergo in order to understand that this is truly a real world—one that is come to know in the manner I have described. But not everyone can become a spiritual researcher themselves; not everyone can enter this spiritual world on their own so as to be able to convey messages from it. However, those who reach the stage of development—which has always been referred to, where one has long been aware of the existence of a spiritual, a supersensible world—the world beyond the threshold of ordinary consciousness—whoever enters this world, in which the spiritual surrounds them just as the physical surrounds ordinary consciousness, makes discoveries in the spiritual realm. Through these discoveries, for example, one knows directly that what appears today in human beings—when they are in a hypnotic or somnambulistic state, or when they become mediums—is the result of their ordinary consciousness being subdued. What appears in the human being as the “subhuman” actually represents an earlier stage of human development, and what develops today as sensory perception and intellectual perception represents a later stage of development. And one can even recognize—as you can read in The Secret Science—that when a person today is placed under hypnosis, they become, in an abnormal way, as they were in their environment during a phase of the Earth’s development that lies far beyond what external geological science presents to us as the Earth’s evolution. One can actually gain insight into a much more spiritual and soulful state of the Earth, in which human beings already existed and perceived their surroundings just as they do today when their consciousness is subdued. We gain insight into the Earth’s past, which was not as depicted by the Kant-Laplace theory, but rather as a spiritual-soul being in and of itself, within which human beings were embedded as sensory beings. And on the other hand, one recognizes the human being of the Earth’s future, when the Earth will once again be more spiritual, and when human beings, by their very nature, will perceive things as we do today when we further develop the soul, as I have described.

[ 36 ] These insights alone—even though they represent a need of the newer, modern human being—will, at first, I would say, naturally be attained only by individual people; individual people will enter that realm of life that lies beyond the threshold of ordinary consciousness. So much is necessary if one truly wishes to attain these higher insights. You see, I want to give you an example of a simple higher insight. But in this simple higher insight, the person who arrives at it sees, for example, what the attainment of higher insights—the discovery of higher insights—actually rests upon. In conventional thinking today, people do not realize that, fundamentally, the development of all humanity is just as intrinsically determined as the development of the individual human being. Who today would not find it ridiculous if someone were to say: a person who lives to be seven, fourteen, twenty years old, and so on, is always the result of what they eat and drink; what they eat causes the child to develop further and further from childhood onward, and that is what makes them an adult. Everyone knows that this is not the case, that human beings go through certain stages of development that even lead them to make certain leaps in their natural development. We experience one such distinct leap, for example, around the age of seven, when the teeth begin to fall out and be replaced. Anyone with a sense for such things knows what tremendous upheavals take place in the human organism, for example, when sexual maturity sets in; later on, these upheavals are no longer so clearly perceptible, yet they are still present. Something develops within the human being that springs forth from the depths of their being. The same is true for humanity as a whole. And so it was, for example, around the middle of the 15th century of our Christian era, when humanity underwent a leap in its development. People’s state of mind has become entirely different. Precisely what I have described today has come to pass: that people feel lonely in relation to one another, that they are closed off within themselves, that they no longer feel as close to others through mere blood kinship as they did in the past. This growing independence, this increasing individuality, has developed in the same way that the change of teeth and the onset of sexual maturity occur in the individual human being, in the individual human organism. Thus, arising from the entire course of human development, something emerged in the middle of the 15th century. Such a body of knowledge can come only from the spiritual world. And only when one gains such knowledge—as an inner fact of experience—can one also form a judgment about the realities of repeated earthly lives, about the course of the spirit in human development, about the life of the spirit within natural existence, and so on.

[ 37 ] But everything one can do to arrive at such insights is this: one can prepare oneself through meditation, concentration, and the devotion of one’s thoughts, feelings, and impulses of the will, as described in “How Does One Attain Insights into the Higher Worlds?” One can develop oneself and then say to oneself: You are now ready to receive higher knowledge; but then one must wait. Spiritual Science does not involve simply setting out to gather insights; rather, one can only prepare one’s own soul—and then it must wait. Then one must, I would say, wait for the moment that one perceives as an act of grace from the spiritual world; one must wait until enlightenment comes. The fact that enlightenments arise from the spiritual world occurs in some people but not in others. Therefore, these truths manifest in certain individuals, who must share them with their fellow human beings. Even when such simple insights arise—such as that concerning the turning point in the entire course of human development in the 15th century—one must have come to know them today within the pure life of the soul. One must have learned to refrain from forcibly conquering the spiritual world; one must have worked solely on the development of the soul in order to prepare oneself to receive these truths. Then they come—they come at the right moment. One must limit oneself to accepting them as such—as individual truths. One must simply be clear about this: if one wishes to draw conclusions from them, as some individuals do, then one produces nothing but caricatures of the spiritual world. Let us suppose that a person has made various inner discoveries; he arrives at an idea; then he immediately builds an entire system out of it—a system of nature, a system of history, an economic or social system, or something of the sort. People are not content merely to have such individual spiritual experiences; instead, they continue to draw conclusions from them and build systems upon them. The one who is experienced in the spiritual world works solely on his spiritual development so that he is ready to receive whatever is revealed to him. Then he accepts such an individual experience once more, and waits again until another one presents itself. Just as in the outer, sensory reality a new experience comes about, so one must wait; one must always be filled inwardly with resignation, through which one can wait until the individual inner insights arise. Otherwise, one often ends up creating figments of the imagination. And because most people have only such vague imaginative notions, they assume that the laws in question arise solely from figments of the imagination. In truth, however, no figments of the imagination arise when a person strives to make progress. Only when one makes no effort to gain insights into the invisible does one arrive at figments of the imagination. Rather, only when a person strives to direct all thoughts and development—all mental work—solely toward the goal of making the mind ever more perfect in its capacity for knowledge can they progress far enough; once they have learned to wait, discoveries in the spiritual world will reveal themselves to them through what is meant to be communicated in that world. - It is true, however, that if a person’s destiny—I might say—favors him in this direction, and he learns to wait, he can arrive at discoveries on his own. But above all, they can reach a point where they can recognize as truth what spiritual explorers tell them, and where, through such inner development, they acquire the ability to discern the truth in what others convey to them.

[ 38 ] That is precisely the secret of the life that people will lead when the spirit becomes their guide in the sensory world and in the supersensory world. That, precisely, will be the distinctive feature: that human coexistence will become more intimate. Today we see an illusory, misunderstood form of socialism; we see how people want to act socially, yet in reality they are drifting further and further apart from one another. But then, when one comes to realize: You can develop to the point where you will be able to acknowledge what the other person arrives at through the intimacies of their inner life—through which they make spiritual discoveries—then you will be able to enrich yourself spiritually through your life together with them. Then one will realize that it is precisely when the spirit becomes the guide in the realm of human senses that social life, through this spirit, will be able to attain its true meaning.

[ 39 ] To truly and consciously cross the threshold into the spiritual worlds requires, in a certain sense, that one become fearless in the face of the experiences of the spiritual world. The ordinary sensory world, I would say, lulls us into a certain sense of security. Those who cross the threshold from this sensory world into the true spiritual worlds—which underlie our sensory world—experience, as it were, that the comfortable, solid ground is no longer beneath them. The spiritual world does not possess the same forces of gravity and the like that this sensory world has. Within the spiritual world, a person feels as if on a surging sea, and the sense of security one otherwise has through a firm footing in the external sensory world—through ordinary life—that stability must be provided by inner strength, through which one navigates the spiritual world.

[ 40 ] You must also bear in mind that when one enters this spiritual world, one is not initially adapted to it. As a human being, one is adapted to the world between birth and death; one is not adapted to that which reveals itself as the eternal aspect of human nature when one first enters the spiritual world. One is adapted to the earthly world, to the world here. When one enters the spiritual world after having developed oneself to gain access to it, one actually feels at first—as long as one is still in the body, has not yet passed through the gate of death—that one is not yet adapted to the entire process of development. One often feels this as a burning pain, I would say. Many shrink back from this. Only when one is well prepared to experience both can one transcend oneself, can one venture out onto the open sea of spiritual knowledge, where one must have the guide—the spiritual guide—within oneself.

[ 41 ] But it is already possible today for anyone who observes the things I have described in How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? to realize—out of their own conviction, not through mere reasoning—that what the spiritual explorers and modern seers can truly reveal to the world is based on truth and drawn from reality.

[ 42 ] Human coexistence will arise from our ability to once again recognize when others develop within themselves the capacity to fully acknowledge what has been discovered. A spiritual coexistence will emerge that will provide the fundamental force for the kind of life humanity will need in the future—precisely when certain structures in the social organism, which have arisen from old forces and can only be overcome by new spiritual forces developing from soul to soul, are to be overcome.

[ 43 ] Precisely because the spiritual will become a reality for human beings, precisely because of this, people will grow closer to one another. One need only consider that whether one person discovers this or that in the spiritual world depends on the nature of their life. After all, people know different things about the external sensory world depending on whether they were born, so to speak, in Europe, America, or Asia. In the same way, every person—if they are a spiritual explorer or a seer—knows something different about the spiritual world. What one person knows, in turn, serves as a complement to the knowledge of another person, who in turn knows something else. People will know different things, differing in their spiritual understanding. But they will be able to complement one another.

[ 44 ] In the context of true spiritual knowledge—as it has been presented here today—there is truly no shame or anything demeaning about one person, living a truly social existence, simply receiving from the spiritual world that which enables another to make a discovery. For there is no reason to fear that any person who becomes a spiritual discoverer would stand out for immodesty within their community of fellow human beings. Precisely when one wishes to penetrate the spiritual world, one must first acquire—with the appropriate degree of strength—what I have called intellectual humility; and one knows very well, precisely when one begins to know something of the spiritual world, how little one actually knows. There is no reason to fear that those who have spiritual insight will become particularly arrogant. Those who speak of the spiritual world in clichés, who speak of the Spirit without knowing anything about it, who speak of it through mere philosophical conclusions—they may well become arrogant. But those who penetrate the spiritual worlds also know how small they are as human beings in comparison to this spiritual world, which seeks to realize itself through them, and they truly know that they must become neither arrogant nor dogmatic.

[ 45 ] Now I would like to mention something else. While, on the one hand, it must be said that for the sake of humanity’s future, it is necessary today for those who have not yet discovered certain truths to listen to those who have, and this is by no means something shameful or demeaning to freedom—at the same time, it can also be pointed out that even those who may already be able to perceive to a high degree—those who are seers—learn an immense amount from their fellow human beings. This is what is remarkable: that in this regard, one gains a completely new relationship to one’s fellow human beings precisely through clairvoyance, precisely through the development of the soul-spiritual. One must realize that things can reveal themselves even in a simple, elementary way of life. We experience them; we have the capacity to penetrate into what reveals itself—for example, through a child—as mysterious soul-spiritual depths. This gives us reason—provided we do not interpret it symbolically, provided we do not overanalyze it, but instead surrender to it in love—to recognize it spiritually, so that afterward, when the seer has exercised such love for the simple, the moment of grace arrives for him to recognize something great. And every great, true knower of the spirit will be able to tell you of those moments when—not through an interpretation of what he has just seen, but rather, as if truly at that very moment when this power was awakened within him—he subsequently experienced something different in some person by choosing the spirit as his guide. One comes to know a person. What they share with you from their experiences—perhaps as the simplest, most primitive of people—leads you into the depths of the soul, if you are able to perceive correctly and find the right connection. You discover that what people experience, what people go through, can lead to a revelation in every human being.

[ 46 ] Yes, across the vast expanse of humanity, every person we encounter—if we choose the spirit as our guide through the sensory world and into the supersensory world— every person can give us—when they share their experiences and insights with us—that which they have gained most from the world; something may be revealed within us that is absolutely necessary for our further development. We often notice, however, that people themselves, with their limited faculties, do not apply to their own lives what they believe they possess in their consciousness, in their conscious soul life; they think this is something utterly unimportant, because human beings are incapable of perceiving the supersensible through their own power of judgment. If one looks into the depths of the human soul, having acquired the proper understanding in the way I have described today, then one can—precisely as a researcher of the spiritual realm—gain so much from modern natural science through the way natural science operates in clinics, observatories, and chemical and physical laboratories. If we accept what researchers—who, relying on their own powers of judgment, often grasp only very inadequately what they are doing when they describe their work and results—cannot fully reveal in its depths through what they themselves say about it; if we accept what is told to us about the work in scientific laboratories, then profound secrets of nature are revealed to us. And it is precisely through what Spiritual Science accomplishes in this field that what medicine so often strives for today—what it cannot achieve by its own means, and what is connected to what I have described—will be spiritualized: namely, that medicine and the natural sciences can be enriched precisely through Spiritual Science.

[ 47 ] But the social realm, too, will be enriched when the spirit is able to lead the way through the sensory world and into the supersensory world. And there is no need to believe that what, as a religious element, should be one of the fundamental forces of every human being would suffer as a result of the recognition of spiritual life—as spiritual life takes root among us and the spirit becomes humanity’s guide in the human world! No, quite the opposite is true. Precisely what the religious denominations themselves have sought—they were unable to attain it by preserving old traditions, due to the needs that have arisen from a healthy scientific life. Consequently, they could achieve what they sought to instill in people as belief in the soul and spirit only through dogmatic precepts, whereas in truth, as people come to make the spirit their guide in the sensory world, they will stand within the spiritual realm with their soul life. But people who recognize the spirit—people who live in the spirit with their mental images and feelings—will also be able to revere the spirit; they will be able to find the path to truly religious reverence. Those who know nothing of the spirit will not, even if they count themselves among the adherents of a “religion of the word,” be truly religious people. Those who have the Spirit as their guide do not fear that Christianity might be harmed by the Spirit permeating it through modern Spiritual Science. Oh no, those who say, “There should be no knowledge of the Spirit, for it will undermine religious feeling and Christianity,” are showing themselves to be small-minded. Anyone who truly recognizes the Spirit cannot think so little of the power of the Christ impulse, which has been truly at work in the world since the Mystery of Golgotha. They must think on a much higher plane. They must think in such a way that they say to themselves: whatever insights may come, the more one penetrates into the spirit, the better one will learn to revere precisely that which can only be elevated in its significance for humanity by being understood ever more deeply.

[ 48 ] It is not Spiritual Science that will hinder humanity’s true religious development; rather, the desire to remain stagnant beyond true knowledge and spiritual progress will act as a hindrance to religious development. And it may be that, in the not-too-distant future, many people will come to realize where the obstacles to religious development actually stem from. They stem from the fact that the denominations are no longer willing to live in harmony with what exists as a need within the innermost being of the human person.

[ 49 ] You see, I only wanted to—though I can only do so in a very general way in a lecture such as the one I was allowed to give here—I only wanted to illustrate how the spirit can become the guide of the human being, passing through the sensory world and into the supersensory world.

[ 50 ] Human beings come to know that which is eternal and immortal within them—that which passes through the gates of birth and death—precisely by developing the spirit within themselves, to which they belong. He comes to recognize that, through his soul and spirit, he is a member of the spiritual world, just as he is a member of this world through his body.

[ 51 ] Today, however, the reality is that what I have described is indeed fully alive in the deepest recesses of the subconscious. Anyone who sees through things today knows just how many people there are who long for such spiritual guidance; but in people’s consciousness, this is often not the case. In the broadest circles, I would say, there is still an aversion, an antipathy toward such spiritual leadership. But the one who is at the very heart of such a spiritual movement sees the way in which spiritual movements—or even external cultural movements—have been met in the course of humanity’s historical development! And if one is deeply committed today to the idea that something like the Dornach building, the School of Spiritual Science, the Goetheanum—as its outward representative —it is not yet finished, of course; it is still under construction, but hopefully it will be completed before too long—that such a thing should stand as the visible symbol of the spiritual movement I have characterized for you today in this lecture, then one really needs to recall historical facts in the face of various disparaging judgments.

[ 52 ] Imagine what the world would look like today if, back when Columbus wanted to equip a few ships to sail westward into regions about which he truly knew nothing, and others knew nothing about them either, if the prevailing opinion—which you can read about in history, where it was very much present—had prevailed, regarding Columbus’s intention as folly, as madness! But in the end, he prevailed. Consider what has come of it in modern times: not the “wisdom” of those who refused to provide Columbus with ships prevailed, but rather Columbus’s “madness.” For many people, this madness of Columbus is precisely what anthroposophical Spiritual Science seeks. Even today, many still regard it as madness. But this madness does not merely encompass what is merely spiritual knowledge; no, this madness encompasses such a development of the spirit through which one also becomes a truly practical person—through which one becomes the kind of person who can practically embark on a voyage of discovery into real life. A true voyage of discovery into life is to be inaugurated by that which this building in Dornach is intended to represent outwardly.

[ 53 ] Many people may therefore see madness in what is to be undertaken here. But whoever, out of inner insight, has united heart and mind with that which is to stand as a symbol of the fact that the Spirit is to begin to become the guide in human evolution—through the sensory world and into the supersensory world—knows that out of this “madness” must emerge that which many people, and ultimately all people of the civilized world, must seek, so that we may emerge from much of what which the uninitiated today perceive as chaotic, as a cultural jumble—in order to arrive at that which numerous people and numerous souls do indeed yearn for, yearning for it more than Columbus’s contemporaries once yearned for India, yearning for it as the light that is to dawn upon humanity so that it may truly advance toward higher cultural goals.