The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Understanding of the Super-Sensory Human Being and the Task of Our Age

[ 1 ] When people look at the present hardship and misery, they ask about the causes, and for the most part they will seek these causes in external circumstances. They will first look back on the painful years—four to five years—that have passed. They may also gradually come to realize that what has been so painfully experienced over the past four to five years has been brewing over a long period—through decades, indeed through centuries—of humanity’s recent development, much like a thunderstorm builds up through the sweltering heat of the entire day, unnoticed as it forms, and then finally breaks. But even those people who look back in this way to the causes and origins of our present distress and misery in this age will, to a greater or lesser extent, focus on external circumstances. When it comes to finding a way out of the confusion and chaos of our age, they will also think of external measures and institutions.

[ 2 ] Certainly, this view is correct to a large extent. To what extent it is correct, I myself tried to explain—based on my own convictions—in the lecture I was able to give here in Ulm a few weeks ago on social issues. But there is another side to this way of looking at things. One need only turn one’s attention to something that is a significant contemporary phenomenon with regard to inner human life—the life of the human soul. In the spirit of what I have just hinted at, we are rightly striving for a more social structure of external living conditions than has been the lot of humanity over the past three to four centuries. But is it not remarkable that we are striving for this more social structure out of a very peculiar state of the human soul? Do we not notice that, fundamentally speaking, human souls today are everywhere permeated with antisocial impulses, with antisocial instincts, and with little capacity to understand one another? And precisely because of these antisocial states of mind—and all the more so because they exist—we must strive for a more social organization of external life than the one that, over the past three to four centuries, has fostered the antisocial impulses of our present-day human existence. If one considers the question from this perspective, one discovers how these antisocial impulses of the present are actually connected to the fact that we ourselves have lost the path to the innermost core of the human being—the path to that innermost core which, in fact, every human being senses within themselves, albeit more or less clearly, or merely instinctively and obscurely: the supersensible human being. As strange as it may sound, people today do not know exactly—they do not bring it to their consciousness—what their deeper, dark soul-being thirsts for. It thirsts for an understanding of the supersensible core of the human being. And in the difficulties our age in particular faces in advancing toward a satisfying understanding of this innermost human being—in these difficulties lies much of the basis for what then manifests outwardly as confusion and chaos, however little people are still willing to admit it today. Many people, however, feel that the question I am addressing here should be answered in a completely different way than it will be through what I have to say to you this evening.

[ 3 ] Since I must discuss this question from the standpoint of anthroposophical Spiritual Science, I will not be able to address it in the convenient manner sought by many people today—a manner that is popular in the broadest circles of humanity. When people today are told about the lunar mountains and the way in which we learn about them through physical instruments and physical methods, they come to believe that acquiring knowledge of the lunar mountains must be complicated. People then resign themselves to this and admit that one cannot arrive at knowledge of, say, the lunar mountains, the moons of Jupiter, or the like in a completely effortless way. But when it comes to the supersensible world—when it comes to the spiritual existence of human beings themselves—the broadest circles still behave quite differently today. They find it too difficult when one speaks in the manner in which I will have to speak to you today. Even today, the broadest circles still say: Better than this seemingly scientific approach is childlike faith or childlike belief in the Bible for gaining access to the supersensible worlds. — People insist on what they find most comfortable—the childlike simplicity of creedal faith or biblical faith—when it comes to the highest goal toward which a human being can strive on their spiritual path, and they reject whatever does not lead them along this path in such a comfortable manner. But people today still fail to see certain inner connections that exist between this striving for comfortable spiritual paths, our antisocial impulses, and the difficulties of breaking free from these antisocial impulses. If one were to realize the connections between what has repeatedly been told to people from a certain quarter—and what they have believed: “You can seek the paths to the supersensible through childlike, simple acts of faith”—if one were to recognize the connection between this assertion and this belief, and between what manifests today as antisocial impulses, then one would indeed learn to think differently about what the broadest circles today regard as a “comfortable path into the supersensible worlds.” “But it is not out of some spiritual quirk that Spiritual Science today shows modern people other paths; rather, it shows these paths because it feels this to be an obligation toward the needs and tasks of the present age facing humanity. If humanity today were to look deep within itself and truly recognize who it is, it would say to itself: With regard to the pursuit of the supersensible, one can no longer be satisfied with the old paths. This lives today as a longing in many souls, and anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science seeks to respond to this longing.

[ 4 ] As has been said, people today ask—more or less explicitly, or even more or less unconsciously—about the relationship between soul and body; unless, that is, they have already gone so far as to deny everything spiritual, because doubts about this question have repeatedly arisen in them, and they have grown weary of them. But what, after all, does modern man really know about the soul and the body? He observes the body by employing his senses and his external, physical intellect; or, for those aspects he cannot immediately grasp through the senses and intellect, he turns to the natural sciences, which, through their investigations, are supposed to tell him what the laws are and what the inner nature of this human physical body is. On the other hand, human beings perceive inwardly what they call their thinking, feeling, and willing. This becomes an inner experience for them. To this thinking, feeling, and willing, he also attaches certain inner longings, desires, and hopes; he attaches the belief that this inner life, which exists in thinking, feeling, and willing, has not merely that transient significance for the world that the life of the physical body has. But then the question arises for the human being—a question that gives rise to great doubts: What is the relationship between what I perceive inwardly and spiritually within myself as thinking, feeling, and willing, and what I see externally in myself and in others as the outer physical body, whose laws and nature natural science seeks to explain to me? And if a person cannot clarify this relationship between the soul and the body on their own, they will likely turn to those who, based on certain scientific foundations, have the ability to investigate this relationship more deeply. And lo and behold, modern people—who are so eager to have everything explained to them by scientific authority—must then realize that they can gain little insight into this question from the very scientists they so eagerly seek out. If they pick up any work in which researchers in this field have expressed their views, they will generally find that these researchers speak of this question with just as much uncertainty as they themselves feel within. One finds all manner of hypotheses and conjectures. But something that grips people so deeply that, if they were to take a truly unbiased stance on the matter, they might gain a sense of the truth—such a thing is rarely found today. The anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science has set itself the task of finding this.

[ 5 ] But one cannot advance toward what I am now going to speak to you about—as a Spiritual Science, as a true Spiritual Science—by following the same paths that lead to external science. Just imagine if someone were to tell you about the research methods he has employed in a chemistry or physics laboratory, or in a clinical setting, to investigate external nature. You would generally hear from such a researcher—who can, with some justification, consider himself an expert in his field—that he has pursued his research with a certain calm, with a certain inner equanimity of spirit. There isn’t much excitement to be found in today’s research paths.

[ 6 ] One who wishes to share with you something of the path he has taken to arrive at insights into the supersensible nature of the human being cannot tell you about such peace, such an inner, serene state of mind. If he is to speak to you of what he has gone through to arrive at these insights, he will have to speak to you of inner struggles, of inner battles of the soul, of arduous efforts, and of repeatedly standing on the brink of the abyss of doubt. He will have to tell you about what he has had to overcome in abundance, what he has had to go through in order to arrive at what sheds light on the very essence of the supersensible human being. For one actually only sets out on the path to knowledge of the supersensible human being when one immerses oneself in everything I have already hinted at: when doubts arise regarding the relationship between body and soul, so that one feels something that can actually only arise from a certain intellectual humility—whereas most people today possess not intellectual humility at all in such matters, but, on the contrary, the most terrible intellectual arrogance.

[ 7 ] But if one really makes an effort using ordinary thinking—with all the ordinary powers of the soul that one otherwise possesses in life—to approach these questions about the nature of the soul and the body, then one gradually realizes that one must be humble, that one cannot approach these questions with ordinary human thinking. And through inner experience, through inner perception, one gradually comes to the realization that one’s ordinary human thinking and feeling in relation to the supersensible are like those of a five-year-old child with its limited abilities when, for example, it holds a volume of lyric poetry in its hands. This child cannot make sense of the poetry collection in a way that corresponds to the essence of that collection. We must first develop the child’s abilities further; only then can the child make sense of the poetry collection in a way that corresponds to its essence. So one must say to oneself, with regard to the thinking abilities one possesses for ordinary life, and with regard to the powers of cognition one possesses for this ordinary life: You cannot use them to perceive the true nature of the world and of your own existence; at first, you stand before this nature of the world and this nature of your own existence in such a way that you can make as little sense of it as a five-year-old child can of a volume of lyric poetry.

[ 8 ] Only when one has developed this state of mind within one’s soul, when one has attained intellectual humility to the point of saying to oneself: “You must not remain stuck in the way you are currently able to think, feel, and will”—only then does one stand at the starting point of the path into the supersensible worlds. For anyone who has something to say about the supersensible worlds must not only speak of something other than the ordinary external sensory world, but must also speak in a different way. This means, however, that one can only become a researcher of the spirit if one first takes into one’s own hands the powers of thought and cognition that one possesses for ordinary, everyday life and for ordinary science. Just as a child is raised by others, and just as a child’s abilities are developed by others, so one must take one’s inner soul abilities—first and foremost, one’s capacity for thought—into one’s own hands and develop them further from the standpoint to which thinking naturally arises in life.

[ 9 ] In my book *How Does One Gain Insight into the Higher Worlds?*, I have described all the details—those details that can be systematically organized, through which a person can take control of their own thinking and further develop it beyond the level found in everyday life and in conventional science.

[ 10 ] Tonight, due to time constraints, I will only be able to present the basic principles of the matter. I will only be able to show you how to develop this line of thought further, how to take it into your own hands and carry it ever onward. A prerequisite for this is the following: As I said earlier, if one wishes to gain insight into the outer, physical nature of the human being, one turns to the natural sciences. Now, these natural sciences should not be disparaged. The spiritual researcher fully acknowledges the great triumphs of natural science in recent times, just as the natural scientist himself can acknowledge them. He recognizes natural science as legitimate; the better he understands how to appreciate the value and significance of natural science, the better a spiritual researcher he is. However, precisely for this reason, the other side of the story must also be told: If one turns to natural science, it initially places one at the limits of knowledge. You are all well aware that it is precisely the level-headed natural scientists who speak of such limits of knowledge. Certain concepts, certain mental images are presented to the person who inquires into the nature of things, into force, matter, and so on. These concepts change from time to time, but certain limits always remain, about which the natural scientist says: You cannot go beyond these limits. The natural scientist acts correctly within his field when he stops at these limits. The spiritual researcher cannot do this. But neither should he seek to go beyond these limits through mere speculation or mere fantasy.

[ 11 ] When the spiritual researcher approaches that which natural science cannot perceive—and where natural science drives in the boundary stakes of knowledge—that is where the great inner struggles of the soul begin for him, the spiritual researcher. The spiritual researcher must struggle inwardly with what the natural scientist presents as fixed boundaries. And there this struggle becomes a first great experience. Through this inner struggle, he overcomes these boundaries, and as he overcomes them, an insight dawns upon him through these experiences—an insight that is important, fundamentally important, for everything that is to lead to the knowledge of the supersensible nature of the human being. As he devotes himself to this struggle with the limits of scientific knowledge, he comes to realize how uniquely the human being is adapted to life. For the spiritual researcher must ask himself, based on his experience: What is preventing you from looking into the inner workings of nature in a purely scientific manner? —There he discovers something most remarkable—I would even say, something profoundly startling: If nature were transparent, so that it did not impose limits upon us, then we human beings, in our lives between birth and death, would lack a quality that is absolutely essential for our social existence in this life. If human beings could look into the inner essence of nature, they would have to do without the spiritual power of love! Everything we call love from one person to another, everything we call love and brotherly feeling from one person to another—everything that glows in the soul when we interact socially with another person—we could not have if nature did not set limits on our understanding of nature.

[ 12 ] This is a truth that cannot be proven logically. Just as one cannot logically prove that a whale exists, or that a whale does not exist—one can only be convinced by seeing it with one’s own eyes—so one cannot prove that one would have to do without love if knowledge of nature were boundless. But as an experience, it reveals itself to those who truly strive to delve into spiritual knowledge. There one sees what mysteries our human existence holds. One such mystery is that human beings must pay for their limited knowledge of nature by developing love. And conversely: they must pay for their capacity for love by initially lacking unlimited knowledge of nature.

[ 13 ] But this also shows us what a person must overcome if they truly wish to penetrate the spiritual world, to which human beings themselves belong with the innermost core of their being. This is one of the fundamental principles for the paths leading upward to the supersensible human being and to the supersensible world in general: that one must make one’s capacity for love and devotion to all beings in the world even greater than it is in ordinary life between birth and death, so that one does not lose love when one attempts to shape one’s thinking more and more in a way that differs from ordinary life. It must be a preparation for the spiritual path of knowledge to make oneself far, far more capable of love than one needs to be for ordinary social life. For one gradually realizes that, in one’s entire, full human nature, one actually comes to know the world—as long as one is in the physical body—only through love, and through no other method of inquiry.

[ 14 ] But if one wishes to penetrate the spiritual world, one must at the same time develop one’s thinking to a higher level than it naturally develops on its own in human nature. This is achieved by systematically applying—through self-discipline—certain inner soul processes and activities that one otherwise engages in only incidentally in daily life. Today I can only give you a brief glimpse of what you will find described in detail in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, but I can at least hint at what this higher development of human thinking is based upon.

[ 15 ] You know, when something from the outside stimulates us in some way, we become aware of it. We hear a sound, and we take an interest in what is happening in the direction of that sound. Taking an interest in something, directing our attention to something—these are inner mental activities that, in human beings, are generally stimulated by the outside world. What matters when embarking on the path of spiritual knowledge is that we apply such forces—such as those that lead to attention and interest—voluntarily within ourselves, for example, by devoting ourselves for a very, very long time, as they say, to meditating on a mental image, by immersing our soul completely in that image. In the ordinary, natural course of life, attention and interest in this mental image are lost. But if one deliberately immerses oneself with one’s whole soul in such a mental image, remaining within it—so that one sustains from within the attention that threatens to fade, and sustains the interest from within when it threatens to fade—through the length of time one devotes to the mental image—and if one continues to do this, then one strengthens one’s thinking; thinking becomes something entirely different from what it was before. Then one does indeed arrive at a form of thinking that is full of inner activity, but one must also exert oneself in it, just as one must exert oneself in manual labor. One arrives at a form of thinking that relates to ordinary thinking in the same way that ordinary thinking relates to the thinking of a five-year-old child—for example, in relation to lyric poetry. But one arrives at a form of thinking about which one says to oneself: once one has attained it, one had to devote an inner effort to this process of attainment—an effort that has so thoroughly exhausted the physical body, which is also actively involved in the process, that one feels it as a kind of fatigue resulting from hard physical labor to which one has devoted oneself for years. If one learns to recognize that one can cultivate something within the soul that requires as much effort as, say, chopping wood, then one comes to grasp living thought within one’s soul, whereas ordinary thinking merely accompanies external phenomena and external experiences. Just think for a moment about how you actually think in everyday life: You go about your work in everyday life, and your thinking runs alongside this external life in a dreamlike manner. If you strain this thinking by reading a difficult book, you will notice: Precisely when thinking seeks to be inwardly active, it must become fatigued just like any other activity. But what is developing as an activity from within must be driven further and further by thinking. When this is driven further and further, one realizes that a great transformation is taking place within one’s thinking. Then one begins to recognize something of which one previously had no inkling: one comes to realize that one lives within a form of thinking of which ordinary thinking is merely a mirror image, a reflection: One comes to know a form of thinking that lives inwardly, a form of thinking that is entirely independent of the instrument of the brain, of the instrument of the body. As grotesque, as paradoxical, perhaps as crazy as this may still seem to present-day humanity: human beings can, by following the path you describe in the book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* ,” come to know with absolute certainty: By thinking—by developing the soul’s activity of thinking—you live outside the body with your thinking, whereas ordinary thinking is bound to the instrument of the body, to the nervous system. But one also learns to recognize precisely how little the inner soul-being, which one thus perceives in one’s thinking, is bound to the instrument of the brain. For one does not actually develop this inner soul being; rather, one merely comes to know it. I am not speaking to you of something that is being developed anew today, but of the knowledge of the supersensible human being. One comes to recognize the great error into which ordinary natural science and the popular, external view of thinking have fallen, especially in our materialistic age.

[ 16 ] This scientific way of thinking asserts: The brain is the instrument of thought. But this is just as much of a mistake as it would be if you were to see wheel tracks and footprints in a muddy dirt road, and if you were to ponder—let’s assume for a moment—how forces from below, from the earth itself, might have caused the wheel tracks or the footprints. That would, of course, be utter nonsense. You cannot see from the structure of the earth itself how the ruts came into being. You must realize that a wagon drove over there, that people walked over it with their feet, and that this left an impression. This is how you arrive at the error of natural science regarding human soul life when you truly come to know thinking as something independent of the body. There you come to realize that what exists as nerve grooves in the brain does not possess forces within the brain itself that produce the soul’s activity; rather, you come to recognize that all these grooves have been imprinted—just as the furrows in soft earth are imprinted by a wagon and footsteps—that these grooves are imprinted by the soul’s activity, which is independent of the body. And you will now also understand the error that can arise in the natural sciences. For everything that is imprinted there, such traces are formed in the brain; you can trace them all; but they did not arise from within the body—they were imprinted into the body.

[ 17 ] However, it is not always easy to grasp this active essence. In order to catch even a brief glimpse of this human thinking—which is independent of the body—one needs what might be called “presence of mind,” for such a flash of the spiritual into our ordinary perception does not last long. One can prepare well—you will also find this discussed in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*—by developing in everyday life what might be called presence of mind: a quick grasp of situations and the ability to act swiftly in a given situation. If one now cultivates this quality more and more, one prepares oneself to see what may appear from the spiritual, the supersensible world—and what a person otherwise fails to see because, while it is occurring, they do not have time to muster the necessary presence of mind; because they do not have time to observe it before it has passed. But if one truly learns to look into the spiritual world in this way—if one learns to recognize what lives within the human being and can be grasped through developed thinking—then one sees not merely into ordinary, everyday human life, but a completely different perspective opens up.

[ 18 ] There is one thing this spiritual insight lacks: it cannot be recalled in the ordinary sense. Anyone who wishes to tell you something about the spiritual world must always recreate the conditions necessary to perceive it. They cannot simply do this by developing a memory of their previous spiritual vision. But even if that spiritual insight passes quickly—I would say, like a fleeting dream that is soon forgotten—it contains within itself a meaningful memory. And at this point, one must say something that, quite naturally, must strike people today as highly peculiar. But it certainly struck people as peculiar, too, when they were told that up there there are not merely points of light, but countless worlds scattered throughout space! Just as people centuries ago were initially reluctant to believe this, yet grew so accustomed to it that today it is a matter of course for them, so too will what the spiritual researcher presents as his experience through his developed thinking still seem unfamiliar today; yet it will inevitably become a self-evident insight in the coming centuries. And one task of our time will be to help people develop an understanding of such an expansion of human cognition and perception. The moment a person possesses an inner, living thought and knows that through this thought they are independent of the body, they look back — even though they cannot have ordinary memory at that moment — upon the spiritual-soul life they lived through in a purely spiritual world before they united with the physical human body through birth or conception and thereby descended from a spiritual world into the sensory world. One’s perspective expands beyond the life one has lived since birth; life expands into a vision of the spiritual world from which we have descended into our physical existence.

[ 19 ] This also gives our entire social life as human beings a new meaning. In social life, we form relationships with this or that person. We may feel an immediate affinity with one person, while with another we do not find ourselves so quickly united in mutual sympathy. The most diverse kinds of relationships arise with other people here in this life, between birth and death. If, as a researcher of the spiritual realm, one learns to perceive life as I have just indicated, then one discovers that what attracts us to one person, what more or less alienates us from another—in short, what arises in our relationships with other people— is the result of what we have experienced with other souls in another world before we—and before they—descended into this physical existence. Everything we experience in the physical world becomes a reflection of experiences in the spiritual world. Thus, through human-spiritual effort in our age, it will be possible to gain insight into the spiritual world from within this physical world.

[ 20 ] There may still be many people today who cannot bring themselves to accept such a view. However, one can have one’s own thoughts about such people. When the first railroad was built in Germany, a panel of doctors and other scholars was convened: they were to decide whether railroads should be built or not. These learned gentlemen rendered their verdict: railroads should not be built, for riding them would be harmful to one’s health, and only fools would want to ride them. In any case, they argued, a high wooden wall would have to be erected so that those whom the railroad passed by would not suffer concussions. — Today there are people who, figuratively speaking, believe one gets a concussion when a researcher of the spiritual realm speaks of insights into the supersensible world. But the course of history will move beyond these prejudices, just as it has moved beyond other prejudices.

[ 21 ] What I have described to you is one way of crossing over from the physical world into the supersensible world. One must grapple with the limits of knowledge of nature. But one must also reach another limit if one wishes to enter the spiritual world and gain insight into the supersensible human being. Just as one reaches the limits of knowledge of external nature, one must reach the limits of knowledge of one’s own being.

[ 22 ] A great many people, despairing that their old religious traditions can provide satisfaction for their inner spiritual life, turn to so-called mysticism, believing that if they immerse themselves deeper and deeper into their souls, their inner spiritual life—their human nature—will be revealed to them. Many people believe that their true human essence can well up mystically. The spiritual researcher must also come to know this boundary. He must be able to be a mystic, just as he must develop an understanding of nature. But just as he cannot remain stuck at the level of knowledge of nature, he must not remain stuck at the level of mysticism either. He must learn that mere mysticism leads to nothing but illusions about the supersensible human essence, and not to a true understanding of this supersensible human essence. Anyone who is a true spiritual researcher is certainly not a dreamer. He does not succumb to delusions about what he must recognize as reality. That is why he does not, like the ordinary mystic, set out to conjure up all manner of fantastical things from within himself. No, he knows one thing for certain: by wrestling with his own inner self, by living through this process of overcoming, he knows that what the mystics find is, in essence, nothing other than that which has made an impression on their souls since birth. They may have absorbed it only dimly; it may not have come into their perception quite clearly, but it has nevertheless remained in their memory.

[ 23 ] Scientific research has already made some quite interesting observations in this regard. I’d like to share a brief one with you that is documented in the scientific literature—though there are hundreds, even thousands, more like it. A naturalist was walking past the window of a bookstore one day. His gaze fell on a book. And as he looked at the book’s title, he had to laugh. Just imagine—a naturalist has to laugh when he sees a serious book title! He couldn’t explain why he had to laugh. So he closed his eyes, thinking he might figure it out more easily if he wasn’t distracted by external impressions. As he closes his eyes, he hears in the distance something he hadn’t heard before, while he was distracted: a barrel organ. And as he thinks about it further, it occurs to him that the barrel organ is playing a melody to which he once danced. Back then, it hadn’t made much of an impression on him; he was more interested in the dancer, or perhaps the dance steps. The impression of the melody itself was faint at the time, but still strong enough to resurface later in life when the researcher hears the same melody coming from the barrel organ!

[ 24 ] The spiritual researcher knows such things and their true nature very well, for he harbors no illusions. He knows: When some mystics speak of experiencing the divine human being within themselves, of experiencing something that unites them with their Eternal Self, these are merely “the sounds of the barrel organ”: They once absorbed something that has been transformed—for such things do transform—and this rises up as a reminiscence. On the path of ordinary mysticism, you find nothing other than what you once absorbed, and you can succumb to the most terrible illusions by merely wanting to be a mystic.

[ 25 ] It is precisely this boundary that the spiritual researcher must transcend. Once again, one comes to know through experience what cannot be proven “logically,” but which emerges for the spiritual researcher as a lived insight, a lived experience: one comes to recognize that one must not attempt to know oneself through inner self-examination. For if one could see right through oneself inwardly, one would lack a human soul force that is necessary for ordinary life. If one could see right through oneself inwardly, one would not be able to possess, in ordinary life, the power of recollection, the power of memory. And the health of this power of recollection, this power of memory, depends on our overall health in our soul life. If our memory is disturbed, if the “I” is disturbed, a terrible illness of the soul arises. So we must say: Just as a person, in order to have love, must have limits in their understanding of nature, so too, in order to have memory, they must be placed in a position where it is impossible to reach the higher human being through mere inner contemplation.

[ 26 ] But one can, in turn, ensure that this ability to remember is more firmly rooted in human nature than it is in ordinary life, which can also be achieved through exercises such as those I have described in the aforementioned book. If one performs the exercise every evening of reviewing one’s daily experiences and creating very clear mental images of them, so that one always surveys one’s daily life in accordance with this practice, then everything related to memory becomes more firmly rooted in the soul than is otherwise the case. And then one can try—to put it simply—that exercise which consists of consciously taking control of the discipline of one’s habits and the discipline of one’s own self. Just consider how we change from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, from decade to decade! Take a look at yourself—at your state of mind today—and compare it to how you were ten or twenty years ago. You will see that a person undergoes a process of development. But a person develops unconsciously; life develops them.

[ 27 ] Just as one can move toward a conscious elevation of thought, as I have described, so one can move toward conscious self-discipline by always noting: You are doing this or that poorly; you must learn from life. In this way, one can take control of the development of one’s will, just as one has taken control of the development of one’s thoughts. If one takes control of the development of one’s will in this way, then something develops in turn that, so to speak, illuminates the otherwise dark will in which one finds oneself in ordinary life: one perceives everything that one experiences as will to be permeated by thoughts. One becomes, so to speak, a spectator of one’s own willing and doing. When one reaches the point of being such a tangible—spiritually and psychologically tangible—spectator of one’s own willing and doing, then what one gains there as a higher capacity of will converges with what previously developed as thought activity. And now another capacity emerges: one now perceives within one’s own human being something that appears so independent of all physical activity that one knows: what you carry within yourself in this way, you carry with you beyond death into the spiritual world. Through the cultivation of the will, one comes to know the spiritual life that a person experiences after death, just as through the cultivation of thought one comes to know the spiritual life that a person experienced before birth or conception. You see, spiritual research cannot speak of the supersensible human being in the ordinary way; rather, it must describe how one gains the experience of being able to perceive the life of the human being that lies before and after death.

[ 28 ] By delving in this way into the world and into one’s own human nature, social life presents itself anew. One observes how one experiences this or that together with other people, how one enters into relationships with others, how one becomes friends with others or is connected or separated again by other circumstances in the world. One comes to recognize that everything that takes place in this way in the physical-sensory world is only the beginning of something that continues to develop as we pass through the gate of death. The relationships of the soul that are formed here between one person and another continue when a person passes through the gate of death. The life that follows death becomes a very concrete reality as we know ourselves to be connected—even beyond death—to those people with whom we feel connected here through our relationships in sensory life.

[ 29 ] These are things that still seem strange to people today, but which must be addressed by the challenges of our contemporary culture. If they are, then something entirely different will come to the fore for humanity. Then humanity will come to see in a completely different light what it today calls its own human development, what it today calls history. If one develops abilities such as those I have spoken of, then one will also view the historical development of humanity differently than what is dictated by the “fable convenue”—what is called history today and which must become something entirely different in the future. At the conclusion of my remarks, I would like to give you an example to show you how the human being of the future must penetrate into the historical development of humanity itself.

[ 30 ] People usually don’t realize it, but at a certain historical juncture in modern times, a major turning point in human development occurred. That was in the middle of the 15th century. It is commonly said that nature does not make leaps. This is a saying that is generally believed, even though it is false. Nature is constantly making leaps. Consider the development of a plant: how a flower with stamens and a pistil, and finally the fruit, develops from a single leaf! Historical life, too, makes leaps. And such a leap—one that goes unnoticed simply because history is viewed so superficially—occurred in the mid-15th century. The expanded human vision, which transcends—just as it transcends the experiences between birth and death—even that which manifests only in external history and external facts, and looks into the spirit of historical activity. And so this perspective reveals that, since the mid-15th century, we have been living in an age that will endure for a long time to come—an age that succeeded another, which began in the 8th century B.C. and lasted until the mid-15th century. This era, from the 8th century B.C. to the 15th century A.D., encompasses everything that constituted the distinguished Greek culture with its beauty, what existed as Roman culture, and the legacy of Hellenism and Roman civilization. And since the middle of the 15th century, we have had—as I will characterize it shortly—our modern culture alongside modern humanity.

[ 31 ] How do these two cultures differ? They differ in a way that people today are not yet willing to see or acknowledge. Before the 15th century—and all the way back to the 8th century B.C.—human beings were capable of developing in a completely different way than they are today. I can explain this to you as follows. Just think about what a child is like in the years before losing their baby teeth around the age of seven, and what a turning point that is in their life! You can read more about this in the short treatise *The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science*. You will see what it actually means—for the close observer of human nature—what a child goes through when losing their baby teeth. There is a parallelism between external physical development and internal soul development. Then there is another key developmental stage during puberty, around the ages of fourteen or fifteen. At this point, the parallelism between body and spirit becomes less distinct, but for present-day humanity it nevertheless continues roughly until the age of twenty-seven. At the age of twenty-seven, one ceases to feel this connection between spiritual-soul development and physical development so strongly. This remarkable fact—that human beings complete their physical development at the age of twenty-seven—has only become apparent since the middle of the 15th century. Things were different in the preceding period. What can be recognized here through spiritual research is an infinitely significant truth about human development. In Greek and Roman times, human development was such that, up until the age of thirty-three or thirty-five, there was a parallelism between physical and spiritual-psychic development. The Greeks developed such qualities—albeit not with the same intensity as the change of teeth and sexual maturity—well into their thirties. This accounted for that remarkable harmony between the soul and the body in the Greeks. This is the progression that human history reveals: that we have fewer and fewer years of youth, and less and less of what emancipated us from the physical and bodily in our earlier years. But this also necessitates a completely different relationship between the soul and spirit and the world in human beings. During the long period from the 8th century B.C. to the 15th century A.D., human beings developed more of an instinctive intellect and an instinctive emotional life. Everything that existed during this period is permeated by this instinctive intellectual and emotional life. But since the middle of the 15th century, human beings have developed a more conscious intellectual life and a more conscious emotional life, and with this, the demand to stand on the ground of free personality. This demand of human nature to stand on the ground of free personality has only developed in history since the middle of the 15th century.

[ 32 ] This also explains how major events in human development take on different significance depending on whether they occur in one epoch or another. In the epoch that preceded our own—during which human beings remained capable of physical development well into their thirties—the greatest event in Earth’s history occurred in the first third of that epoch: the event that actually gives Earth’s history its true meaning—the Mystery of Golgotha, the foundation of Christianity. It is in the first third of the Greco-Latin era that what is the central event of the entire human development on Earth takes place. Just as it presented itself to humanity at that time, it could only be understood naively by humanity in an age when instinctive powers of the intellect and instinctive powers of the soul were present. Drawing upon these instinctive powers, people in that period were able to relate to the great event in the right way, because they behaved not consciously but naively. They said to themselves: What is happening here is not merely something done by human beings; something superhuman has burst into earthly evolution. Christ, the superhuman being, united with the body of Jesus of Nazareth. What happened on Golgotha is, in its physical reality, merely the outward expression of something supersensory that took place in the course of Earth’s evolution.

[ 33 ] In that era, then, people could grasp this instinctively. Things have changed since the mid-15th century. Since the mid-15th century, instinctive understanding and instinctive emotional powers have transformed into conscious understanding and conscious emotional powers. This made it possible to develop the natural sciences to the high level they have reached, but it also led to external industrial development and the materialism of the age—which had to be present as a byproduct in order to elevate the free personality to the highest degree. But we must emerge from this materialism by seeking the path into the spiritual world in a new way, as I have described today. The age has become materialistic in the epoch in which the human consciousness-soul has developed out of the earlier instinctive soul. Alongside external materialism, the materialism of theology has also emerged. Consider how, in wide circles, even theology—the religious worldview—has been gripped by materialism; how the human being of the age of consciousness became incapable of recognizing the supernatural in the event of Golgotha; how he came more and more to reduce it to the sensual realm; how they finally took pride in this—how even numerous theologians took pride in no longer seeing in Christ the supersensible being who descended to Earth into the body of a human being, but in seeing only the “simple man from Nazareth,” who, though somewhat greater than other human beings, is nonetheless merely a human being. The fact that the Mystery of Golgotha—the death and resurrection of Christ—represents the greatest event in the development of the world and humanity has not yet dawned on the materialistic age. Religion itself has been materialized. Simple, dogmatic faith will not be able to halt this materialization of religion. It can be halted only by the conscious spiritual knowledge of which I have spoken today. This knowledge will in turn lead to the realization that in Jesus of Nazareth lived a superhuman, a supersensible being who has been united with the development of humanity ever since that time. The Mystery of Golgotha will once again be brought into the field of human perception through anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science; but now it will be presented in such a way that it is freed from the narrow-mindedness of individual denominations.

[ 34 ] What will develop as a spiritual perception of the supersensible human being, as I have described it today, will make it possible for this perception to live within every human being across the entire earth, regardless of racial or national differences. From there, however, the path to the Mystery of Golgotha will also be found, and all people throughout the world will come to understand and grasp this Christ event. In our time, people rave—and do so all too easily—about the so-called League of Nations; they rave about this League of Nations in the utopian manner in which it arose in the abstract mind of Woodrow Wilson. It cannot come into being in this way. It needs a foundation in reality, and this must spring from the innermost depths of the human soul. That is the task of our time. Only in this capacity of the soul—which leads to the recognition of the supersensible human being and unites people throughout the world— only through such knowledge, which can perceive the Christ event as a supersensible event, only in such an impulse that works across nations, that works through the nations across all borders—in this lies the real power for a future, true League of Nations spanning the Earth. Thus must Christianity put down its new roots in human culture.

[ 35 ] This shows you the other side of what I was able to say here in my previous lecture. It shows you the aspect that corresponds to the inner life of the human soul—the aspect that, in turn, will kindle social impulses within a person when it fills them. To accept this Spiritual Science, one does not need to place faith in authority, as one does when accepting other scientific knowledge—such as that presented, say, by an observatory regarding astronomy, or by medicine regarding the nature of the human physical constitution. That must be accepted on authority unless one wishes to become an astronomer, physiologist, and so on oneself. But what the spiritual scientist tells you, you do not need to believe on authority. Nor do you need to be a spiritual scientist yourself, just as you do not need to be a painter to appreciate the beauty of a painting. You can take in Spiritual Science through your common sense without being a spiritual scientist yourself, if you simply set aside the prejudices that have developed out of today’s materialism. Because everything in Spiritual Science is inherent in the depths of the human soul, one can understand it without relying on authority. And this understanding, this trust in the revelations of Spiritual Science, is something that must become an integral part of the tasks of our age. Then this age will experience a renewal. Then this age will be given the impetus toward what, as the external framework of a new structure, will have to play a corresponding role.

[ 36 ] For what do we see when we seek to truly understand the nature of the present age? I would say: We see two paths, one to the left and the other to the right. One path offers us the possibility of remaining with the views that the natural sciences alone have provided, and from these views—which the natural sciences have provided—to move on to social views; that is, to proceed from the belief that one can understand social life with the same intellectual faculties used to understand nature. That is what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did; that is what Lenin and Trotsky do. That is why they arrive at their respective paths. People today still do not realize that natural science stands on one side, and that its ultimate consequences are expressed in social chaos and social decline. The terrible belief that now seeks to destroy all true human culture in Eastern Europe—this terrible belief of Lenin and Trotsky—stems from the other belief that one must follow the paths of scientific knowledge in social life as well. What, then, has happened under the influence of this newer materialistic-scientific belief? What has happened is that our entire spiritual life has become mechanized. But because our spiritual life no longer rises to thoughts about the supersensible human being—because it has become mechanized in accordance with the external, mechanistic view of nature—at the same time, souls are being turned into vegetative, plant-like, sleepy states. Thus we see that, alongside the mechanized spirit, we have a vegetated soul in modern cultural life. But if the soul is not warmed by the spirit, if the spirit is not illuminated by supersensible knowledge, then animalistic qualities develop in the body—qualities that today dwell in antisocial impulses and that, in Eastern Europe, seek to become the executioners of culture. Then, under the guise of seeking to socialize, the most antisocial forces develop; then, alongside the mechanized mind and the vegetative soul, physical life becomes animalized. The wildest instincts and drives emerge as historical demands. This is the path that veers to the left.

[ 37 ] The other path, which leads to the right, is the one that, in the manner described today, finds its way into the vision of the supersensible human being and the supersensible world—a vision that also views human development in the light of the supersensible and ascends to the truly free spirit.

[ 38 ] From the ideas with which I sought to describe the freedom of human progress in my book *The Philosophy of Freedom*, I wished to lay the foundation for that which human beings can experience as an awareness of their true inner freedom through embracing spiritual life. Only the spirit that permeates human beings can become truly free. The spirit that permeates only nature and seeks to shape all social life according to the model of modern natural science becomes mechanistically unfree. And the soul that is permeated only by this spirit sleeps like a plant. The soul that is warmed by the true, pulsating will for spiritual knowledge of the supersensible human nature—this soul steps forward among other people in social life; it learns to appreciate the supersensible human being in others. It learns to see the divine in the archetype within every human being. It learns social feeling toward every human being. It learns how, in relation to this innermost soul, all human beings here on Earth are equal. And in this soul warmed by the spirit, equality can develop along the other, right path. And when the bodies are permeated and spiritualized by the supersensible consciousness, when they are warmed, when they are ennobled by what the soul absorbs as it is awakened by the Spirit—and does not remain in a vegetative state—then the bodies, too, will not become animalized; then the bodies will become such that they develop what can be called, in the broadest sense, true love. Then, then the human being knows that he enters his earthly body as a supersensible being, that he enters this body in order to develop love within it, to develop love directed toward the Spirit. Then he knows that there must be brotherhood within the earthly body; otherwise, in a humanity devoid of brotherhood, the individual cannot be a whole, a complete human being.

[ 39 ] Thus, continuing down the old path leads us to the mechanization of the mind, the vegetation of the soul, and the animalization of the body. Thus, the path that Spiritual Science is meant to reveal leads us to true social virtues—but to social virtues that are illuminated by the spirit and warmed by the soul, and that are carried out by the ennobled human body.

[ 40 ] Thus, the spiritual understanding of the supersensible human being leads us to establish on Earth, in a beautiful new edifice of the future: freedom in spiritual life. The spiritualized human being will be a free human being. Equality in a soul life warmed by the spirit: The soul that takes the spirit into itself will perceive and treat the other soul it encounters in social life as its equal—truly, as if within a great mystery. And the ennobled body—the body ennobled by the spirit and the soul—will become the expression of the truest, most genuine human love: true brotherhood. Thus, the social order of humanity—based on liberty, equality, and brotherhood—will be able to come into being through the correct understanding of body, soul, and spirit.