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The Significance of Spiritual Research For Moral Action

The Significance of Spiritual Research For Moral Action

A Lecture By

Rudolf Steiner

Bielefeld, March 6, 1911GA 127

The lecture presented here was given in Bielefeld, March 6, 1911, with the titleDie Mission der neuen Geistesoffenbarung fr das sittliche Handeln. It is included inDie

Mission der neuen Geistesoffenbarung(#127 in the Bibliographic Survey, 1961). The translation was made from the original German by Alan P. Cottrell, Ph.D.

Copyright 1981

This e.Text edition is provided with the cooperation of:

The objection is frequently made that theosophy does not really work its way into the realm of morality. In fact it is said that through

certain of its teachings it in some respects not only does not counter egotism but furthers it. Those who are of this opinion share thefollowing thoughts. They say that theosophy demonstrates how the human being develops his existence from life to life and that the

main point is that even if he suffers defeats he has the possibility of striving ever higher, employing in a subsequent life the results of

what he has learned in a given life as in a kind of school. He who immerses himself completely in this belief in human perfectibilitywill strive to render his I ever more pure, to make it as rich as possible, so that he may ascend ever higher and higher. This, so thesepeople say, is after all really an egotistic striving. For we theosophists, they say, seek to attract teachings and forces from the spiritual

world in order to elevate our I to ever greater heights. This is therefore an egotistic basis for human action. These people maintain

further that we theosophists are convinced that we prepare a bad karma for ourselves through imperfect actions. Thus in order not to doso the theosophist will avoid doing this or that which he would otherwise have done. He therefore refrains from the action for fear of

karma. For the same reason he would probably also do this or that which he otherwise would not have done, and this too would be but

one more quite egotistic motivation for an action. There are a number of people who say that the teachings of karma and reincarnationas well as the rest of the striving for perfection which originates in theosophy leads people to work spiritually for a refined form of

higher egotism. It would actually be a severe reproach if one were able to maintain that theosophy prompts people to develop moralaction not out of sympathy and compassion but out of fear of punishment. Let us now ask ourselves whether such a reproach is really

justified. We must reach very deeply into occult research if we wish to refute such a reproach to theosophy in a really fundamental way.

Let us assume that someone were to say that if a person does not already possess this striving for perfection, theosophy will certainlynever prompt him to moral actions. A deeper understanding of what theosophy has to say can teach us that the individual is related tothe whole of humanity in such a way that by acting immorally he not only does something that may earn him a punishment. It is rather

the case that through an immoral thought, an immoral action or attitude he brings about something really absurd, something that cannotbe reconciled with truly healthy thinking.

The statement has many implications. An immoral action not only implies a subsequent karmic punishment; it is rather in the mostfundamental respect an action that one definitely ought not to do. Let us assume that a person commits a theft. In so doing the person

incurs a karmic punishment. If one wishes to avoid this punishment one simply does not steal. But the matter is still more complicated.Let us ask ourselves what really motivates the person who lies or steals. The liar or thief seeks personal advantage the liar perhaps

wishing to wiggle out of an unpleasant situation. Such an action is only meaningful if one actually does gain an advantage through

lying or stealing. If the person were now to realize that he simply cannot have that advantage, that he is wrong, that on the contrary he

will bring about a disadvantage, he would then say to himself that it is nonsense even to think about such an action. As theosophypenetrates ever deeper into human civilization, people will know that it is absurd, indeed that it is ridiculous, to believe that through

lying or stealing one can acquire what one seeks to acquire. For one thing will become increasingly clear for all people as theosophyenters their consciousness: that in the sense of higher causes we have to do not at all with totally separate human individualities, but

that along with the separate individualities the whole of humanity forms a unity. One will realize more and more that in the sense of atrue view of the world the finger is more intelligent than the whole man, for it does not presume to be something on its own,

independent of the entire human organism to which it belongs. In its dull consciousness it knows that it cannot exist without the wholeorganism.

But people continually embrace illusions. They fancy themselves separate by virtue of what is enclosed within their skins. This theyare, however, just as little as is the finger without the whole organism. The source of the illusion is the fact that the human being can

wander about and the finger cannot. We are in the same situation on earth as is the finger on our organism. The science that believesour earth is a glowing hot, fluid sphere surrounded by a hard shell upon which we humans walk about, and that this explains the earth,

stands at the same level as a science that would believe that in all essential respects the human being consists of nothing more, nothingelse than his skeleton, for what one perceives of the earth is the same as the skeleton in man. The rest of what belongs to the earth is of

a supersensible nature. The earth is a real organism, a real living being. When one pictures to oneself the human being as a livingcreature, one can think of his blood with its red and white corpuscles. These can only develop in the entire human organism and thereby

be what they are. What these red and white blood corpuscles are for the human being we human beings are for the organism of the

earth. We definitely belong to this earth organism. We form a part of the whole living being that is the earth, and only then do we view

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ourselves correctly when we say, As single individuals we are nothing. We are only complete when we think our way into the body

of the earth, the body of which we perceive only the skeleton, the mineral shell, as long as we do not acknowledge the spiritualmembers of this earth organism.

When a process of infection arises in the human organism, the entire organism is seized by fever, by illness. If we translate this into

terms applicable to the earth organism we can say that what occultism maintains is true: When something immoral is done anywhere onearth it amounts to the same thing for the whole earth organism as a little festering boil on the human body, which makes the whole

organism sick. So that if a theft is committed on the earth the result is that the entire earth develops a kind of fever. This is not meantmerely in a metaphorical sense. It is well-founded. The whole organism of the earth suffers from everything immoral and as individuals

we can do nothing immoral without affecting the whole earth.

It is really a simple thought, yet people have a difficult time grasping it. But let those people who do not want to believe it just wait. Let

one try to impress such thoughts upon our culture; let one try with these thoughts to appeal to the human heart, the human conscience.Whenever people anywhere act immorally their actions are a kind of infected boil for the whole earth and make the earth organism ill,

and experience would show that tremendous moral impulses inhere in such knowledge.

One can preach morality as much as one likes; it will not help people one bit. But knowledge such as we have developed here would

not seize hold of people merely as knowledge. If it found its way into the developing culture, if it streamed into the soul already in

childhood, it would provide a tremendous moral impulse, for in the end no moral preachments have any real power to overwhelm, toconvince the human soul. Schopenhaueris quite right when he says that to preach morality is easy but to establish it is difficult. People

have a certain antipathy toward moral preachments. They say, What is being preached to me is the will of someone else and I am

supposed simply to acquiesce to it. This belief will become more and more dominant to the degree that materialistic consciousness

becomes dominant.

One says today that there is a morality of class, of social standing, and what such a class morality considers to be right is then appliedto the other class. Such an attitude has found its way into human souls and in the future it will become worse and worse. People will

come increasingly to feel that they themselves want to find everything that is to be acknowledged as correct in this sphere. They willfeel that it should originate in their own inclination toward objective knowledge. The human individuality wants to be taken ever more

seriously. But at the moment in which the heart, for instance, were to realize that it too would be sick if the whole organism becamesick, man would do what is necessary in order not to fall ill. At the moment in which man realizes that he is embedded within the total

organism of the earth and has no business being a festering boil on the earth's body at that moment there exists an objective basis formorality. And man will say, If I steal I am seeking my own personal advantage. I refrain from stealing because if I do steal I shall

make sick the entire organism without which I cannot live. I do the opposite and thereby bring about something advantageous not onlyfor the organism but also for myself.

In the future the moral awareness of human beings will form itself in this general way. He who, through theosophy, finds an impetus tomoral action will say to himself that it is an illusion to seek personal advantage through an immoral action. If you do that, you are likean octopus that ejects a dark fluid: you eject a dark aura of immoral impulses. Lying and stealing are the seeds of an aura into which

you place yourself and through which you make the whole world unhappy.

People say, All that surrounds us is maya. But such truths must become truths for life itself. Let us suppose that one can demonstratethat through theosophy humanity's moral development in the future will enable man to see how he wraps himself in an aura of illusions

when he seeks his own advantage. If one can demonstrate this, it will become apracticaltruth to say that the world is a maya orillusion. The finger believes this in its dull, half sleeping, half dreaming consciousness. It is bright enough to know that without the

hand and the rest of the body it is no longer a finger. The human being today is not yet bright enough to know that without the body ofthe earth he is actually nothing. But he must become bright enough to know this. The finger therefore enjoys a certain advantage over

man. It does not cut itself off. It does not say, I want to keep my blood for myself or cut off a portion of myself. It is in harmony with

the whole organism. Man must, to be sure, develop a higher consciousness in order to come into harmony with the whole organism ofthe earth. In his present moral consciousness man does not yet know this. He could say to himself, I inhale the air. It was just outside,and now it is inside the human body. Something external becomes something internal. And when I exhale, something internal again

becomes something external. And so it is with the whole man. The human being is not even aware of the simple fact that separatedfrom the surrounding air he is nothing. He must undertake to develop an awareness of how he is locked into the entire organism of the

earth.

How can the human being know: You are a member of the whole organism of the earth? Theosophy enables him to know this. Itshows man that first there existed a Saturn condition, then a Sun condition, then a Moon condition. Man was present through all these

conditions, although in a quite different way from today. Then the earth proceeded from the old Moon condition. Gradually the human

being arose as earthly man. He has a long development behind him and in the future he is to advance to other stages of development.Man in his present form has arisen with the earth in its present form. When through the study of theosophy one traces how man and the

earth have arisen it becomes clear in what way man is a part of the whole organism of the earth. Then it becomes clear how earth and

man gradually have emerged from a spiritual life, how the beings of the hierarchies have fashioned earth and man, how man belongs tothe hierarchies, even though he stands at the lowest stage. Then theosophy points to the central Being of the entire earthly evolution, tothe Christ as the great archetype of the human being. And from all these teachings of theosophy the awareness shall spring forth for

man, Thus ought you to act.

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The science of the spirit shows us how we can feel ourselves to be a part of the whole life of the earth. The science of the spirit shows

us that Christ is the Spirit of the earth. Our fingers, our toes, our nose, all our members dream that the heart provides them with blood.They dream that without a central organ they would be nothing, for without a heart they are not possible. Theosophy shows man that in

the future of earthly evolution it would be folly not to take up the idea of Christ, for what the heart is for the organism Christ is for the

body of the earth. Just as through the heart the blood provides the whole organism with life and strength, so must the Being of Christhave moved through all single souls on earth, and the words of St. Paul must become truth for them: Not I, but the Christ in me. The

Christ must have flowed into all human hearts. Whoever wanted to say, One can continue to exist without Christ, would be as foolishas eyes and ears if they wanted to say that they could continue to exist without the heart. In the case of the single human body the heart

must of course be present from the beginning, whereas the heart entered the organism of the earth only with the Christ. For thefollowing ages, however, this heart's blood of Christ must have entered all human hearts. He who does not unite himself with it in his

soul, will wither away. The earth will not wait with its development; it will come to the point to which it must come. Human beingsalone can remain behind, that is, they would balk at receiving Christ in their souls. A number of human beings would stand there in

their last incarnation on earth and not have reached the goal: they have not recognized Christ, have not received Christ-feeling, Christ-knowing into their souls. They are not mature. They do not take their places in the development to higher stages. They separate

themselves off.

Such people do not immediately have the opportunity to collapse completely as would the nose and ears if they detached themselves

from the whole human organism. But occult research shows that the following would happen to those who do not want to permeatethemselves with the Christ element, the life of Christ, as this can be attained only through theosophy. Instead of living on upwards with

the earth to new levels of existence they would have assimilated substances of decay, of disintegration, and would first have to enter

upon other paths. If in the sequence of incarnations human souls take up the Christ into their knowledge, their feelings, their wholesoul, the earth will fall away from these human souls just as a corpse falls away at a person's death. The corpse of the earth will fall

away and that which, permeated with Christ, is present in a state of spirit and soul will proceed to form itself into new existence and

will reincarnate itself on Jupiter.

What will happen now with those people who have not taken the Christ into themselves? Through theosophy they will have abundant

opportunities to be able to recognize the Christ, to be able to take the Christ into themselves. Today people still resist doing so. Theywill resist less and less. But let us assume that at the end of the development there were those who even then continued to resist. There

would then exist a number of people who could not join the rest in advancing to the next planet. They would not have reached theactual goal of the earth. These people would constitute a veritable cross on that planet upon which human beings will then develop

further. For while this group will be incapable of sharing in the experience of the actual and proper Jupiter condition and what developsthere, they will nevertheless be present on Jupiter. Everything that is subsequently material is first present in a spiritual state. Thus

everything that people now, during the period of the earth develop spiritually in the way of immorality, of a refusal to take the Christinto themselves, is first present in a soul-spiritual state. But this will become material. It will surround and penetrate Jupiter as a

neighboring element. This will be made up of the successors of those persons who did not take the Christ into themselves during the

earth condition. What the soul develops in the nature of immorality, of resistance to the Christ will then be present materially, in anactually physical state. While the physical part of those people who have taken the Christ into themselves will exist in a finer form onJupiter, the physical part of these other people will be fundamentally coarser. Occult research paints before the eye of the soul an image

of what will be the future of the people who will not have reached earthly maturity.

We now breathe air. On Jupiter there will in essence be no air. Instead, Jupiter will be surrounded by a substance that, in comparison to

our air, will be something refined, something etheric. In this substance those human beings will live who have reached the goal of theearth. Those others who have remained behind, however, will have to breathe something like a repulsively warm, boiling, fiery air

infused with a dank stuffiness full of fetid odors. Thus the people who did not attain the maturity appropriate to the earth will be a crossfor the other Jupiter people, for they will have a pestilent effect in the environment, in the swamps and other land masses of Jupiter.

The fluid-physical components of the bodies of these people will be comparable to a liquid which constantly seeks to solidify, freezesup, coagulates. Consequently these beings will not only have this horrendous air to breathe but also a bodily state in which the blood

would seem continually to congeal, to cease to remain fluid. The actual physical body of these beings will consist of a kind of slimy

substance more revolting than the bodily substance of our present snails and fully equipped to secrete something like a kind of crustsurrounding them. This crust will be softer than the skin of our present snakes, like a kind of soft scaly armor. Thus will these beingslive in a rather less than appealing manner in the elements of Jupiter.

Such a picture as that contemplated in advance by the occult researcher is ghastly to behold. But woe to those who, like the ostrich, donot want to look at the danger and wish to shut their eyes before the truth. For it is just this that lulls us into error and illusion, while a

bold look at the truth imparts the greatest moral impulses. If human beings listen to what truth says to them they will feel, You arelying. Then there will arise in them an image of the effect of this lie upon human nature in the Jupiter condition, the image that shows

that the lie creates a slimy, pestilent breath for the future. This image, arising again and again, will be a reason to direct the impulses ofthe soul to what is healthy, for no one who really knows the consequences of immorality can in truth be immoral, for one is called upon

to teach the true consequences that result from the causes. One should in fact direct people's attention to them while they are still

children. Immorality exists only because people have no knowledge. Only the darkness of untruth makes immoral actions possible.

To be sure, what can thus be said concerning the connection between immorality and ignorance should not be intellectual knowledgebut wisdom. Knowledge by itself participates in immorality and if it turns into sophisticated cleverness it can even be roguery, while

wisdom will affect the human soul in such a way that the soul rays forth truth, innermost morality.

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My dear friends, it is true that to establish morality is difficult; to preach morality is easy. To establish morality means to establish it

out of wisdom, and one must first have this wisdom. Here we see that it was after all a rather intelligent utterance on the part ofSchopenhauer when he said that to establish morality is difficult.

Thus we see how unfounded it is when people who do not really know theosophy come and say that it contains no moral incentives.

Theosophy shows us what we accomplish in the world when we do not act morally. It provides wisdom, and from this very wisdommorality streams forth. There is no greater arrogance than to say that one need only be a good person and all will be in order. The

trouble is that one must first know how one goes about really being a good person. Our contemporary consciousness is very arrogantwhen it wishes to reject all wisdom. True knowledge of the good requires that we penetrate deeply into the mysteries of wisdom, and

this is inconvenient, for it requires that we learn a great deal.

So when people come and tell us that reincarnation and karma lay the foundation for an egotistical morality we can thus reply, No!

True theosophy shows man that when he does something immoral it is roughly the same as if he were to say, I'm taking a sheet ofpaper to write a letter, and then takes a match and sets fire to the sheet of paper. That would be grotesque nonsense. A person finds

himself in the same situation with respect to a wrong action or an immoral attitude.

To steal means the same thing for the real, deeper human essence as when one lies. If one steals, one plants into the essential human

being the seed that will cause one to develop a slimy, repulsive substance and to surround oneself with pestilent odors in the future.

Only if one lives in the illusion that the truth is in the present moment can one do such a deed. In stealing, man places into himselfsomething that amounts to the same thing as a flaying of the human being. If man knows this he will no longer be able to do an

immoral deed; he will not be able to steal. Just as the plant seed sends forth blossoms in the future so too will theosophy, if it is planted

in the human soul, send forth human blossoms, human morality. Theosophy is the seed, the soul is the nourishing ground and morality

is the blossom and fruit on the plant of the developing human being.

Supersensible Knowledge: Anthroposophy as a Demand of the Age

Anthroposophy and the Ethical-Religious Conduct of Life

By Rudolf Steiner

Translated by Olin D. Wannamaker

GA 84

Two lectures, given at Vienna in late September of 1923, they are lectures 9 and 10 of 11 in the lecture series entitled,A Challenge for the Goetheanum and for

Anthroposophy, published in German as, Was Wollte das Goetheanum und Was Soll die Anthroposophie? The first lecture is also in the volumes, Self Transformation

andEsoteric Development.

This volume is presented here with the kind permission of Frau Marie Steiner, and the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

Copyright 1943This e.Text edition is provided with the cooperation of:

The Anthroposophic Press

CONTENTS

Cover Sheet

Prefatory Remarks

Lecture I: Supersensible Knowledge: Anthroposophy as a Demand of the Age September 26, 1923

(See also this lecture asLecture III in the lecture series,Esoteric Development.

Lecture II: Anthroposophy and the Ethical-Religious Conduct of Life September 29, 1923

Supersensible Knowledge: Anthroposophy

as a Demand of the Age

Any one who speaks today about supersensible worlds lays himself open at once to the quite understandable criticism that he is

violating one of the most important demands of the age. This is the demand that the most important questions of existence shall beseriously discussed from a scientific point of view only in such a way that science recognizes its own limitations, has a clear insight

into the fact that it must restrict itself to the sensible world of the earthly existence and would become the victim of a certain fantasticblunder if it should attempt to go beyond these limits. Now, precisely that type of spiritual-scientific conception in accordance with

which I spoke at the last Vienna Congress of the Anthroposophical Movement, [West and East: Contrasting Worlds.] and shall speak againtoday, affirms with regard to itself not only that it is free from hostility toward scientific thinking and the scientific sense of

responsibility of our times, but also that it does its work in complete harmony with what may be proposed as objectives by the most

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conscientious scientific demands of those very persons who take their stand on the platform of the most rigid scientific research. It is

possible, however, to speak from various points of view in regard to the scientific demands of the times, imposed upon us by thesplendid theoretical and practical results in the evolution of humanity which have come about in the course of the last three or four

centuries, but especially during the nineteenth century. I shall speak, therefore, today in regard to supersensible knowledge to the extent

that this tends to fulfill precisely this demand, and I wish to speak in the next lecture about the supersensible knowledge of the humanbeing as a demand of the human heart, of human feeling, during the present age.

We can observe the magnificent contribution which has been bestowed upon us even up to the most recent time through scientificresearch the magnificent contribution in the findings about interrelationships throughout the external world. But it is possible to

speak also in a different sense regarding the achievements which have come about precisely in connection with this current of human

evolution. For instance, we may call attention to the fact that, in connection with the conscientious earnest observation of the laws andfacts of the external world of the senses, as this is afforded by natural science, very special human capacities have been developed, andthat just such observation and experimentation have thrown a light also upon human capacities themselves. But I should like to say that

many persons holding positions deserving of the greatest respect in the sphere of scientific research are willing to give very littleattention to this light which has been reflected upon man himself through his own researches. If we only give a little thought to what

this light has illuminated, we see that human thinking, through the very fact that it has been able to investigate in accordance with basicprinciples both narrowly restricted and also broadly expanded interrelationships the microscopic and the telescopic has gained

immeasurably in itself, has gained in the capacity of discrimination, in power of penetration, the ability so to associate the things in theworld that their secrets are unveiled, the capacity to determine the laws underlying cosmic relationships, and so forth. As this thinking

is developed, we see it confronted with a demand with which it is faced, indeed, by the most earnest research scientists: the demand

that this thinking must develop as selflessly as possible in the observation of external nature and in experimentation in the laboratory, inthe clinic, etc. And the human being has achieved tremendous power in this respect. He has succeeded in setting up more and more

rules of such a character as to prevent anything of the nature of inner wishes of the heart, of opinions, perhaps even of fantasies

regarding one's own being, such as arise in the course of thinking, from being carried over into what he is to establish by means of themicroscope and the telescope, the measuring rule and the scales, regarding the interrelationships of life and existence.

Under these influences a type of thinking has gradually developed of which one must say that it has worked out its passive rolewith a certain inner diligence. Thinking in connection with observation, with experiment, has nowadays become completely abstract

so abstract that it does not trust itself to call forth anything of the nature of knowledge or of truth out of its own inner being.

It is this gradually developed characteristic of thinking which demands before everything else so it appears at first the

rejection of all that the human being is in himself by reason of his inner nature. For what he himself thus is must be set forth in activity;this can really never exist wholly apart from the impulse of his will. Thus we have arrived at the point and we have rightly reached

this point in the field of external research of actually rejecting the activity of thinking, although we became aware in this activity ofwhat we ourselves signify as human beings in the universe, in the totality of cosmic relationships. In a certain sense, the human being

has eliminated himself in connection with his research; he prohibits his own inner activity. We shall see immediately that what isrightly prohibited in connection with this external research must be especially cultivated in relationship to man's own self if he wishes

to gain enlightenment regarding the spiritual, regarding the supersensible, element of his own being.

But a second element in the nature of man has been obliged to manifest its special aspect, which is alien to humanity even though

friendly to the world, in modern research: that is, the human life of sentiment, the human life of feeling. In this modern research, humanfeeling is not permitted to participate; the human being must remain cold and matter-of-fact. Yet one might ask whether it may not be

possible to acquire within this human feeling forces useful in gaining knowledge of the world. If it must be said, on the one hand, thatinner human willfulness plays a role in feelings, human subjectivity, and that feeling is the source of fantasy, it must be answered on

the other hand that, although human feeling can certainly play no important role as it exists at first in every-day life or in science, yet, ifwe recall as science itself has to present the matter to us that the human senses have not always in the course of human evolution

been such as they are today, but have developed from a relatively imperfect stage up to their contemporary state, that they certainly didnot express themselves in earlier periods so objectively about things as they do today, an inkling may then come to birth within us that

there may exist even within the life of subjective feeling something that might be evolved there-from, just like the human sensesthemselves, and which might be led over from an experience of man's own being to a grasp upon cosmic interrelationships in a higher

sense. Precisely as we observe the withdrawal of human feeling in connection with contemporary research must the question be put asto whether some sort of higher sense might unfold within feeling itself if this were specially developed.

But very obviously do we find in connection with a third element of the being of man how we are driven by the altogetherpraiseworthy scientific view to something different. This is the will aspect of the life of the soul. Whoever is at home in scientific

thinking knows how impossible it is for such thinking to proceed otherwise in grasping the inter-relationships of the world than inaccordance with causal necessity. We connect in the most rigid manner phenomena existing side by side in space; we associate in the

strictest sense phenomena occurring in succession in time. That is, we relate cause and effect according to their inflexible laws.

Whoever speaks, not as a dilettante, but as one thoroughly at home in science knows what a tremendous power is exerted by the mereconsideration of the realms of scientific fact in this manner. He knows how he is captivated by this idea of a universal causality and

how he cannot then do otherwise than to subject everything that he confronts in his thinking to this idea of causality.

But there is human will, this human will which says to us in every moment of our waking life of day: What you undertake in acertain sense by reason of yourself, by reason of your will, is not causally determined in the same sense applying to any sort of external

phenomena of nature. For this reason, even a person who simply feels in a natural way about himself, who looks into himself inobservation free from preconception, can scarcely do otherwise than also to ascribe to himself, on the basis of immediate experience,

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freedom of will. But when he directs his glance to scientific thinking, he cannot admit this freedom of will. This is one of the conflicts

into which we are brought by the condition of the present age. In the course of these two lectures we shall learn much more about theseconflicts. But for one who is able to feel this conflict in its full intensity, who can feel it through and through because he must be

honest on the one side as regards scientific research, and on the other side as regards his self-observation the conflict is something

utterly confounding, so confounding that it may drive him to doubt whether life affords anywhere a firm basis from which one maysearch for truth.

We must deal with such conflicts in their right human aspect. We must be able to say to ourselves that research drives us to thepoint where we are actually unable to admit what we are every day aware of; that something else must somehow exist which offers

other means of access to the world than what is offered to us in irrefutable manner in the order of external nature. Through the very fact

that we are so forcibly driven by the order of nature itself into such conflicts, it becomes for us human beings of the present time anecessity to admit that it is impossible to speak about the supersensible worlds as they have been spoken about up to a relatively recenttime. We need to go back only to the first half of the nineteenth century to discover that personalities who, by reason of a consciousness

in harmony with the period, were thoroughly serious in their scientific work called attention, nevertheless, to the supersensible aspectof human life, to that aspect which opens up to the human being a view of the divine, of his own immortality; and that in this

connection they always called attention to what we may at present designate as the night aspects of human life. Men deserving of thehighest regard have called attention to that wonderful but very problematical world into which the human being is transferred every

night: to the dream world. They called attention to many mysterious relationships which exist between this chaotic picture world ofdreams, nevertheless, and the world of actuality. They called attention to the fact that the inner nature of the human organization,

especially in illness, reflects itself, nevertheless, in the fantastic pictures of dreams, and how healthy human life enters into the chaotic

experiences of dreams in the forms of signs and symbols. They pointed out that much which cannot be surveyed by the human beingwith his waking senses finds its place in the half-awake state of the soul, and out of such things conclusions were drawn. These things

border upon what is the subject of study also today for many persons, the subconscious states of the life of the human soul, which

manifest themselves in a similar way.

But everything which appears before the human being in this form, which could still give a certain satisfaction to an earlier

humanity, is no longer valid for us. It is no longer valid for us for the reason that our way of looking into external nature has becomesomething different. Here we have to look back to the times when there still existed only a mystically colored astrology. Man then

looked into the world of the senses in such a way that his perception was far removed from the exactness which we demand of sciencetoday. For this reason, because he did not demand of himself in his sense life that complete clarity which we possess today, he could

discover in a mystical, half-conscious state something from which he could draw inferences. This we cannot do today. Just as little aswe are able to derive today from what science gives us anything else than questions in regard to the true nature of man, just so little can

we afford to remain at a standstill at the point reached by science and expect to satisfy our supersensible needs in a manner similar tothat of earlier times.

That form of supersensible knowledge of which I shall speak here has an insight into this demand of our times. It observes theform that has been taken on by thinking, feeling, and willing in man precisely by reason of natural science, and it asks on the other side

whether it may be possible by reason of the very thing which has been achieved by contemporary humanity in thinking, feeling, andwilling to penetrate further into the supersensible realm with the same clarity which holds sway in the scientific realm. This cannot be

achieved by means of inferential reasoning, by means of logic; for natural science justly points out its limitations with reference to its

own nature. But something else can occur: that the inner human capacities may evolve further, beyond the point at which they stand

when we are in the realm of ordinary scientific research, so that we now apply to the development of our own spiritual capacities thesame exactness to which we are accustomed in connection with research in the laboratory and the clinic. I shall discuss this first in

connection with thinkingitself.

Thinking, which has become more and more conscious of its passive role in connection with external research, and is not willing to

disavow this, is capable of energizing itself inwardly to activity. It may energize itself in such a way that, although not exact in thesense in which we apply this term to measuring and weighing in external research, it is exact in relationship to its own development in

the sense in which the external scientist, the mathematician for example, is accustomed to follow with full consciousness every step inhis research. But this occurs when that mode of supersensible cognition of which I am here speaking substitutes a truly exact

development of this thinking in place of the ancient vague meditation, the ancient indistinct immersion of oneself in thinking. It ispossible here to indicate only in general principles what I have said in regard to such an exact development of thinking in my books

Occult Science: An Outline andKnowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, and other books. The human being should reallycompel himself, for the length of time which is necessary for him and this is determined by the varying innate capacities of people

to exchange the role of passive surrender to the external world, which he otherwise rightly assumes in his thinking, for that differentrole: that of introducing into this thinking his whole inner activity of soul. This he should do by taking into his mind day by day, even

though at times only for a brief period, some particular thought the content of which is not the important matter and, whilewithdrawing his inner nature from the external world, directing all the powers of his soul in inner concentration upon this thought. By

means of this process something comes about in the development of those capacities of soul that may be compared with the results

which follow when any particular muscles of the human body for instance, the muscles of the arms are to be developed. Themuscles are made stronger, more powerful through use, through exercise. Thus, likewise, do the capacities of the soul become inwardly

stronger, more powerful by being directed upon a definite thought. This exercise must be so directed that we proceed in a really exactway, that we survey every step taken in our thinking just as a mathematician surveys his operations when he undertakes to solve ageometrical or arithmetical problem. This can be done in the greatest variety of ways. It may seem trivial when I say that something

should be selected for this content of concentration that one finds in any sort of book even some worthless old volume that we knowquite certainly we have never previously seen. The important point is, not what the content of truth in the thing is, but the fact that we

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survey such a thought content completely. This cannot be done if we take a thought content out of our own memory; for very much is

associated with such a thought in the most indeterminate way, very much that plays a role in the subconscious or the unconscious, andit is not possible to be exact if one concentrates upon such a thing. What one fixes, therefore, in the very center of one's consciousness

is something entirely new, something that one confronts only with respect to its actual content, which is not associated with any

experience of the soul. The matter of importance is the concentration of the forces of the soul and the strengthening which results fromthis. Likewise, if one goes to a person who has made some progress in this field and requests him to provide one with such a thought

content, it is not well to entertain any prejudice against this. The content is in that case entirely new to the person concerned, and he cansurvey it. Many persons fear that they may become dependent in this way upon some one else who provides them with such a content.

But this is not the case; in reality, they become less dependent than if they take such a thought content out of their own memories andexperiences, in which case it is bound up with all sorts of subconscious experiences. Moreover, it is well for a person who has had

some practice in scientific work to use the findings of scientific research as material for concentration; these prove to be, indeed, themost fruitful of all for this purpose.

If this is continued for a relatively long time, even for years perhaps and this must be accompanied by patience and endurance,since it requires a few weeks or months in some cases before success is achieved, and in some cases years it is possible to arrive at a

point where this method for the inner molding of one's thoughts can be applied as exactly as the physicist or the chemist applies themethods of measuring and weighing for the purpose of discovering the secrets of nature. What one has then learned is applied to the

further development of one's own thinking. At a certain point of time, the person then has a significant inner experience. This consistsin the fact that he feels himself to be involved not only inpicture-thinking, which depicts the external events and facts and which is true

to reality in inverse proportion to the force it possesses in itself, in proportion as it is a mere picture; but one arrives now at the point of

adding to this kind of thinking the inner experience of a thinking in which one lives, a thinking filled with inner power. This is asignificant experience. Thinking thus becomes, as it were, something which one begins to experience just as one experiences the power

of one's own muscles when one grasps an object or strikes against something. A reality such as one experiences otherwise only in

connection with the process of breathing or the activity of a muscle, this inner active something now enters into thinking. And, sinceone has investigated precisely every step upon this way, so does one experience oneself in full clarity and sober-mindedness of

consciousness in this strengthened, active thinking. If the objection is raised, let us say, that knowledge can result only fromobservation and logic, this is no real objection; for what is now experienced we experience with complete inner clarity, and yet in such

a way that this thinking becomes at the same time a kind of touching with the soul. In the process of forming a thought, it is as if wewere stretching out a feeler not, in this case, as when the snail stretches a feeler into the physical world, but as if a feeler were

stretched out into aspiritualworld, which is as yet present only for our feelings if we have succeeded to this stage, but which we arejustified in expecting. For one has the feeling: Your thinking has been transformed into a spiritual touching; if this can become more

and more the case, you may expect that this thinking will come into contact with what constitutes a spiritual reality, just as your fingerhere in the physical world comes into contact with what is physically real.

Only when one has lived for a time in this inwardly strengthened thinking does complete self-knowledge become possible. For we

know then that the soul element has become by means of this concentration an experiential reality.

It is possible then for the person concerned to go forward in his exercises and to arrive at the point where he can, in turn, eliminatethis soul content, put it away, in a certain sense render his consciousness voidof what he himself has brought into this consciousness,

this thought content upon which he has concentrated, and which has enabled him to possess a real thinking constituting a sense of touch

for the soul. It is rather easy in ordinary life to acquire an empty consciousness; we need only to fall asleep. But it requires an intense

application of force, after we have become accustomed to concentrating upon a definite thought content, to put away such a content ofthought in connection with this very strengthened thinking, thinking which has become a reality. But we succeed in putting aside this

content of thinking in exactly the same way in which we acquired at first the powerful force needed for concentration. But, when wehave succeeded in this, something appears before the soul which has been possible previously only in the form of pictures of episodes

in one's memory: the whole inner life of the person appears in a new way before the eyes of his soul, as he has passed through this lifein his earthly existence since birth, or since the earliest point of time to which one's memory can return, at which one entered

consciously into this earthly existence. Ordinarily, the only thing we know in regard to this earthly existence is that which we can call

up in memory; we have pictures of our experiences. But what is now experienced by means of this strengthened thinking is not of thesame kind. It appears as if in a tremendous tableau so that we do not recollect merely in a dim picture what we passed through ten yearsago, for instance, but we have the inner experience that in spirit we are retracing the course of time. If some one carries out such an

exercise in his fiftieth year, let us say, and arrives at the result indicated, what then happens is that time permits him to go back as ifalong a time-path all the way, for instance, to the experiences of his thirty-fifth year. We travel back through time. We do not have

only a dim memory of what we passed through fifteen years earlier, but we feel ourselves to be in the midst of this in its living reality,as if in an experience of the present moment. We travel through time; space loses its significance, and time affords us a mighty tableau

of memory. A precise picture of the life of the person is now created out of that which appears in an episodic manner, even according toscientific thinkers, when anyone is exposed to great terror, a severe shock, at the moment of drowning, for instance, when for some

moments he is confronted by something of his entire earthly life in pictures appearing before his soul to which he looks back laterwith a certain shuddering fascination. In other words, what appears before the soul in such cases as through a natural convulsion now

actually appears before the soul at the moment indicated, when the entire earthly life confronts one as in a mighty tableau of the spirit,

only in a time order. Only now does one know oneself; only now does one possess realself-observation.

It is quite possible to differentiate this picture of man's inner being from that which constitutes a mere memory picture. It is clearin the mere memory picture that we have something in which persons, natural occurrences, or works of art come upon us as if from

without; in this memory picture what we have is the manner in which the worldcomes into contact with us. But in thesupersensiblememory tableau which appears before a person, what confronts him is, rather, that which has proceeded from himself. If, for instance,

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at a certain definite point of time in his life he began a friendship with a beloved personality, the mere memory picture shows him how

this person came to him at a certain point of time, spoke to him, what he owes to the person, etc. But, in this life tableau what confrontshim is the manner in which he himself longed for this person, and how he took every step at last in such a way that he was inevitably

led to that being regarding whom he had the knowledge that this being was suited to himself.

That which has taken place through the unfolding of the forces of the soul comes to meet one with exact clarity in this life tableau.Many people do not like this precise clarity, because it brings them enlightenment in regard to much that they would prefer to see in a

different light from the light of truth. But one must endure the fact that one is able to look upon one's own inner being in utter freedomfrom preconceptions, even though this being of oneself confronts the searching eye with reproach.

This stage of cognition I have called imaginative knowledge, orimagination.

But one can progress beyond this stage. In that which we come to know through this memory tableau, we are confronted by those

forces which have really formed us as human beings. While confronting this tableau of life, we know: Within you those forces evolvewhich mold the substances of your physical body. Within you, especially during childhood, those forces have evolved which have

plastically modeled approximately up to the seventh year the nerve masses of the brain, which did not yet exist in well ordered formafter your birth. We then cease at last to ascribe what works formatively upon the human being within to those forces which inhere in

material substances. We cease to do this when we have this memory tableau before us, when we see how there stream into all the forces

of nutrition and of breathing and into the whole circulation of the blood the contents of this memory tableau which are forces inthemselves, forces without which no single wave of the blood circulates and no single process of breathing occurs. We now learn to

understand that man himself in his inner being consists ofspiritandsoul.

What now dawns upon one can best be described by a comparison. Imagine that you have walked for a certain distance overground which has been softened by rain, and that you have noticed all the way tracks or ruts made by human feet or wagon wheels.

Now suppose that a being should come from the moon and see this condition of the ground, but should see no human being. He wouldprobably come to the conclusion that there must be all sorts of forces underneath the earth which have thrust up these traces and given

this form to the surface of the ground. Such a being might seek within the earth for the forces which have produced the tracks. But onewho sees into the thing knows that the condition was not caused by the earth but by human feet or wagon wheels.

Now, any one who possesses a view of things such as I have just described does not by any means for this reason look with lessreverence, for example, upon the convolutions of the human brain. But, just as he knows that those tracks on the surface of the earth do

not derive from forces within the earth, he now knows that these convolutions of the brain do not derive from forces within thesubstance of the brain, but that the spiritual-psychic entity of man is there, which he himself has now beheld, and that this works in

such a way as to cause our brain to have these convolutions. This is the essential thing to be driven to this view, so that we arrive ata conception of our own spirit-soul nature, that the eye of the soul is really directed to the spirit-soul element and to its manifestation in

the external life.

But it is possible to progress still further. After having first strengthened our inner being through concentrating upon a definite

content of thought, and then having emptied our consciousness, so that, instead of the images we ourselves have formed, the content ofour life now appears before us, we can now put this memory tableau out of our consciousness, in turn, just as we previously eliminated

a single concept, so that our consciousness was void of this. We can now learn to apply the powerful force so as to blot out from ourconsciousness that which we have come to know through a heightened self-observation as a spirit-soul being. In doing this, we blot out

nothing less than the inner being of our own soul life. We learned first in concentration to blot out what is external, and we then learnedto direct the look of our soul to our own spirit-soul entity, and this completely occupied the whole tableau of memory. If we now

succeed in blotting out this memory tableau itself, there comes about what I wish to designate as the truly empty consciousness. Wehave previously lived in the memory tableau or in what we ourselves have set up before our minds, but now something entirely

different appears. That which lived within us we have now suppressed, and we confront the world with an empty consciousness. This

signifies something extraordinary in the experience of the soul. Fundamentally speaking, I can describe at first only by means of acomparison what now appears to the soul, when the content of our own soul is blotted out by means of the powerful inner force weapply. We need only to think of the fact that, when the impressions of the external senses gradually die away, when there is a cessation

of seeing, hearing, perhaps even of a distinct sense of touch, we sink into a state closely resembling the state of sleep. In the presentcase, however, when we blot out the content of our own souls, although we do come to an empty state of consciousness, this is not a

state of sleep. We reach what I might call the state of being merely awake that is, being awake with an empty consciousness.

We may, perhaps, be enabled to conceive this empty consciousness in the following way. Imagine a modern city with all its noiseand din. We may withdraw from the city, and everything becomes more and more quiet around us, but we finally enter, perhaps, a

forest. Here we find the absolute opposite of the noises of the city. We live in complete inner stillness, in soundless quiet. If, now, I

undertake to describe what follows, I must resort to a trivial comparison. We must raise the question whether this quiet, this stillness,can be changed still further into something else. We may designate this stillness as the zero point in our perception of the external

world. But, if we possess a certain amount of property and we subtract from this property, it is diminished; as we take away still more,

it is further diminished, and we finally arrive at zero and have nothing left. Can we then proceed still further? It may, perhaps, beundesirable to most persons, but the fact is that many do this: they still decrease their possessions by incurring debt. One then has lessthan zero, and one can still diminish what one has. In precisely the same way, we may at least imagine that the stillness, which is like

the zero point of being awake, may be pushed beyond this zero into a sort of negative state. A super-stillness, a super-quietness mayaugment the quietness. This is what is experienced by one who blots out his own soul content: he enters into a state of quietness of soul

which lies below the zero point. An inner stillness of soul in the most intensified degree comes about, during the state of wakefulness.

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But this cannot be attained unless it is accompanied by something else. This can be obtained only when we feel that a certain state

associated with the picture concepts of our own self passes over into another state. One who senses the first stage of the supersensiblewithin himself, who views this, is in a certain state of well-being, that well-being and inner blissfulness to which the various religious

creeds refer when they call attention to the supersensible and at the same time remind the human being that the supersensible brings to

him the experience of a certain blissfulness in his inner being. Indeed, up to the point where we exclude our own inner self, there was acertain sense of well-being, an intensified feeling of blissfulness. At that moment, however, where the stillness of soul comes about,

this inner well-being is replaced completely by inner pain, inner deprivation, such as we have never previously known the sense thatone is separated from all to which one is united in the earthly life, far removed not only from the feeling of one's own body but from the

feeling of one's own experiences since birth. And this signifies a deprivation which reaches the degree of tremendous pain of soul.Many shrink back from this stage, lacking the courage to make the transition from a certain lower clairvoyance and, after eliminating

their own content of soul, to enter into that state of consciousness where resides that inner stillness. But, if we pass into this stage in fullconsciousness, there begins to enter, in place of imagination, that which I have called in the books previously mentioned inspiration

I trust you will not take offense at these terms the experience of a real spiritual world. After one has previously eliminated the worldof the senses and has substituted an empty consciousness, accompanied by inexpressible pain of soul, then does the external spiritual

world come to meet us. In the state of inspiration we become aware of the fact that the human being is surrounded by a spiritual worldjust as the sense world exists for his external senses.

And the first thing, in turn, that we behold in this spiritual world is our ownpre-earthly existence. Just as we are otherwiseconscious of earthly experiences by means of our ordinary memory, so does a cosmic memory now dawn for us: we look back into pre-

earthly experiences, beholding what we were as spirit-soul beings in a purely spiritual world before we descended through birth to this

earthly existence, when as spiritual beings we participated in the molding of our own bodies. So do we look back upon the spiritual, theeternal, in the nature of man, to that which reveals itself to us as the pre-earthly existence, regarding which we now know that it is not

dependent upon the birth and death of the physical body, for it is that which existed before birth and before conception, which made of

this physical body derived from matter and heredity a human being. Now for the first time does one reach a true concept also ofphysical heredity, since one sees what supersensible forces play into this forces which we acquire out of a purely spiritual world,

with which we now feel united just as we feel united with the physical world in the earthly life. Moreover, we now become aware that,in spite of the great advances registered in the evolution of humanity, much has been lost which belonged inherently to more ancient

instinctive conceptions such as we can no longer use. The instinctive supersensible vision of the humanity of earlier ages wasconfronted by thispre-earthly life as well as human immortality, regarding which we shall speak a little later. For eternity was

conceived in ancient times in such a way that one grasped both its aspects. We speak nowadays of the deathlessness of the human soul indeed, our language itself possesses only this word but people once spoke, and the more ancient languages still continue to show

such words, ofbirthlessness as the other aspect of the eternity of the human soul. Now, however, the times have somewhat changed.People are interested in the question what becomes of the human soul after death, because this is something still to come; but as to the

other question, what existed before birth, before conception, there is less interest because that has passed, and yet we are here. But atrue knowledge of human immortality can arise only when we consider eternity in both its aspects: that ofdeathlessness and that of

birthlessness.

But, for the very purpose of maintaining a connection with the latter, and especially in an exact clairvoyance, still a third thing is

necessary. We sense ourselves truly as human beings when we no longer permit our feelings to be completely absorbed within theearthly life. For that which we now come to know as our pre-earthly life penetrates into us in pictures and is added to what we

previously sensed as our humanity, making us for the first time completely human. Our feelings are then, as it were, shot through with

inner light, and we know that we have now developed ourfeelinginto asense organ for the spiritual. But we must go further and mustbe able to make ourwillelement into an organ of knowledge for the spiritual.

For this purpose, something must begin to play a role in human knowledge which, very rightly, is not otherwise considered as a

means of knowledge by those who desire to be taken seriously in the realm of cognition. We first become aware that this is a means ofknowledge when we enter the supersensible realms. This is the force oflove. Only, we must begin to develop this force of love in a

higher sense than that in which nature has bestowed love upon us, with all its significance for the life of nature and of man. What I shall

have to describe as the first steps in the unfolding of a higher love in the life of man may seem paradoxical.

When you undertake, with complete sober-mindedness as to each step, to sense the world otherwise than is customary, you thencome upon this higher form of love. Suppose you undertake in the evening, before you go to sleep, to bring your day's life so into your

consciousness that you begin with the last occurrence of the evening, visualizing it as precisely as possible, then visualizing the nextpreceding in the same way, then the third from the last, thus moving backward to the morning in this survey of the life of the day, this

is a process in which much more importance attaches to the inner energy expended than to the question whether one visualizes eachindividual occurrence more or less precisely. What is important is this reversalof the order of visualization. Ordinarily we view events

in such a way that we first consider the earlier and then the subsequent in a progressive chain. Through such an exercise as I have justgiven you, we reverse the whole life: we think and feel in a direction opposite to the course of the day. We can practice this on the

experiences of our day, as I have suggested, and this requires only a few minutes. But we can do this also in a different way. Undertake

to visualize the course of a drama in such a way that you begin with the fifth act and picture it successively through the fourth, third,toward the beginning. Or we may represent a melody to ourselves in the reverse succession of tones. If we pass through more and more

such inner experiences of the soul in this way, we shall discover that the inner experience is freed from the external course of nature,and that we actually become more and more self-directing. But, even though we become in this way more and more individualized andachieve an ever increasing power of self-direction, yet we learn also to give attention to the external life in more complete

consciousness. For only now do we become aware that, the more powerfully we develop through practice this fully consciousabsorption in another being, the higher becomes the degree of our selflessness, and the greater must our love become in compensation.

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In this way we feel how this experience of not living in oneself but living in another being, this passing over from one's own being to

another, becomes more and more powerful. We then reach the stage where, toImagination andInspiration, which we have alreadydeveloped, we can now unite the true intuitive entrance into the other being: we arrive atIntuition, so that we no longer experience only

our self, but also learn in complete individualization yet also in complete selflessness to experience the other being.

Here love becomes something which gradually makes it possible for us to look back even further than into the pre-earthly spirituallife. As we learn in our present life to look back upon contemporary events, we learn through such an elevation of love to look back

uponformer earth lives, and to recognize the entire life of a human being as a succession of earthly lives. The fact that these lives oncehad a beginning and must likewise have an end will be touched upon in the next lecture. But we learn to know the human life as a

succession of lives on earth, between which there always intervenepurely spirituallives, coming between a death and the next birth.

For this elevated form of love, lifted to the spiritual sphere and transformed into a force of knowledge, teaches us also the truesignificance of death. When we have advanced so far, as I have explained in connection withImagination andInspiration, as to renderthese intensified inner forces capable of spiritual love, we actually learn in immediate exact clairvoyance to know that inner experience

which we describe by saying that one experiences oneself spiritually, without a body, outside the body. This passing outside the bodybecomes in this way, if I may thus express it, actually a matter of objective experience for the soul. If we have once experienced in

actual knowledge outside the body clairvoyantly, I mean this spiritual element in existence, we know the significance of theevent of laying aside the physical body in death, of passing through the portal of death to a new, spiritual life. We thus learn, at the

third stage of an exact clairvoyance, the significance of death, and thus also the significance of immortality, for man.

I have desired to make it transparently clear through the manner of my explanation that the mode of supersensible cognition aboutwhich I am speaking seeks to bring into the very cognitional capacities of the human being something which works effectually, step by

step, as it is thus introduced. The natural scientist applies his exactness to the external experiment, to the external observation; he

wishes to see the objects in such juxtaposition that they reveal their secrets with exactitude in the process of measuring, enumerating,weighing. The spiritual-scientist, about whom I am here speaking, applies his exactness to the evolution of the forces of his own soul.

That which he makes out of himself for the purpose of causing a spiritual world and, with this, the eternal being of man, the nature ofhuman immortality, to appear before his soul, he makes with precision, if I may use an expression of Goethe. At every step which the

spiritual-scientist thus takes, in order that the spiritual world may at last lie outspread before the eyes of the soul, he feels obligated tobe just as conscientious in regard to his knowledge as a mathematician must be at every step he takes. For just as the mathematician

must see clearly into everything that he writes on the paper, so must the spiritual-scientist see with complete exactitude into everythingthat he makes out of his powers of cognition. He then knows that he has formed an eye of the soul out of the soul itself with the same

inner necessity with which nature has formed the corporeal eye out of bodily substance. And he knows that he can speak ofspiritualworlds with the same justification with which he speaks of a physical-sensible world in relationship to the physical eye. In this sense

the spiritual research with which we are here concerned satisfies the demands of our age imposed upon us by the magnificentachievements of natural science which spiritual science in no wise opposes but, rather, seeks further to supplement.

I am well aware that every one who undertakes to represent anything before the world, no matter what his motive may be,attributes a certain importance to himself by describing this as a demand of the times. I have no such purpose, neither shall I have

such a purpose in my next lecture; [The second lecture in this brochure.] on the contrary, I should like to show that the demands of the timesalready exist, and the very endeavor of spiritual science at every step it takes is to satisfy these demands of the times. We may say,

then, that the spiritual-scientist whom it is our purpose to discuss here does not propose to be a person who views nature in a dilettante

or amateur fashion. On the contrary, he proposes to advance further in true harmony with natural science and with the same genuine

conscientiousness. He desires truly exact clairvoyance for the description of a spiritual world. But it is clear to him at the same timethat, when we undertake to investigate a human corpse in a laboratory for the purpose of explaining the life which has disappeared from

it, or, when we look out into cosmic space with a telescope, we then develop capacities which tend to adapt themselves at first solely tothe microscope or telescope, but which possess an inner life and which misrepresent themselves in their existent form. When we dissect

a human corpse, we know that it was not nature that made the human being into this bodily form, but that the human soul, which hasnow vanished, made it. [That is, nature did not create the wonderful human body; it was created by the soul.] We interpret the human soul from what we

have here as its physical product, and any one would be irrational who should assume that this molding of the human physical forces

and forms had not arisen out of that which preceded the present state of this human being. But everything that we hold in thebackground while we investigate dead nature with those forces in connection with which we rightly deny our inner activity creates thepotentiality, through this very act of holding in reserve, for a further development of the soul forces of the human being. Just as the seed

of the plant lies out of sight under the earth when we have laid it in the soil, and yet will become a plant, so do we plant aseedin thesoul in the very action of conscientious scientific research. He who is a serious scientist in this sense has within himself the germ of

imaginative, inspired, and intuitive knowledge. He needs only to develop the germ. He will then know that, just as natural science is ademand of the times, so is supersensible research likewise. What I mean to say is that every one who speaks in the spirit of natural

science speaks also in the spirit of supersensible research, only he does not know this. And that which constitutes an unconsciouslonging in the innermost depths of many persons today as will be manifest in the next public lecture is the impulse of

supersensible research to unfold out of its germ.

To those very persons, therefore, who oppose this spiritual research from a supposedly scientific standpoint, one would like to say,though not with any bad intention, that this brings to mind an utterance in Goethe'sFaustall too well known, but which would be

applied in a different sense:

The little man would not sense the Devil

Even if he held him by the throat.

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Now, I do not care to go into that. But what is contained in this expression confronts us in a different application in that which exists

today as a demand of the times: that those who speak rightly today about nature are really giving expression, though unconsciously, tothespirit. One would like to say that there are many who do not wish to notice the spirit when it speaks, although they are constantly

giving expression to the spirit in their own words!

The seed of supersensible perception is really far more widespread today than is supposed, but it must be developed. The fact thatit must be developed is really a lesson we may learn from the seriousness of the times as regards external experiences. As I have

already said, I should like to go into the details next time; but we may still add in conclusion that the elements of a fearful catastrophereally speak to the whole of humanity today through various indications in the outside world, and that it is possible to realize that tasks

at which humanity in the immediate future will have to work with the greatest intensity will struggle to birth out of this great

seriousness of the times. This external seriousness with which the world confronts us today, especially the world of humanity, indicatesthe necessity of an inner seriousness. And it is about this inner seriousness in the guidance of the human heart and mind toward man'sown spiritual powers, which constitute the powers of his essential being, that I have wished to speak to you today. For, if it is true that

man must apply his most powerful external forces in meeting the serious events awaiting him over the whole world, he will needlikewise a powerful inner courage. But such forces and such courage can come into existence only if the human being is able to feel

and also to will himself in full consciousness in his innermost being, not merely theoretically conceiving himself but practicallyknowing himself. This is possible for him only when he comes to know this being of his as coming out of that source from which it

does truly come, from the source of the spirit, only when in ever increasing measure, not only theoretically but practically, he learns toknow in actual experience that man is spirit, and can find his true satisfaction only in the spirit; that his highest powers and his highest

courage can come to him only out of the spirit, out of thesupersensible.

Anthroposophy and the Ethical-Religious

Conduct of Life

On last Wednesday I had the opportunity to explain to you how a supersensible knowledge may come into existence out of thefurther development of those capacities of the human soul which belong to our every-day life, and which are recognized also in science

when methodically applied. I undertook to show how a systematic further development of these capacities of the soul actually brings

about for the human being a form of perception whereby he can become aware of a supersensible world just as he becomes aware ofthe physical sensible world environing him by means of his physical senses. Through such vision we penetrate upward not only to an

abstract sort of conviction that, in addition to the world of the senses, there exists also a world of the spirit, but to acquisition of realknowledge, to a real experience, of spiritual beings, which constitute the environment of man himself to the extent that he lifts himself

up into a condition of spirituality, just as plants and animals constitute his environment in the physical world.

Such a supersensible knowledge is something different in its entire nature from that which we designate as knowledge in ordinary

life and for our every-day consciousness, as well as in ordinary science.

In this ordinary knowledge we come into possession, in a certain sense, of ideas for example such ideas as embrace the laws of

nature. But this possession of ideas does not really penetrate into the soul in such a way as to become an immediate power of the soul,comparable as a spiritual power to muscular force as this passes over into activity. Thoughts remain rather shadowy, and every one

knows through immediate experiences how indifferent, in a certain sense, is the reaction of the human heart to thoughts when we aredealing with matters which affect the human heart in the profoundest degree.

Now, I think I have shown already in the first lecture that, when a human being actually penetrates into the spiritual world by

means of such a perception as we have in mind here, he then becomes aware of his supersensible being as it was before it descended to

the earthly existence. And the fact that he achieves for himself something of this kind as regards his own self in its relationship to thespiritual world, does not leave his heart, the needs of his profoundest sensibilities, to the same extent unaffected, as in the case of

abstract forms of knowledge. It is certainly true that one who has himself led a life devoted to the acquisition of knowledge does not

undervalue all the inner drama of the soul associated with the struggle for knowledge even in the ordinarily recognized sense, yet theknowledge that we thus acquire remains, nevertheless, merepictures of the external world. Indeed, if we are scientifically educated atthe present time, we are generally proud of the fact that these pictures merely reflect, in a certain sense, quite objectively the external

world and do not dart with such inner force through the life of the soul as, in the case of the physical body, the circulating blood drivesits pulsing waves through man's being. The fact is that what is here meant by supersensible knowledge is something which acts upon

the human being in a manner entirely unlike that of ordinary knowledge. And, in order that I may make myself perfectly clear preciselyin reference to this point, I should like to begin with a comparison which is, however, something more than a comparison,

something that fits the matter completely in its reality.

I should like to begin with the fact that the human being, even in ordinary life, lives in two states of consciousness we might say

three states, but let us consider sleeping and dreaming as constituting a single state of consciousness that he is separated completelyfrom the external world during sleep, and that a world existent only within him, reveals its effects in dreams in a grotesque and often

chaotic manner. Even though we are in the same space with many other persons, our dream world belongs to us alone; we do not share

it with the other persons. And a profounder reflection upon the world of dreams is the very thing that may show us that what we have toconsider as our own inner human nature is connected with this dream world. Even the corporeal nature of man is reflected in a

remarkable way in dreams: it is mirrored in fantastic pictures. One condition or another affecting an organ, a condition of illness or of

excitation, may emerge in a special symbol during a dream; or some noise occurring near us may appear in a dream in a very dramaticsymbolism. The dream creates pictures out of our own inner nature and out of the external world. But all of this is intimately

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connected, in turn, with the whole course of our life upon earth. From the most remote epochs of this life the dream draws the shadows

of experiences into its chaotic but always dramatic course. And, the more deeply we penetrate into all this, the more are we led to theconclusion that the innermost being of man is connected, even though in an instinctive and unconscious manner, with that which flows

and weaves in dreams.

One who has the capacity, for example, for observing the moment of waking and, from this point on, fixing the eye of the mindupon the ordinary daily life, not in the superficial way in which this usually occurs, but in a deeper fashion, will come to see that this

waking life of day is characterized by the fact that what we experience in a wholly isolated manner during sleep and during dreams, in amanner that we can share with other persons at most only in special instances, that this soul-spiritual element sinks down into our

corporeal being, inserts itself in a way into the will, and thereby also into the forces of thought and the sense forces permeated by the

will, and thus enters indirectly, through the body, into a relationship with the external world. Thus does the act of waking constitute atransition to an entirely different state of consciousness from that which we have in dreams. We are inserted into the external course ofevents through the fact that we participate, with our soul element, in the occurrences of our own organisms, which are connected, in

turn, with external occurrences. Evidences of the fact that I am really describing the process in a wholly objective way can, naturally,not be obtained by the manner of abstract calculation, nor in an experimental way; but they are revealed to one who is able to observe

in this field particularly one who is able to observe how there is something like a dreaming while awake, a subconsciousimagining, a living in pictures, which is always in process at the bottom of the dry, matter-of-fact life of the soul, of the intellect. The

situation is such that, just as we may dive down from the surface of a stream of water into its profounder depths, so may we penetratefrom our intellectual life into the deeper regions of the soul. There we enter into something which concerns us more intimately than the

intellectual life, even though its connection with the external world is less exact. There we come also upon everything which stimulates

the intellectual life to its independent, inventive power, which stimulates this life of the intellect when it passes over into artisticcreation, which stimulates this intellectual life even as I shall have to show later when the human heart turns away from the

ordinary reflections about the universe and surrenders itself to a reverent and religious veneration for the spiritual essence of the world.

In the act of waking in the ordinary life the situation is really such that, through the insertion of our soul being into the organs ofour body, we enter into such a connection with the external world that we can entrust, not to the dream, but only to the waking life of

day, responsibility for the judgment which is to be passed upon the nature of the dream, upon its Tightness and wrongness, its truth anduntruth. It would be psychopathic for any one to suppose that, in the chaotic, though dramatic, processes of the dream something

higher is to be seen than that which his waking experience defines as the significance of this life of dreams.

In this waking experience do we remain also at about the same level of experience when we devote ourselves to the

intellectual life, to the ordinary life of science, to every-day knowledge. By means of that absorption, immersion, and I might saystrengthening of the soul about which I spoke on the previous occasion, the human being exercises consciously at a higher level for the

life of his soul something similar to what he exercises unconsciously through his bodily organization for the ordinary act of waking.And the immersion in a supersensible form of knowledge is a higher awaking. Just as we relate any sort of dream picture to our waking

life of day, through the help of our memory and other forces of our soul, in order to connect this dream picture, let us say, with somebodily excitation or external experience, and thus to fit it into the course of reality, so do we arrive by means of such a supersensible

cognition as I have described at the point where we may rightly fit what we have in our ordinary sensible environment, what we fix bymeans of observation and experiment, into a higher world, into a spiritual world in which we ourselves are made participants by means

of those exercises of which I spoke, just as we have been made participants in the corporeal world in the ordinary waking by means of

our own organism. Thus supersensible knowledge really constitutes the dawn of a new world, a real awaking to a new world, an

awaking at a higher level. And this awaking compels him who has awaked to judge the whole sensible-physical world, in turn, from thepoint of view of this experience, just as he judges the dream life from the point of view of the waking life. What I do here during my

earthly life, what appears to me by means of my physical knowledge, I then learn to relate to the processes through which I have passedas a spirit-soul being in a purely spiritual world before my descent into the earthly world, just as I connect the dream with the waking

life. I learn to relate everything that exists in physical nature, not in general to a fantastic world of spirit, but to a concrete spiritualworld, to a spiritual world which is complete in its content, which becomes a visible environment of the human being