Cosmic Forces and Social Understanding Through Spiritual Thinking

GA 191 — 5 October 1919, Dornach

Third Lecture

In the last few days I have spoken about how the human being can advance from the present earth-consciousness to a world-consciousness, just as he has advanced from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the Middle Ages and the end of the Middle Ages, by transforming his land consciousness into an earth consciousness. We do not take these things abstractly, but we try to penetrate into them in such a way that they become concrete links in our consciousness.

In connection with this idea of the expansion of consciousness, I have said that in the first three epochs of his life, man is influenced by forces that we can actually call sub-sensible forces. From birth until the age of seven, the human being is connected with the forces of the earth planet itself. The formative forces at work in the human organism are essentially those that are anchored in the earth planet itself, in the interior of this earth planet. And what then takes effect, organizing the human being, living through the human being from the seventh to the fourteenth year of life, these are the forces of the air circle, which then, namely through the detour of breathing, permeate the human being, and through which he lives through the formations and forms laid down in the first seven years of life. Then the time begins for the human being in which he is exposed, but without this penetrating into his consciousness, to the forces that work on the human being indirectly through the earth from the planetary system.

Man is therefore actually so organized that the organizing forces in him are not merely those that he carries in his body or within the limits of his body, but are forces that take their radiations from the earth planet and later from the entire planetary system. And through such considerations we must gradually come to the realization that man forms a unity with the whole earth.

In the past I have often used a comparison to characterize this awareness from a different point of view. I have said: a human finger is a human finger only as long as it is connected to the human body. The moment we cut it off, it withers away. Just as the finger is related to the body, I have often said, so man is related to the whole Earth, indeed to our entire planetary system. If you were to remove man from the Earth and from the entire planetary system, he would wither away, he would die like the finger when it is removed from the human body. The point is that in human life one gradually advances from the perception of the part to the perception of the greater whole. Man, as he can observe himself, is really a partial being, insofar as he is a physical organism and also insofar as he is an etheric body. He is only considered as an organism when he is in connection with the earth and even with the whole planetary system. But if you really absorb this in your consciousness, you know that you belong more to the world than to the mere earth, because the earth draws its forces from the universe, and while we are at first only dependent on the earth, we gradually move on to dependence on the universe.

But these things can be deepened even further. Among the stars that form planetary systems around the Earth, the most important are, as you know, the Sun and the Moon. And as we gradually grow into a state of dependency on the planetary system from the age of fourteen onwards, that is, in the third epoch of a person's life, we also become dependent on the other members of the planetary system, on Mercury, Mars and so on, but we become predominantly dependent on the sun and moon. But man's dependence on sun and moon can only be judged correctly if one knows not only from external observation what the sun and moon represent. External observation shows man the moon, full and new moon, first, last quarter as a disc, which he assumes to be dark in itself, illuminated by the sun, and therefore turns part of its being towards him in illumination. But that does not exhaust the nature of the moon. We can only really learn to recognize that which is in the universe if we always see it as a sum of forces, a connection of forces. And we must ask ourselves: what kind of forces are actually concentrated in the moon? In the moon, human forces of will are primarily concentrated, or rather, forces that are related to human forces of will, forces that are related to everything that affects people from the subsensible. So the moon radiates those forces that are related to the subsensible in the human being. The physicist tells us very nicely that the moon is a kind of slag, that the sun is something like a glowing, burning cosmic body that has a corona, that sends out radiations of its fire into the world; so that man has the rough idea that if he could wander there slowly or quickly and approach the sun, he would enter a glowing body. I have already told you several times that this is not the case; rather, the truth is that where the sun is, there is a hollow space, a nothingness, and that light radiates only from the surface of the sun. In truth, there is nothing where one suspects that there is something physical; for the nature of the sun is thoroughly supersensible, just as the nature of the moon is subsensible. The supersensible and subsensible aspects of the planetary system, as they are concentrated in the sun and moon, begin to take effect on the human organism from around the age of fourteen. They affect the human organism in the first place insofar as the lunar is more akin to the female element, to everything feminine in the world, and the solar is more akin to the male element in the world. But they also work in such a way that man has a solar element in everything he develops in terms of knowledge, in everything he develops in such a way that he thinks, and has a lunar element in everything he “does”, in all impulses of will. The sun and moon are not only out there in cosmic space; the sun and moon are within us. And in so far as we think, we are sun beings; in so far as we will, we are moon beings. Better said: in so far as we develop organs in us that are the mediators of thinking, the forces of the sun, the supersensible, work in us from the age of fourteen to develop these organs; in so far as we develop organs that mediate willing, the forces of the moon, the subsensible, work in us from the age of fourteen.

Thus, when we transform such knowledge into a living being, we can feel within us: You human being, you are such that not only what is here on earth lives in you, but what constitutes the sun and moon also lives in you. The sun and moon are in you. You are a citizen of the world. You would not be what you are as a human being if the universe did not work in you.

To know such things in the abstract has no great value; but to feel within oneself that one is such a being, in whom the sun and moon are at work, that gives inner life. To feel everything that one can think supersensibly and will subsensibly comes from the sun and moon, and makes one say to oneself: I may be walking on the earth, but with every step I take on the earth not only what springs and sprouts on earth, and what rejoices and suffers on earth, but with every step I take on earth, the sun and moon live in me. I am not just an earth citizen, I am a world citizen. When this surges and strengthens as a living life in man, then a certain power comes over his thinking, which he does not have without this consciousness. Particularly in the present time, people should learn to feel when they are walking on earth that the universe lives in them. This should become feeling, this should become perception. As it were, when man looks up at the sun, he should say to himself: I am also of your essence, O sun! —When he looks up at the moon, he should say: I am also of your essence, O moon!

When man bears this within him as a feeling, as a sentiment, only then does he become ripe for grasping social ideas. Otherwise his thinking bears a certain earthly heaviness. Of course, one can grasp certain ideas in the abstract, but one cannot inwardly animate them in the concrete. The social is something in which man is active as man. Natural science comprehends only that in which man is not present. One can never understand social forces and social activity in terms of natural science concepts. One can only understand social activity through the kind of light thinking that comes from the feeling that we have as world citizens. It is simply the case that such a world-citizen consciousness must arise from our relationship with the sun and the moon. Only when a person no longer feels that he is, as it were, dependent on the earth, only when he feels as if he is a temporary inhabitant of the earth, who brings solar and lunar forces into this earthly existence, only then does his thinking become so powerful and at the same time so light that he can truly grasp social concepts as they live in social existence. For you see, many an economic thinker thinks that he can grasp social concepts with the ordinary way of thinking that is modeled on natural science. Today you can read many concepts and interpretations in economic works about the concept of the commodity, about the concept of labor — I have already made some allusions to this — and about the concept of capital. But all these concepts are actually useless. They do not capture what is truly alive in social life. If you want to try to create a concept of what circulates in economic life as a commodity, and you create this concept in the same way that you create the concept of a crystal or a plant or an animal or even of a physical human being, then nothing comes of it. You cannot grasp the concept of the commodity according to the pattern of natural science. If you want to grasp it in living life, as it is in social life, then you basically need an imagination; because there is something about the commodity that is inseparable from the human being. Every commodity has something of the human being in it, whether the commodity consists of a sewn skirt or a painting – because in terms of political economy, a painting is also just a commodity – or whether it consists of a lesson in teaching. Even a lesson is, from a national economic point of view, only a commodity. But what constitutes the concept of a commodity is related to human performance. And it is not ordinary, fully conscious life that goes into the commodity, but rather, something of the subconscious life goes into the commodity in many ways. That is why you need imagination to grasp the concept of a commodity correctly. And you need inspiration to grasp the concept of labor, and you need intuition to grasp the concept of capital. For the concept of capital is a very spiritual concept, only a reversed spiritual concept. That is why the Bible quite correctly refers to that which is connected with capitalism as mammon, as something that has to do with the spiritual; only it is not exactly the very best spirit that has to do with it. But one penetrates into the highest regions of spiritual knowledge if one wants to grasp what capital actually does in economic life.

Here we are confronted with something quite curious, with a necessity: in order to arrive at correct economic concepts, one must have an idea of supersensible knowledge. That is why all economic concepts that are being advanced today are so amateurish, because people have no supersensible knowledge and therefore grasp these concepts wrongly.

But do not misunderstand me. If you read my “Key Points of the Social Question”, you will say: “But it is not imagination that you give when you talk about goods; it is not inspiration that you give when you talk about labor, and it is not intuition that you give when you talk about capital. Certainly not. One does not need to ascend to the higher worlds to speak of goods, labor and capital, although it is also very interesting to see the reflections of goods, labor and capital in the higher worlds. But one does not need to ascend. But one only needs to be familiar with what imagination, inspiration and intuition are in order to say the right thing about capital. That is what it is all about. Someone who is not familiar with imagination, inspiration and intuition will not say the right thing about goods, labor and capital. Thus, spiritual science and today's social science are inwardly connected, and there is no other way for today's human being than to ascend from earth consciousness to world consciousness, so that he acquires the ease and also the power of thought that enables him to grasp social life. As long as man only crawls on the earth and basically believes that he is nothing more than what he absorbs from plants, animals and minerals, which is only a little differently composed in him, man does not know himself as the right being that he is. Only then, when he says to himself: the sun and moon work in me — then man knows himself as the right being that he is. World consciousness must be attained in a spiritual way; in a spiritual way, man must recognize how he belongs to a greater part of the world than the earth.

Now it is important to really grasp how one must go beyond ordinary everyday concepts in order to arrive at the kind of thinking that is meant here. You know that there are materialistic thinkers in the world. Today the number of materialistic thinkers is very large, and you are probably all convinced in your innermost being that one should not be a materialistic thinker. At least you were convinced to a certain extent and therefore came to a more spiritual way of thinking, felt drawn to the spiritual thinking that is cultivated in this anthroposophical movement. So let us disregard ourselves here. But there are also other people who represent the spirit, and there are many such people in the world who say: Well, there are all those people walking around who think only of material processes and material beings. These materialistically thinking, materialistically feeling people are opposed by the spiritually thinking and spiritually feeling. The latter believe in the spirit and are often despised by the materialistic thinkers as fantasists. But they accept this contempt because they believe that the materialists do not realize how right they, the fantasists, are when they hold on to the spiritual. This distinction is made and observed in the world between materialistic thinking and spiritual thinking, and there is much dispute between the two camps as to which is right, the materialistic thinker or the spiritual thinker. From some of the things that have been discussed here, you should realize that basically the one who has not yet penetrated into the meaning of spiritual science is the one who argues about such things, but only the one who says, 'You are a materialist; that's fine, that's all right,' has properly penetrated into the meaning of spiritual science. You are a spiritualist, that's fine too, that's also very good. Just as you can photograph a tree from one side and photograph it from the other side: it looks different from the different sides, but it is always the same tree. If you grasp the world materially, it is only a photograph from one side. If you grasp the world spiritually, it is a photograph from a different side. Materialism looks quite different from spiritualism. But the secret is that you have neither materialism nor spiritualism in the world, but that these are actually only two photographs from different points of view. Basically, the materialist is just as right as the spiritualist and the spiritualist is just as right as the materialist. Because these concepts, spirituality and materiality, are only valid on the physical plane. As soon as one goes beyond the physical plane, these concepts are overcome. Then one no longer argues whether the world is material or spiritual, because one knows that these are two different aspects. But why does man actually argue about whether man is material or spiritual? Why does man argue about whether one has a mere bodily being or a mere spiritual being? Why do some people see only, I would say, physical corporeality in a person, while others see soul and spirit in addition to physical corporeality? Because a person is both! And the secret of life actually consists in the fact that a person is both. If you say: a thought is only a spiritual entity, it is only something spiritual, then you are right, because the thought is only something spiritual. But the thought is never in you as spiritual-soul without having a physical imprint, so that you can actually always also prove the physical imprint; it is there. So that every thought is also something material. One would like to say: The universe has impartially ensured that one can be both a spiritualist and a materialist. Because you are indeed spiritual; if you see it that way, you can be a spiritualist. But you are also a material imprint of the spiritual; if you see it that way and ignore the other, you can be a materialist, because a person is both, and because one is only an imprint of the other, because one is the same as the other. Therefore, it is really only a matter of whether man puts himself more into his physical being, then he becomes a materialist; or whether he puts himself more into his soul-spiritual being, then he becomes a spiritualist.

You can't really escape what this is about as long as you remain in the ideas of ordinary everyday life or even in the ideas of ordinary science. You can invent all kinds of theories. There is no end to the theories about the soul and body and about the interrelationship or parallelism and so on! But these are all things that have been invented, they are not rooted in reality. For people have forgotten — I have emphasized this many times before — how to think about these things correctly, because in the course of historical development they have been forbidden to do so, as I have said. In the year 869, the eighth general council was held in Constantinople, and that abolished the spirit, that established the dogma that man does not consist, as a Gnostic science had known until then, of body, soul and spirit, but the eighth Ecumenical ecumenical council decreed that man consists only of body and soul, and that the soul has some spiritual properties, hence the medieval scholastics had a terrible fear of speaking of the so-called trichotomy, of body, soul and spirit; because that was forbidden. Today's philosophy professors are not afraid, because they have overcome their fear; but they have not yet overcome the Roman commandment. They also only speak of body and soul, of a duality, and believe that they are impartially imparting unprejudiced science, while they are actually teaching Roman Catholic dogmatics from the eighth general council of Constantinople. They believe that it follows from their unprejudiced research, but they only say that because they are stuck in history.

Today we have the task of returning to the acknowledgment of body, soul and spirit. For when we look at the outer world and our human organization, insofar as it is perceived like the outer world, we perceive a bodily aspect. If we then look into our inner being, whether we consider our thinking, our will, our feeling in an external, superficial self-knowledge, or whether we descend mystically deep, we experience a soul aspect — on the outside bodily, on the inside soul. But the connection, the interpenetration of the two, the constant interpenetration of the spiritual-soul and the physical-bodily, is brought about by the third aspect. We do not even have a proper word for it; we have to take the word from one side. The spirit brings it about. So we can say: body, soul and spirit are two different aspects, but the spirit forms the connection. We must return to the healthy concept of body, soul and spirit, otherwise body and soul will always fall apart. You cannot find anything physical in the soul, or anything spiritual in the body, as long as you do not have the spirit in them, in their midst.

Many years ago, to make this clear to you, I used a comparison. Suppose there is a seal here, and engraved in the seal, let us say, so that it is a rather “rare” one, is the name Müller. And now I take sealing wax here, for example on a letter, I can press the name Müller into the sealing wax.

Now the Kantians and the physiologists might come and say: There is no relationship between the seal, which may be made of bronze, and that which is made of sealing wax. - Of course, this is all bronze, the other is all sealing wax. Never does something pass from the bronze into the sealing wax and never does something pass from the sealing wax into the bronze. The two are quite different. It is the same with body and soul. One is expressed in the other, but nothing passes from one to the other, each has its own substantiality, and nothing, absolutely nothing, passes from one to the other. And yet, when you have printed, you have “Müller” in the sealing wax and “Müller” on the seal, one and the same. But the mediation did not happen by something very fine coagulating or trickling over from the seal to the sealing wax; that did not happen. Rather, something happened that is neither sealing wax nor bronze, but is the same in both. And that this is precisely 'Müller' is truly connected neither with the bronze nor with all that is in the bronze, but is in the living. That someone has received the name Müller is connected with life; it points to the whole breadth of life. Thus we have the spiritual-soul, and we have the bodily. The spiritual-soul is reflected in the bodily. But that which is the same in both, the spirit, is a whole wide world. But we do not grasp the spirit if we only look at the soul, just as we do not get to know the miller if we only look at the seal. We also do not grasp the spirit if we only look into the material world, just as we cannot recognize the miller if we look at the sealing wax.

So it is a matter of the spirit imparting to us that which is a relationship between the soul and the body. And in our age, we live in a phase of human development in which we must properly understand precisely this fact.

If you look at the newer natural science, you will find that it imparts to you all kinds of physical, actually only physical things. If you take some of the psychological concepts that come from older times, they convey something of the soul. We can only come to terms with both if we rise to the spirit, for only by grasping our being spiritually do we become citizens of the world, in contrast to the citizens of the earth that we were until today. As you can see from this, we must not merely grasp that which is physical about a person, in the way that we can grasp the external corporeality, but we must see the person in broader relationships. I will tell you of such a case, so that this case can serve as an example.

Ordinary natural science sees the human being only until his death. Then it follows the remains, what is left here on earth, the body, how it is cremated or how it is returned to the earth, becoming dust. Now you could examine what components are in this human dust, which is left over from a human organism. Then science will say: the human substance is breaking down and returning to the earth. Yes, that is not even a quarter of the truth, not even an eighth, it is not the truth at all, if you say it out loud. For that which is given back to the earth, whether by burning or burial, had a human form, and also had a human form because, before birth or conception, a spiritual being descended from the spiritual worlds and worked in this physical body until death. Then this physical body is returned to the earth. Whatever is human form continues to work in the earth, regardless of whether it was cremated or buried. The earth continually receives what it would not have if human bodies were not given to it after death. It is good for the earth to receive human bodies after death. Otherwise the earth would only have earthly substances if human bodies were not imparted to it.

But this human body was inhabited by a spiritual being that descended from spiritual worlds before the birth or before the conception and gave the structure to this human body. This structure remains as an essential in every speck of dust, passes into the earth or into the atmosphere when burned, no matter how, and the earth receives with this human body that which has descended from the spiritual worlds. This is not without significance. This is not just an ordinary truth, but it has a very, very great significance. For our Earth is no longer evolving, and it would have been so long ago that no human being, and perhaps no animal either, could inhabit it today if it were not for the continuous supply of spiritual and soul-like refreshing forces through human bodies. The fact that the Earth is still a habitable place for people today is due to the fact that human bodies are continuously being supplied to it. These always refresh the earth's forces. Since the middle of the Atlantean period, the earth has already been withering. It no longer has the rising powers that it had in the old polar, Lemurian and so on periods. But since the middle of the Atlantean period, the earth has only withering forces of its own and is only refreshed for further existence by the fact that the formative forces of human bodies are imparted to it. These continue to work in the earth. These alone make the earth habitable for people.

From this you can see that, on the one hand, as I have told you, the human being has the inner forces of the planet at work in him, the forces of the atmosphere. But in turn, he returns spiritual-soul forces to the earth; he also supplies the earth with spiritual-soul forces. By being born, he brings spiritual-soul forces from the spiritual universe into the earth, uses them for as long as he needs them, until his death, and then hands them over to the earth in the form of forces. If asked what man means for the earth, the external scientific world view would say something like this: if man had never come into existence on earth, everything would have turned out as it is; man would just not be there. Of course, the houses would not be there either. Cities would not be there, and so on, that is, what man brings forth through his culture would not be there; but otherwise everything would be there, only man would not be there. Spiritual science teaches us that man is not merely a spectator here on earth, but that through his existence he is a co-builder, a co-shaper of the earth, and that through the body, which he hands over to the earth, he becomes a mediator for the earth between the spiritual world and this physical world of the earth.

This, too, is part of the process of gradually becoming aware that one is not merely a citizen of the earth, but a citizen of the world. The citizen of the earth is born of a mother and father, carries the characteristics of inheritance within himself, acquires some things that he leaves as an inheritance to his physical heirs, has children and so on. The person who sees himself as a citizen of the world says to himself: By entering into existence through birth, I bring something of the soul and spirit into this world. In this way I contribute to the future existence of the earth, even after I have departed from this earth through death. The human being only really becomes aware of how his existence is connected to earthly existence, how he is one being with the earth, but a being that basically gives the earth its spirituality, through being a citizen of the world.

All these concepts that one acquires from spiritual science should not be acquired like ordinary knowledge. I would like to say, although this is perhaps a little paradoxical: knowledge is not particularly valuable at all. Only what we become through knowledge is valuable. This also applies to education. The fact that we teach geography to a child has a certain external significance, but not really a significance for the soul. Outwardly, it has the significance that later, if the child wants to travel from Dornach, say, to Zurich, it will not confuse Zurich with Bern and the like. So, outwardly, there is a certain significance to learning geography. But there is an inner significance to what happens to the soul when it learns geography. One becomes oriented in the world. Certain spiritual forces are released from the depths, from the roots of the soul, and it is the release of these spiritual forces that is important.

If we take the period since the middle of the 15th century, then this is the time when people were least inclined to release spiritual-soul forces within themselves. They were more attached to the imprint, to the sealing wax. People have actually entered the material age since the middle of the 15th century. But now we are at the point in time when we have to become aware of this and when we in turn return to the spiritual and connect the spiritual with the material.

Why did all this happen? Superficial thinkers might say: Yes, the Lord God could have made it easier for himself. He could have simply given people spiritual life in the 15th century, then they would not have had to go through the whole detour of materialistic struggle. — Perhaps he could have. It is an insult to the Protestant conscience to say that he could not do it. But that is not what interests us here. He did not do it, however, but allowed people to struggle through materialism. And so they arrived at the low point of materialism in the 19th century. If they were now to struggle towards spirituality, they needed a strong inner jolt; this strong inner jolt is the redeemer of freedom, it is the redeemer for man to turn to spirituality out of himself, not through divine inculcation. If man had not been absorbed in the material, then he could not have struggled out of his own free will to the spiritual. In order to call people on earth to independence, this struggle, this struggle through the material was so strong that even the religions and theology have become material. You see, even today's theologian finds it difficult to grasp something spiritual, sometimes with the greatest difficulty, really with the greatest difficulty. Recently I had an opportunity to test it when I discussed something with a Catholic theologian. It just so happened that I had this discussion with this Catholic theologian under the well-known Raphael painting, the so-called 'Disputa'. The conversation led me to try to exemplify something from the 'Disputa'. I said: We must come back to this – all those who want to strive for the spiritual life – so that it can be understood why Raphael actually painted this 'Disputa' from his contemporary consciousness. Up there are the heavenly worlds with the Trinity, below the Sanctissimum on the altar and the church fathers and theologians. But all this is not the essential thing in the picture. The essential thing is that a theologian who was not frivolous (there were many like that even in those days), who was still serious about his theology and out of whose soul Raphael painted, had the consciousness: When the host, the Sanctissimum, is consecrated and one looks through it, then one looks at the world that Raphael painted in the upper part of the “Disputa”. — It is really the consecrated host that provides the means to see through and into the spiritual world. That is why Raphael painted the thing. I wanted to exemplify that. I wanted to say: we must find our way back to understanding such a picture, which is painted from a different consciousness, with its true content. I cannot paint for you right now the picture of the face that this theologian made when he was expected to see his Holy of Holies in such a spiritual sense. Theology, too, is thoroughly materialized, perhaps more than most. It no longer has any real spiritual basis, which is why Christology itself has become materialistic. For the fifteenth-century theologian to turn his attention to the “simple man from Nazareth” would have been inconceivable. The indwelling of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth was still alive in him. It has disappeared from consciousness. Only a person somewhat higher than Socrates and Plato or Aristotle is the simple man from Nazareth. But he is defined and seen as the simple man from Nazareth even by theologians. Theology itself has become materialized.

We need to make the leap from the innermost grasp of our humanity to the spiritual in freedom. We cannot do this by twisting spiritual phrases, by talking about the spirit; we can only do it by thinking spiritually. And it is spiritual when we say: knowledge is connected with the forces of the sun, will with the forces of the moon. When human bodies are formed here on earth through the currents of heredity, it is not something earthly that works, but something solar in the male force, something lunar in the female force. The earth is covered and permeated with solar-lunar forces, and these forces are related to the powers of knowledge and will. The spiritual permeates the physical, the physical expresses itself spiritually. Synthesis, the uniting of soul and body, is what must be sought today, must be sought unconditionally. It does not include those shadowy concepts that have been developed in recent times since the mid-15th century – they are only thoughts that have been developed in recent times since the 15th century. But a spiritual life that has been experienced is only one that can also have a practical effect at the same time. We have had a basically impractical spiritual life for long enough. As I have already said, people have talked a great deal over a long period of time about being good, being fraternal, and practicing love for one's neighbor. But these were concepts that remained in a certain sphere and had no impact on practical life. Just think: a real modern merchant, a real modern industrialist or, let us say, a civil servant – so that we have all three types – he can, and this also happens, even be a pious man. But there is a significant difference between what a merchant may experience inwardly in his soul as his religious confession and that activity of life that finds its expression in his account books! That which lives in his religious life has no power to penetrate into the account books. And the civil servant is not prepared to be a human being, but rather to be a civil servant. What he has learned as a civil servant, what does that have to do with what he may inwardly profess religiously? — Religious life is a current, so-called life practice is the second current. Because the concepts and ideas have become weak and cannot penetrate down into the practice of life, we cannot find such vivid, strong concepts that lead into social life today. For this, they need to be refreshed by spiritual science, so that the concepts become strong enough to penetrate not only as far as the concepts of a Sunday afternoon preacher, which evoke warm feelings in the heart, inward soul voluptuousness, but do not penetrate into the activity that finds expression in the account book. The concepts that are derived from the spiritual must penetrate further into practical life. Concepts are not spiritual if they do not penetrate through their inner power to the deepest essence of matter. This is precisely the spirituality of the concepts: that the concepts are strong and penetrate to the deepest essence of matter.

We need this if we are to overcome the gulf that has arisen between present-day humanity, which still has all possible inheritances from earlier times, and future humanity, which must truly carry out the synthesis, the synthesis between the material and the spiritual. It is a complete regression to earlier human ways of feeling when one is a materialist on the one hand and a spiritualist on the other. And when one can be both, so that both live in each other, then one is only up to the present demands of humanity.