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ga: 35
title: "What is the Purpose of Spiritual Science and How is it Treated by Its Opponents?"
words: 7205
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# 8. What is the Purpose of Spiritual Science and How is it Treated by Its Opponents?

Since the form of “spiritual science” to which the author of these pages professes has attracted some attention among contemporaries, especially since the idea of building a place for the cultivation of this science, a “University for Spiritual Science” (in Dornach in the canton of Solothurn), was conceived, attacks from its opponents have been coming from all sides. They try to attribute the insights of spiritual research to the musings and fantasies of its representatives, to its spread across a whole range of civilized countries to the blind faith of its adherents and to many other things that they endeavor to present in unflattering terms. The adherents of various religious denominations find something in spiritual science that they feel they have to fight against. They paint all kinds of dangers that supposedly threaten religious sentiment.

Those who really want to penetrate to the true meaning of spiritual research will find it easy to see the unfounded nature of the opponents' attacks. In almost every case, the fabric of objectively incorrect assertions on which these attacks are based could easily be uncovered. And in those cases where such attacks do speak of the findings of spiritual research, they are mostly based on the most inadequate and misleading conception of these findings. Distorted images of these findings are given, which the opponents themselves first work out; and it is easy to find a “refutation” of these.

The writer of these remarks does not intend to deal with this or that individual attack *in the same* way; on the other hand, he would like to say something in general about the meaning and significance of spiritual science in the face of the prejudices that are held against it.

First of all, it may be noted that such “attacks” can be particularly surprising when they are made on spiritual research by representatives of religious denominations. One needs only a little insight into this research to recognize that it does not want to oppose any religious confession on its own initiative. For it does not consider itself as a new religious confession; it is as far away as possible from any kind of founding of a religion or formation of a sect. It wants to be the genuine, true continuation of the scientific way of thinking, as this has become incorporated into the spiritual life of humanity at the dawn of modern culture through Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Giordano Bruno and others. Out of the same attitude of mind with which Galileo, Bruno and others regarded the realm of nature, spiritual science seeks to regard the realm of the spirit. And just as little as Copernicus's doctrine that the earth moves did any harm to true religiousness, so little can the law, correctly understood in terms of spiritual science, that the human soul undergoes repeated earthly lives, endanger true religiousness. After Copernicus' appearance, it was *believed* that his teaching was detrimental to religion; but one can think differently about this *belief* than a learned *priest* who, elected rector of a large university, gave a speech about Galileo spoke such convincing words that the contemporaries of Copernicus turned against him out of a misplaced religiousness, whereas in our time the truly religious person should recognize how every new insight into the workings of the world must add a new piece to the revelation of divine world governance. World history has progressed beyond the attitude that wanted to reject Copernicus, and those who grasp spiritual science in its true sense must admit that the opposition that arises against this science in our time will be overcome much more quickly. For even where this antagonism arises from good faith, it is inspired by no different attitude than that which was directed against the Copernican world view. One is tempted to ask why the supporters of such an attitude do not make use of the teachings that can be drawn from the fact that so many have not grown tired of saying that Copernicus's theory contradicts the Bible? If they did so, they could no more accuse spiritual science of being an opponent of the Bible than they certainly no longer do so with the theory of the earth's movement.

Spiritual science is the *true successor* of natural science research in that it strives to recognize the realm of the spirit with the means that are suitable for this realm. As a *continuation of* natural science, it cannot itself be *mere* natural science. For the methods that have brought this science such tremendous triumphs were able to do so precisely because they were highly adapted to the study of nature and because this research was not compromised by others that were not suitable for the natural field. In order to accomplish something similar in the realm of the spirit as natural science has accomplished in the realm of nature, spiritual science must develop other cognitive abilities than those applicable in natural science. In doing so, it must, of course, assert a point of view that, understandably, can meet with many doubts in the present day. Just look impartially at what is said about these “other cognitive abilities”. They are abilities that lie entirely within the developmental line of the ordinary human soul powers. How must spiritual science understand its difference from natural science? The study of nature can only be cultivated with the powers of cognition that man acquires in the natural course of his life and that are supported for the purpose of this research by regulated observation and scientific experimental tools. In order to penetrate into the spiritual world, man must develop it further through spiritual and soul exercises beyond the point to which it develops by itself, so to speak, without such exercises. In this way, something similar happens to the human being at a different level to what happens to the child, which develops the abilities of its later years from those of its early years. Just as the child learns to use its soul abilities in such a way that the body becomes a good tool for experiencing the world of the senses, so the human being can develop his powers of cognition further so that he can perceive and experience in a state free of the body – purely as a soul. This happens when the soul intensifies to an unlimited degree certain activities which it already employs to a small extent in ordinary life, and thus brings about a state in which it draws out of the body, as it were, everything that is soul and spiritual in it. She can then experience her body as being outside of her, but for short, limited periods of time. She can know herself to be transported into a world in which she lives with spiritual beings and spiritual processes, just as she is surrounded by sensual processes and beings in the sensual world. The kind of spiritual-mental exercises by which this is achieved is described in my books: “How to Know Higher Worlds?” and “Occult Science”. What the soul experiences as a change in itself through such exercises is described in my book: “The Threshold of the Spiritual World”. Anyone who does not want to engage with the description of such actual processes as described in these books will be able to deny the possibility of a soul life free of the physical body, just as someone could say: I do not believe that hydrogen, as something quite different from water, can be developed out of water. He can say this if he does not want to concern himself with the fact that water is broken down into hydrogen and oxygen by means of chemistry. But man can — through a kind of spiritual chemistry — break himself down into physical corporeality and into soul-spirituality. The mode of thinking in spiritual science is the same as that in natural science; only this mode of thinking must be further developed in order to go beyond nature. But the following must always be emphasized: to investigate the beings and processes in the spiritual world, the development of the characterized soul powers is necessary; but to understand and grasp what the spiritual researcher finds through these soul powers, all that is needed is an *unbiased, unprejudiced* consideration of the results of spiritual research with the *ordinary soul abilities*. And it may be said that the reason why so many people reject these results is not because they do not prove convincing to the ordinary understanding, but solely because these people allow their understanding to be clouded by prejudice and bias. Indeed, it takes a certain impartiality to admit: Man, as he is in ordinary life, is not yet so perfect; he can still develop slumbering soul powers within him, indeed, these powers must even be developed if the spiritual world is to reveal itself. But spiritual science shows that only the sensual world, subject to death, is perceptible to the senses and the ordinary powers of the soul, and that another world, not subject to death, can only reveal itself to the soul forces that have first been opened up to it.

Anyone who gains insight into these things can only feel the deepest satisfaction that in our time, in almost all civilized countries, people are showing an interest in spiritual science. For this interest, this spread of spiritual science, is a testimony to a healthy sense of truth, to the will to grasp life impartially. Those who do not want to gain this insight will be able to claim of the adherents of spiritual science that they are following their representatives out of blind faith. The truth of the matter is that the true adherents of spiritual science are such precisely because they can rise above blind faith. The opponents of spiritual research are fond of suspecting blind faith in those who adhere to anything but the often quite “blind faith” of these opponents themselves.

A much-loved and yet misleading way of speaking disparagingly about spiritual science is to give a distorted picture of the “composition of the human being” in the sense of this science, and then criticize this distorted picture. Anyone who takes the trouble to recognize from my Theosophy the way in which spiritual science arrives at this “composition” can find that the striving to recognize the nature of man, as it was an ideal of all worldviews, is to be brought into a form that meets the demands of contemporary science. What is fundamentally new about this “composition” is only what is gained through the spiritual abilities characterized above. The rest can be found in the works of a great number of insightful students of the soul. If the number seven is found to be a revealing number for the human constitutional elements, then it should also be found to be revealing that the light in the seven colors of the rainbow, the sound in a seven-part scale (where the octave is again the fundamental) must be conceived as coming to manifestation. For in the same sense, only on a higher level, the human being reveals himself in seven members, of which three, bound to the body, perish, three - as spiritual - are immortal, and one in the middle forms the connecting link between the mortal and the immortal part of the human being. There will come a time when it will be no more of a “superstition” to recognize that man has these “seven” members than it is considered “superstition” today that the rainbow consists of “seven” colors. Those who simply say that the Theosophists are not satisfied with body, soul and spirit, they want to have found out that man is composed of “seven” members, are misleading, because by withholding the true reasons for this “seven-number” from their listeners and readers by withholding the true reasons for this “number seven”, he gives rise to the idea that the seven limbs have been arbitrarily assumed, whereas they arise as a result of careful spiritual research.

And how often is it claimed that the law of “repeated lives on earth” is based on “mere belief”. In truth, it is based on the most careful and profound spiritual-scientific investigations. Through these, one finds that in the life of man between birth and death, a “soul core” is revealed in development, which is just as much the basis of a new human life as the plant germ developing in the plant is the basis of a new plant life, which is thus already found in the predecessor plant. Since the plant germ is of a physical nature, it can be found by means of the senses; since the 'soul core' is of a spiritual-soul nature, it can only be observed by the soul, which places itself in a body-free state in the sense described above. And so, in man, the immortal soul-core is found in a strictly scientific way; it is not merely imagined to be analogous to plant life. It reveals itself to spiritual observation as that which already exists in the present life between birth and death, but which contains the forces to lead the soul beyond death into a purely spiritual life between death and a new birth, and after the course of this life to guide it back to a new life on earth. That something similar to this is found at a higher level for human beings – only with the difference that it is spiritual-soul – as at a lower level for plant life, testifies that spiritual science is the true successor of natural science. The plant germ, as a physical being, can perish without bringing forth a new plant-being; the soul-germ proves to be imperishable; there is nothing that can prevent its continuing the life of the soul. And just as the “repeated earth-lives” are the result of research and not “mere belief”, so it is also the case with the law of the connection of these earth-lives. A following earth-existence shows itself to spiritual research in relation to the abilities, the character and also the fate of man as an effect of the earth-lives spent earlier.

It is really not necessary to exert one's intellect particularly in order to find *apparent* refutations of the statements made by the spiritual researcher regarding special connections between the individual earthly lives of human beings. Indeed, it is not particularly difficult to ridicule many things in this field, since they belong to the “hidden depths of existence” and can easily appear strange to the field of ordinary thinking. If, for example, the spiritual researcher says that it may happen that a person was an idiot in one life on earth, but that it is precisely through his experiences as an idiot, which he looks back on after death, that he acquires the strength for a subsequent life on earth to become a philanthropic genius, then people of a certain disposition will naturally laugh and sneer at such a remark; but anyone who, through insight into true spiritual-scientific research and the mood of the researcher that is necessarily associated with it, gains an idea of the deep seriousness that must underlie such a statement, of the spiritual work through which such a statement is wrung from the soul, will no longer laugh and scoff. But he will also deepen his soul's contemplation of the depth, glory and inner dignity of all human and world existence.

Furthermore, how easy it is to say: yes, what becomes of human freedom if a person's actions are determined by his previous lives on earth? For if man acts according to a law of fate, then he does not act freely. The logic that is revealed in such an objection is somewhat flimsy. When I put my foot forward, I act according to the laws of life of my leg. Can anyone believe that freedom is endangered by this? Will someone say: yes, if I walk in accordance with the laws of life of the leg, then I am not free while walking? Nor should anyone be tempted to make the logical error of saying: if man acts in accordance with the law of fate, then one cannot speak of freedom. One can find that a truly thorough and serious logic is in harmony with the results of spiritual research everywhere; however, this cannot be said of a defective logic, which all too often considers itself infallible. One cannot demand or expect this of such a logic.

If there is at least an apparent reason for the adherents of various religions fearing a danger to religious life from the advances in the scientific way of thinking, then this should no longer apply to spiritual science itself after a little sober reflection.

What spiritual science has to say about the Christ-being is particularly offensive to many people. And yet this is also based only on a misunderstanding. If someone says, for example, that spiritual science claims that Jesus did not mature into the Christ from an early age under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but that during the first thirty years of his life he only prepared the physical shell in which the Christ took up residence at his baptism by John, then he is distorting the results of spiritual science on this point. Spiritual research investigates what actually happened through John's baptism, which, according to the Bible, undoubtedly has to be regarded as an important event in Jesus' life. (There are translators of the Gospel who render the important passage in Luke as: “This is my beloved Son; today I have begotten him.”) And this research finds that the Christ-spirit, which had guided Jesus of Nazareth as if from without until his thirtieth year, then, in that year, entered into the innermost part of his being. Future biblical research will surely recognize that on this point, too, the Gospel is proved *not* by the opponents of spiritual science, but by *this* one. Why do Christians attack the Christ teaching of spiritual science at all? It contains *nothing*, absolutely nothing that denies what Christianity has said about Christ up to now. It only broadens and elevates the concept of Christ. One would think that anyone who honestly has Christ at the bottom of his heart would rejoice at this. When spiritual science scientifically recognizes the event of Golgotha in its worldwide significance, nothing is taken away from the recognition that any Christian can claim for it. Where does one end up when one finds it unacceptable that someone believes something else about the Christ than one is willing to believe oneself? One ends up saying: I not only demand of you that you believe what I believe; but I disapprove of you wanting to know something that I *do not* want to know and *do not* want to believe.

These remarks were intended to give only a few points of view that may serve to point out some of the incorrect judgments about spiritual science. If one wanted to discuss each individual thing that is said about it here or there, one would have to write more than a few pages. But one would certainly not silence the false judgments that have been circulated, for example, in the wake of the construction of the Dornach “School of Spiritual Science”. This building will serve the Anthroposophical Society, which is dedicated solely to the cultivation of the spiritual science characterized here. This society did indeed emerge from the so-called “Theosophical Society”, but now has nothing whatsoever to do with it. For a number of years, the members of this Anthroposophical Society have been organizing spiritual and artistic presentations in Munich every summer. Members from all Western European countries gathered for these events. The growing number of participating members became so large that the construction of a separate building had to be considered. Western Switzerland is certainly the best location for such a building; in this area, the building is at the center of the part of Europe where most members of the Anthroposophical Society reside. And this location of the building enables them to visit the magnificent natural beauty spots of Switzerland after the events. It is in the nature of this science and its significance for the spiritual life of the present time that in the future the events will extend over longer periods of the year and thus a “School of Spiritual Science” will naturally arise. Anyone who has even a slight acquaintance with the spirit and work of the Anthroposophical Society need have no fear — as was feared in the wake of the Dornach building project — that this Society will engage in disruptive propaganda in the vicinity of the building site or anywhere else. However, anyone who objects that books on spiritual science are being published, that lectures are being given, and asks: Is that not propaganda?, needs no reply. For he might also object: You do talk about spiritual science, so you are doing propaganda. But it must be said that the entire way in which the Anthroposophical Society works is not based on propaganda, but rather on the fact that truth-seeking souls, out of the fullest inner freedom and only on the basis of their own judgment, find a place where truth is sought about the spiritual worlds.

#### Postscript

The immediate cause for these remarks was the publication in the appendix to the “Tagblatt für das Birseck, Birsig- und Leimental” of a lecture: “What do the Theosophists want?”, Which Pastor E. Riggenbach gave at the family evening of the Reformed Church in Arlesheim on February 14, 1914. The editorial staff of the above-named newspaper was kind enough to print a detailed response of mine in its columns, at the end of which I said that “I fully appreciate Pastor Riggenbach's calm, objective, and heartfelt discussion and am grateful to him for it.” In response to my response, the paper printed the following lines from Pastor Riggenbach:

*A final word on the question: “What do the Theosophists want?”* Dr. Steiner has provided a detailed response to my presentation at the Reformed Church's family evening, and it does not seem right to me to simply ignore it. Therefore, it is not my intention to continue the theoretical discussion, because despite all the common ground, the starting points are too different for us to reach an understanding, let alone unite. The readers have now had the opportunity to see the teachings of the theosophists in both lights, and we will leave it to them to decide for themselves on one or the other evaluation. I have no intention of continuing the discussion for the time being, and I will keep to myself what I might have to say in objection to Dr. Steiner's corrections and refutations. But I do feel the need to thank Dr. Steiner sincerely for his appreciation of my efforts to do justice to his cause. He has understood me correctly when he has read from my whole presentation that I can reject a *doctrine* as false and misleading without wanting to discredit the *representatives* of that doctrine in any way. Rather, I hope that we will continue to live in good understanding with the members of the Society who have now become our guests.

*Arlesheim*, March 2, 1914  
E. Riggenbach, Pastor

> This loyal comment by Pastor Riggenbach causes me to deviate from my original intention of publishing my reply as a printed document, as it appeared in the “Tagblatt für das Birseck, Birsigund Leimental”. I have written the arguments of this reply quite separately from their relation to Pastor Riggenbach and the necessary statements, and have expanded them with some additional remarks. When dealing with an opponent who presents his point of view in such a distinguished manner as Pastor Riggenbach does, I am reluctant to print what I have said a second time with reference to him.

#### What is the purpose of spiritual science?

A reply to “What do Theosophists want?”

The supplement of the “Tagblatt für das Birseck, Birsig- und Leimental” contains the reprint of a lecture: “What do the Theosophists want?”, which was held by Pastor E. Riggenbach at the family evening of the Reformed Church in Arlesheim on February 14. Since this lecture also aims to deal with the “spiritual science” that I represent, the honorable editorial team will grant me the request to be allowed to say the following about the speaker's remarks. I will only take into consideration what is said in relation to this “spiritual science”. For even in the time when I was a member of the so-called “Theosophical Society”, I never advocated anything other than this spiritual science; and I believe that if we look more closely at the world view I have expressed, even Pastor Rig genbach would not insist on his misleading statement: “that the whole system of thought with which Dr. Steiner appears is essentially the same as that invented by Ladies Blavatsky and Besant”.

First of all, the efforts of Pastor Riggenbach to do justice to the cause of “spiritual science” from his point of view should be unreservedly acknowledged. The noble tone of the arguments, the warm-hearted search for truth and the noble loyalty to conviction of the Reverend are most sympathetic; and I would ask him to accept what I have to say quite objectively and without expecting the slightest personal barb from me.

Every “attack” made by a representative of a religious community against “spiritual science” amazes me, to a certain extent, because I hardly ever miss an opportunity to emphasize again and again that this spiritual science does not want to oppose any kind of religious confession, since it does not see itself as a new religious confession, but as the genuine successor of the scientific mode of thinking, as this has been incorporated into the spiritual life of humanity at the dawn of modern culture by Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei and Giordano Bruno. From the same attitude of mind with which Galileo and Bruno regarded the realm of nature, spiritual science wants to observe the realm of the spirit. And just as little as Copernicus's teaching that the earth moves around the sun has detracted from true religiosity, so too can the law of “repeated earthly lives”, understood correctly in terms of spiritual science, do no harm to genuine religiosity. After the appearance of Copernicus, people believed that his teaching was detrimental to religion, just as Pastor Riggenbach currently believes this about spiritual science. World history has progressed beyond this belief, which felt compelled to reject Copernicus; and those who understand spiritual science in its true sense must admit that the opposition that this science is currently facing will be overcome much more quickly than that which was directed against Copernicus. Again and again I am reminded of the beautiful words spoken by a priest who, as a professor of theology, took up the post of rector of a university a little over ten years ago: He said that our contemporaries have turned against Copernicus out of a misguided religiosity; at present, the truly religious person will recognize that every new insight into the workings of the world adds a new piece to the revelation of the glory of divine world governance. Why not make use of the experiences of those who have not grown tired of emphasizing that the teaching of Copernicus contradicts the Bible? If Pastor Riggenbach did this, he would express some of his words differently, for example, by stating that spiritual science contradicts the Gospel.

When spiritual science speaks of “higher cognitive abilities,” it does so, however, from a point of view that is still doubted from many sides in the present day. But just take what is said about these abilities without prejudice! They are abilities that lie entirely within the developmental line of ordinary human soul forces. When a person voluntarily develops their thinking, feeling and willing from the point to which these have developed without their intervention, something similar happens as in the case of a child, which transitions from the abilities of its first years into those of its later years. Just as the child learns to use the faculties of his soul in such a way that his body becomes a good tool for him to experience the world of the senses, so can the human being develop his powers of knowledge further, so that he finds himself in a state of soul free of the body. In this state he then experiences the processes of a spiritual world and knows that he is surrounded by spiritual beings, just as he knows that he is surrounded by beings of sense in the world of the senses. That this is possible can be seen by anyone who opens himself to what is set forth in my book, “How to Know Higher Worlds.” He who does not want to open himself to it can deny the possibility of a soul-life free from the body, just as someone could say, “I do not believe in the existence of hydrogen,” when he is not interested in the fact that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. Just as the chemist demonstrates hydrogen apart from water, so the spiritual researcher demonstrates the insights of the soul freed from the body. The mode of presentation of spiritual science is the same as that of natural science; only this mode of presentation is applied to the spiritual realm.

No one who takes into account what has just been said and considers it in the context of how spiritual science is disseminated by me, for example, can have the slightest doubt that Pastor Riggenbach is making a misleading when he says: “In this, too, the way of the Theosophists directly contradicts that of Jesus, in that they form a narrow, closed circle of initiates and carefully withhold their best for them. Jesus never wanted anything to do with such secrecy.” Who can uphold this claim, considering that in my writing ‘How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds’ it is said for everyone who opens up access to the knowledge of spiritual science? Who can raise the accusation of secretiveness when one considers that I say everything that can be understood from the present-day spirit of the age in numerous public lectures that are accessible to everyone? When spiritual science is practiced by certain circles in a way that goes beyond this, the reason for the seclusion of such circles is that one can only arrive at certain parts of spiritual science if one has previously acquired others. But this is no different in this science than in any other; and anyone who accuses spiritual science of secrecy should also do so with regard to university science, which does exactly the same in this respect; namely, only to talk about certain things to those who have acquired an understanding of them. In no other sense is spiritual science secretive like any other science.

I know that no one who has properly studied the insights of spiritual science will discuss the comments I have made on the Lord's Prayer, on the passage in the Gospel of John “He who eats my bread he tramples me underfoot” or about the words of St. Paul: ‘The whole of nature groans in labor pains, awaiting adoption as children’ in the way that Pastor Riggenbach has done. Anyone who wants to understand what I have said in relation to these things cannot, as Pastor Riggenbach does, take them out of context. If you do that, then you can't just say that “I'm always lively when interpreting; if I'm not interpreting, I'm subverting”; you can't just say, “In my opinion, such an interpretation of the Savior's words borders on blasphemy”; you could say much more: you could claim that such an interpretation is complete nonsense. But anyone who takes into account the type of lecture, the way of presenting and thinking, within which these supposed “interpretations” occur, will no longer use these things for criticism in the way that Pastor Riggenbach does. If well-meaning criticism, as is decidedly the case with Pastor Riggenbach, proceeds in this way, then one can imagine that on the part of the friends of spiritual science, some precautions are taken so that lecture cycles, for example, which are intended only for those listeners who know other, preparatory ones, do not fall into the hands of such persons, who must find them quite fantastic because they do not have the prerequisites for understanding. From such completely matter-of-fact and not at all fundamentally significant measures, the unfounded accusation of secretiveness has developed.

Pastor Riggenbach also practices a much-loved yet misleading way of providing information about the “composition of the human being” in the sense of spiritual science. Anyone who takes the trouble to compare my Theosophy with the way in which spiritual science arrives at this “composition” can find that the striving to recognize the nature of man, as it was an ideal of all world views, is to be brought to a form that satisfies the demands of current science. The only thing really new in this classification is that which is gained through the spiritual faculties characterized above. The rest can already be found in a whole series of insightful students of the soul. If the number seven is found to be a captious number for the expressions of the soul, then it should also be found captious that light must be conceived as coming to revelation in seven rainbow colors, and sound in the seven-membered scale (the octave is again the keynote). I will not argue with Pastor Riggenbach when he says: “From the Bible we are accustomed to distinguishing three parts in man: body, soul and spirit.” There were ‘divine scholars’ who were so little accustomed to this from the Bible that they accused all those who asserted this tripartite of heresy of the true Christian teaching. There will come a time when people ‘from spiritual science’ will be ‘accustomed’ to distinguishing seven members of the human being, just as they now distinguish seven colors of light. Anyone who simply says, “The Theosophists are not satisfied with this — with body, soul and spirit; they have found out that man is composed of seven parts...” is misleading because he gives his listeners and readers the idea that the seven parts of man have been arbitrarily assumed; while they arise from careful spiritual research.

Pastor Riggenbach follows a process similar to the one he applies to the seven-limbed nature of man for the laws of “repeated earthly lives” and “karma”. He first adapts these laws to his own way of thinking and then criticizes not what I, for example, present about these laws, but what he has first made out of them.

The law of “repeated earthly lives” is not based, as Pastor Riggenbach seems to assume, on “belief”, but on a spiritual-scientific investigation. Through such a study, one finds that in the life of a human being between birth and death, a “soul core” is revealed in development, which is just as much the basis of a new human life as the plant germ is the basis of a new plant life, which is already found in the predecessor plant. Since the plant germ is of a physical nature, it can be found by the means of sense science; since the soul core is of a spiritual-soul nature, it can only be found by observing the soul when it has become free of the body. And so it is found, not by analogy (a comparison) with plant life. The fact that something similar is found at a higher level for the human being – only with the difference that it is spiritual-soul – as at a lower level for plant life, testifies that spiritual science is the true successor of natural science. The plant germ, as a physical being, can perish without founding a new plant being. The soul germ proves to be the eternal part in man that passes through repeated earthly lives. It imprints the experiences of successive earthly lives, which the plant germ cannot do, or only to a limited extent. Only so much can be said here about the many-sided law of “karma”. When Pastor Riggenbach, again taken out of context, mentions “more as a curiosity” what I once said about the karma connection of an idiot, he proves by the way he presents it how little he realizes what the spiritual researcher has gone through in his soul before daring to communicate to his listeners such a specific case as having been investigated by him. He shows how little he realizes the profound seriousness that underlies such a statement. Pastor Riggenbach believes that the true Christian draws the “truth from the Bible” and then sees it confirmed by his “religious and moral experience.” I would ask him: Can he really not imagine that knowledge as difficult as that of the karma of an idiot, wrung from the soul, is later confirmed by experience? In this case, the pastor allows the non-pastor to freely confess that I find his treatment of me, especially in this karma case, to be less than Christian.

And I would like to say almost the same thing when Pastor Riggenbach makes the comment: “For those who take karma seriously, love, which believes everything and hopes everything, and endures everything and bears everything, must appear as an illusion.” Where can Pastor Riggenbach get the reasons for such an assertion? Certainly not from seriously meant spiritual science. For the latter never tires of pointing out the karmic connections of unloving actions and attitudes. But the fact that Pastor Riggenbach can achieve many things with his logic that are completely foreign to spiritual science is proved to me by a truly astonishing sentence in his remarks. He says: “It does sound very contrived and sophisticated when he — Steiner — writes at one point: ‘It is not fate that acts, but we act in accordance with the laws of our fate.’ Yes,” — so Pastor Riggenbach continues, “if we act in accordance with the laws of our fate, that means nothing other than that we act under the compulsion of our fate and with that freedom is gone.” With all due respect: if I should ever say, “It is not the laws of my leg that cause me to move when I put my foot forward, but rather I put my foot forward in accordance with the laws of my leg,” you, Pastor Riggenbach, will then find this ” and sophistical” and perhaps even say, ”Yes, when we walk in accordance with the laws of the leg, it means nothing more than that we walk under the compulsion of our leg laws, and that freedom is lost.” You would hardly say that, and realize that one should not be so unchristian as to accuse someone of “sophistry” when it is so easy to get muddled in terms of logic.

The criticism of the Christ impulse, of which spiritual science speaks, is probably the most unfounded part of Pastor Riggenbach's arguments. It would be going much too far to refute the assertion that “this whole way” of understanding the Christ comes from so-called Gnosticism. No, it comes from spiritual scientific research independent of all antecedents. It is quite wrong to say: “According to this, Jesus did not mature into the Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit from an early age, as the Bible shows us, but rather, during the first thirty years of his life, he only prepared the physical shell into which the Christ descended at his baptism by John.” One cannot distort what spiritual science has to say about this point more than it is distorted by this assertion. This science examines what actually happened through John's baptism, which, according to the Bible, undoubtedly has to be regarded as an important event in Jesus' life. (Weizsäcker even translates the corresponding important passage in the Gospel of Luke: “This is my beloved Son; today I have begotten him.”) And spiritual research finds that the Christ-spirit, which guided Jesus of Nazareth as if from without until he was thirty, then entered into the innermost part of his being in his thirtieth year. Future biblical research will surely find that precisely on this point the Bible is also right about Mr. Pastor Riggenbach, but gives credence to spiritual science. I can be brief about everything else that Pastor Riggenbach brings forward against the Christ-teaching of spiritual science. Why does one attack this Christ-teaching at all, since it contains nothing that negates the views of any Christian confession about Christ? Nothing, absolutely nothing of what Pastor Riggenbach believes about Christ is negated by spiritual science. Spiritual science only brings about a significant broadening and elevation of the concept of Christ. One would think that even in the mind of Pastor Riggenbach, those who accept what he accepts and something more besides may still be called good Christians. If the cosmic significance of the event of Golgotha is also recognized, then nothing is taken away from the recognition that Pastor Riggenbach claims for himself. It is wrong to say: “The gospel is too simple, too plebeian for them - the theosophists.” It is an assertion that is again - forgive me the word - not very Christian towards people who put all their efforts into understanding the Christ event. Where does it get you when you find it unacceptable that someone believes something else about Christ than you yourself want to believe? One comes to say: I not only demand of you that you believe what I believe; but I disapprove of you because you want to know something that I do not want to know. And yet this is the ultimate consequence of the criticism that Pastor Riggenbach exercises on the Christ-concept of spiritual science. He would certainly reject this consequence, since he is a thoroughly well-meaning critic. But I must hear it in his remarks, and I find that these remarks sound to me as if someone were saying: You must not believe in Copernicus, because he does not speak about the processes of the world in the way it is written in the Bible. More will be said about this in my next lecture on “Spiritual Science and its Relationship to Contemporary Religious and Social Movements,” which I will give in Basel on March 13, 1914.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that I fully appreciate the calm, objective and heartfelt manner in which the pastor has addressed the issue and am grateful to him for it. Indeed, I wholeheartedly agree with him: “I do not regret this discussion on my part, because it is always interesting to engage with the ideas of others in honest debate. But I have no more reason to regret it because, from the humbler ground of spiritual science, 'the simple glory of the gospel stands out all the more brightly.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner