77. Non-human Reality and Genuine Mysticism

[Beginning missing] Formation of thoughts receives, and what he draws out of himself when he forms thoughts.

Reality is revealed to man as material in the context of his sensory observation. He must form thoughts that are shaped in the sense of a scientific view if he adheres to this revelation. Anyone who, when faced with the revelation of nature, does not immediately imagine the force of gravity (or something similar in the realm of material events) when a stone falls to the ground, but thinks of a little demon who imagined that the stone was falling to the earth: this can just as well apply to a fantasist as to the person who believed that the hands of a clock were moved by little goblins hidden inside the clock, and not by the elasticity of the springs and the wheels. The formation of ideas must take place here in the sense of the scientifically minded. These conceptions are formed in a certain way because, through sensory observation, man comes into a certain relationship to reality, which can be pictorially represented by the relationship, for example, of a tree being photographed to the camera. Through scientifically-oriented conceptions, one obtains a view of reality, just as one obtains an image of the tree that shows its true form from a certain direction. A different relationship of extra-human reality to man gives rise to ideas that express the spiritual essence of reality. Anyone who rejects such ideas, if they are gained through genuine experience of spiritual existence, not through confused mysticism, because they seem to contradict the scientific way of thinking that he alone considers to be justified, does not see what is at stake. He believes that ideas that originate from the spiritual in reality come only from the personal (subjective) being of the thinker. He is like someone who knows the image of a tree and, when confronted with an image taken from a different direction, says that this image has nothing to do with the tree he knows; it contradicts it. This second image can therefore only have originated in the photographic apparatus itself. - (Here this characterization of human modes of perception in their relation to reality can only be presented in such a way that it must appear as a mere assertion to those who do not know its foundations. I hope that some of these foundations can be found in this writing. In a large part of my other writings, I have endeavored to express what justifies this view.)

[Beginning missing] The formation of thoughts receives, and what it brings out of itself when it forms thoughts. If I photograph a tree from a certain point, I get a picture that shows the tree from one side and is different from the picture taken from one point. The reasons for the difference between the pictures do not lie in the imaging apparatus, but in the position of the tree in relation to the apparatus; and this is just as outside the apparatus as the tree itself. And both pictures have their origin in the tree; the inner condition of the apparatus does not contribute to their difference. The relationship between extra-human reality and the human being is comparable to this. The material world is in the vicinity of the human being's sensory observation. It reveals itself to him in such a way that he must form ideas about it in terms of the context of natural law. Anyone who, when confronted with the revelations of nature, refuses to recognize the effect of gravity in the falling of a stone to the ground, or something similar in the material realm, and instead speaks of a little demon that makes the stone fall to the ground, would be considered as fanciful as someone who imagines that the hands of a clock are moved by little goblins hidden inside the clock, rather than by the hands themselves. The formation of ideas must be done here in the sense of the natural scientifically minded. But in this way one gets ideas that stem from a certain relationship of the extra-human world to man, like the image of a tree from its location to the apparatus. An illusion arises when one thinks that through the natural scientific way of thinking, one gets ideas that relate to reality differently than the image of the tree taken from one side to the other. Mystical conceptions present another relation of extra-human reality to man. The mystical character of the conceptions does not have its origin in man, but in the fact that certain essential traits of reality reveal themselves only when they are mystically experienced. However much offense some people may take at this, it must be said: He who, in his explanations of the ideas which arise in genuine mystical experiences, seeks their origin only in man, makes the same mistake that a person would make who sought an explanation for the position of the tree in relation to the camera in the construction of the camera itself. Thoughts that are scientifically oriented and mystical thoughts are rooted in the same reality. The real world is not encompassed by either scientific or mystical thought; it demands not one or the other thought, but both. And it demands many other types of thought as well. The reasons why people view the world scientifically, mystically, monistically, dualistically, [breaks off]

Someone might think that it is unjustified to regard Planck's thoughts as significant for the driving forces of the German Volkheit, since these thoughts have not been widely disseminated. Such an opinion fails to recognize what is important when talking about the effect of the people's being on the views of a nation's thinkers. What is effective here is the impersonal (often subconscious) forces of the people's being, which live in the activity of the people, in their achievements in the most diverse areas of existence, and which shape ideas in such a thinker. These forces were there before he appeared and are there after he has gone; they live even when no mention is made of them. And so they can also have a particularly strong effect on a native thinker who is grounded in his people and about whom no one talks, because these forces often radiate less into the opinions that people form about him than into his thoughts. Such a thinker will often stand alone, not only during his lifetime, but his thoughts can also stand alone for posterity. But once one has grasped the nature of these thoughts, one recognizes that what has become a personal entity in him remains resiliently effective in the folk mind, that it must appear again and again in ever new impulses. Regardless of the question of what he was able to achieve, the other question is what worked in him. One can try to recognize what led him to his achievements and what would lead to similar achievements (again and again).

I cannot think the same as those who dispute the value of mystical ideas, believing that they are doing the only scientifically correct thing. They are of the opinion: “What man does not know from the outset, observation of nature teaches; what observation of nature does not teach, experiment teaches; and what experiment does not teach, theory teaches, which adheres to observation and experiment; but what theory does not teach can never be the object of human knowledge.” Such is the judgment of the man who adheres purely to the scientific way of thinking, and his followers recognize nothing but his observation, his experiment, his theory. And now, of course, it is not he who is rejected by the other men, but he is not considered worthy of the name of a scientifically serious man who cannot certify that he has no relationship to any mystical thoughts. The fact that it is possible to live without the true mystical ideas proves no more than the fact that people lived without modern surgery until the fifteenth century.

How ridiculous someone who appreciates the blessings of today's surgery would find someone who might say, “Well, people lived in the times Hyrtl talks about, and they didn't have surgery in the modern sense.” It should be realized that people live without those who are in life pouring out or giving what is necessary for life from a thoroughly justified point of view. If one wanted to consider this properly, one would perhaps not consider those to be completely nonsensical who regard the talk of the dispensability of mystical ideas as a very questionable one for life. And /bricht ab]

For many people today, it is not only strange but also nonsensical to say that mystical ideas relate to those based on science in the same way that the image of a tree taken from one side relates to that taken from another. Such people will be inclined to say: apart from all other scientific objections to such a view, it should be dismissed because scientific knowledge is justified and demanded by real life, which cannot be said of mystical ideas. Those who speak in this way believe they know what is valuable for human life; but based on their assumptions, what they say is also understandable to those who, while acknowledging that the scientific way of thinking also has its full value for life, can nevertheless assess the true mystical ideas in terms of their significance for life. Only an unreasoning person could dispute the incalculable blessing that surgery has been for humanity. But read what the distinguished anatomist Joseph Hyrtl writes in his “Anatomy of Man” (9th ed. Vienna 1866):

We turn away in disgust from the scenes of horror that ancient surgery, in the belief that it was doing the best, inflicted on its patients: “What medicine does not cure, iron cures; what iron does not cure, fire cures; what fire does not cure cannot be cured in any way. Thus spoke the forefather of surgeons, and his blind admirers [in the Middle Ages] knew of nothing better to do than to cut out, tear out, burn out – and this was called surgery. No wonder, indeed, that in Germany these surgeons were considered dishonest until the fifteenth century, and that no craftsman would take an apprentice into his service unless he could certify that he was the child of honest parents and not related to a knacker, hangman or barber-surgeon (wound doctor).

How would someone who appreciates the blessings of modern surgery find it laughable if someone were to say: Well, human life existed in the times Hyrtl is talking about. And they didn't have surgery in the modern sense. One could also see this: that one can live without true mystical ideas proves no more than the fact that people until the fifteenth century - and longer - lived without the newer surgery [breaks off]