91. Spiritual Science and Sensory Perception

Human illusions are the result of the activity of imagination, which should actually be directed towards the spiritual world and is not directed towards it; but one does not become free of illusions if one recognizes the right thing in one case merely by criticizing the illusionary of the other; for then the power that wants to create the illusion is directed towards another field.

To surrender the spiritual, which flows into the liberated perceptions - one must have the same power to preserve one's own being as one has in the sensual world in relation to perceptions. Only in the case of perceptions is it a matter of preserving the ego in the face of changing perceptions; with regard to the spiritual world, it is a matter of bringing the ego into becoming, into change - by relating it to ever-changing spiritual beings and identifying with them.

Spiritual science first recognizes that on the path of perception nothing is recognized except what is material.

The material is withdrawn from the laws of death by forces that do not belong to it - which can only be seen if one withdraws from the material. - Why is the spiritual not recognized? Because one destroys its appearance in the process of cognition. In this process of destruction one attains the consciousness of humanity. For one must live within oneself in the process of destruction.

In thinking, we destroy the physical body.

In feeling, we destroy the etheric body - therefore we experience the activity of the physical body within.

In willing, we destroy the astral body - therefore we experience the activity of the physical body outwardly.

In imagining, we destroy the “I” - therefore we experience the activity of the outside world.

Let it be clear: the thought is always there - it is witnessing - consciousness only reflects it before the soul - the soul needs the material as the tool of reflection.

Ordinary science seeks an external content (perception); but this external content does not contain the soul – its contact with the external destroys this external – but this is precisely how it is perceived.

The fight against spiritual science is not based on the contradiction of justified observation, but on the fact that its concepts are unfamiliar to present-day humanity - the ideas are gained in experiences detached from the body, in free imaginative activity, but which absorbs a reality not from outside but from within: one must have the strength not to let reality fall within: In ordinary experience this power is used to cause the body to mirror the external world. This effect must be renounced in supersensible cognition.

In waking perception, the soul's own activity, which dwells in the stream of spiritual life, is hidden from the soul. This is because this activity comes about through the elements of the body being interwoven with the soul's activity.

In the sleeping life, the soul's activity is too weak to perceive itself – it lives without the counterplay of the past.