Spiritual Teachings Concerning the Soul

GA 52 — 1 February 1904, Berlin

XI. Theosophy and Spiritualism

Questions about the origin and destination of the human soul, questions that are considered religious, theological, or theosophical, have always existed throughout history. But in ancient times, the science of everyday life went hand in hand with the exploration of the spiritual world. At that time, there were knowledgeable people not only in relation to the facts and laws of external nature and the science of material life, but also in relation to the science of spiritual life. Those who were knowledgeable about natural phenomena and natural laws could also be relied upon for information about the laws of spiritual life. At that time, there was no one-sidedness among spiritual leaders. Almost everyone had an overview of the entire field of knowledge, and probably no one dared to give an authoritative judgment on any scientific question, for example in the field of zoology, if he did not at the same time know about the higher questions of spiritual life.

Since the 16th century, this has changed. Religious matters and what popular science had to offer came into conflict with each other. And this conflict between faith and knowledge, between religion and insight, became most acute in the 19th century. At that time, spiritual life took on a completely different physiognomy in view of what I have discussed. Great natural scientists date the dawn of the scientific age to around the 1830s. This age has rightly been referred to as one of the most epoch-making in human history. People have proudly pointed to what natural science achieved in the 19th century in terms of mastering the laws of nature and understanding natural processes. And it has been rightly said that all the previous millennia combined have not achieved as much in this field as the 19th century.

However, a side effect of this great, tremendous upswing is a lack of spiritual life. The harmony that prevailed in earlier ages between the two sides of knowledge has been lost. The harmony between science, which is limited to external facts in the material world, and science, which deals with the facts of the soul, no longer exists today. It is peculiar how the science of the 19th century has become completely powerless in the face of the great questions of existence, in the face of questions of soul and spiritual life. It is remarkable how, especially in our time, the great masses can no longer be led to the higher spiritual sciences by the leaders in science. No insight can be gained from those who study nature when one asks them: What about the problems of the soul? What about the destiny of man? Our age, in which things stand as they do, has been called the materialistic age. Our otherwise so perfect science is limited to the study of nature, insofar as it can be carried out with the outer senses, insofar as it can be calculated or explored through a combination of outer, sensory perceptions. And the insights of nature and the life of the soul no longer go hand in hand.

Let us consider psychology, the science of the soul, in our time. It is as if a great incapacity had crept into it. Go from university to university, from lectern to lectern: what you hear about the life of the soul and spirit is completely powerless in the face of the most burning questions of our existence. It is characteristic that the so-called soul researchers have a slogan that is as significant as only a slogan can be. Since Friedrich Albert Lange, the historian of materialism, the slogan of “soul doctrine without a soul” has become the norm. This slogan aptly describes the position of psychology in the second half of the 19th century and roughly expresses that the human soul and its characteristics are nothing more than the external expression of the mechanical operation of the sensory forces of nature in our organism. Just as a clock consists of wheels and moves the hands forward with the help of the wheels, just as the forward movement of the hands is nothing more than the result of purely mechanical processes, so too our soul life with its desires, cravings, mental images, concepts, and ideas is said to be nothing more than the result of physical processes, comparable to the forward movement of the hands on a clock; it should have no other basis than the clockwork that moves in our brains and that has been explained to us by science in such an epoch-making way. There is nothing to criticize about brain physiology; everything remains fully valid and can be recognized by no one more than myself. But even if we can say that the clock is a mechanical engine and that what it does is the result of mechanical gears, we must not forget that a watchmaker was involved in the manufacture of the clock. “A clock without a watchmaker” is just as impossible a slogan as “a doctrine of the soul without a soul.” And this is not merely a slogan, but something that characterizes the entire approach to research, thinking, and attitudes of the 19th century, which observes the soul while eliminating the spirit and explains it merely as a mechanism. Explanation and attitude are consistent with this slogan. It is therefore no wonder that those who, out of the deepest needs of their hearts and souls, crave answers to the questions: Where does man come from? Where is he going? What is the destiny of our soul? — feel bored by what is presented as scientific teaching about the soul by those who are supposed to possess such teaching. In the textbooks on the soul, one finds something quite different from a teaching about the soul.

It is therefore not surprising that those who are in need of knowledge about the spirit and the soul, precisely since official science has been so powerless to answer these questions, seek to satisfy their need in a non-scientific way, and that this science of the soul and spirit stands apart from modern science of materialism, which makes science deaf and dumb; deaf to external teaching, mute when it comes to speaking about the soul itself. Even where it has good intentions, our official science is powerless when it comes to questions of the soul. Thus, where controversy has arisen in science between materialism and spiritualism, as for example between Wagner and Vogt, it has by no means ended to the disadvantage of materialism. Everything that the materialistic researcher has countered the spiritualist with is completely tenable, while what the spiritualist has put forward was completely untenable in the light of rigorous research. We see, then, that even when scholarship had the good will to deepen the question of the human soul in the sense of Weber's genuine spiritual science, it proved powerless. The words “soul doctrine without a soul” are therefore not merely a slogan, for science has indeed lost the concept of what the soul is. If you want to seek advice in this field from the most famous psychologists of the present day, you will find the same thing as with the psychologist Wagner. Psychologists will have nothing to say because they no longer have any mental image of what the soul is. Not only have they coined the phrase “soul science without a soul,” but they themselves have completely lost sight of the essence of the soul.

This fact must be fully appreciated if one wants to understand the development of spiritualist currents. Since the development and emergence of the materialistic era, which is enthusiastically welcomed by some and vigorously opposed by others, there has been a counter-current known as the spiritualist or spiritualistic movement. The two belong together, just as the south pole and north pole of a magnet naturally belong together. Because scientific researchers and leaders had nothing more to say about the soul, people turned to other researchers to hear something about the soul. And since the question of the soul is so unstoppably pressing, all objections that have been made against spiritualism have fallen completely powerless.

Today we want to examine how we should respond, from a theosophical point of view, to the enthusiastic welcome and the objections of the opponents of spiritualism. I assume that spiritism is a necessary phenomenon. For when we study such a question, we must first be clear that it is not a random phenomenon, but a necessary one; recognizable as necessary simply by the way it has unfolded. Let us first disregard the fact that it has mainly been amateurs who have concerned themselves with spiritualism and spiritualistic phenomena. Let us look at something else, namely the fact that there have also been scholars of the highest reputation and importance who have been sympathetic to the question of spiritualism. And because this is the case, please allow me for a moment to disregard the spiritualistic phenomena themselves and to make the development of spiritualism a question of personalities, which initially refers to those who have dealt with spiritualism and who are undoubtedly known to have a remarkable judgment in spiritualistic matters; who are also known to have exerted a profound influence in the field of material science. These are scholars who, like many other people, could not be satisfied with the concepts of a “soul doctrine without a soul” presented to them by their colleagues; these are scholars who have achieved much more in our modern science than the actual materialistic researchers.

We may well ask the question: Is it not of particular significance when a researcher of unquestionable reputation, such as the great English chemist Crookes, has professed his belief in spiritualism? Crookes, who has rendered outstanding services to the study of the fundamental laws of chemistry, the chemical constitution of our elements, who has not only made his mark in the scientific field, but has also achieved the best in the practical field, who occupies a position in science like few others—this man has engaged in spiritualistic experiments. It was thought necessary to object to him on the grounds that he had not proceeded with precision in his observations. But this objection is of secondary importance; it only shifts the question. For what matters is not whether Crookes conducted his experiments with precision, but whether Crookes, the great chemist, knew to what extent nature follows the laws of the senses, how far these laws extend, and whether they stand in the way of a doctrine of the soul obtained through spiritualist experiments; whether the highest possible scientific performance does not prevent a man from achieving scientific insights in the field of spiritualism. That is what matters: Can Crookes be the exact scientific researcher for us on the one hand, if on the other hand we believe we should doubt his research in the spiritual field? It is almost as if we were constructing a double Crookes, a morning Crookes and an afternoon Crookes. In the morning, when he is engaged in chemistry, he is of sound intellect; in the afternoon, when he devotes himself to the investigation of spiritualistic experiments, he is insane. That this is absurd is immediately apparent, but it is not acknowledged by conventional science.

Another natural scientist is the English scholar Wallace, the founder of the theory of descent. Darwin and he independently discovered the great idea of this doctrine, Darwinism. If one studies his works, one finds that he approached the question at hand even more magnificently than Darwin himself. His merit in this field is not disputed. However, since he later advocated the reality of spiritualistic phenomena in word and writing, he too has been divided into two parts, so to speak. On the one hand, he fights for his scientific view, and on the other, for his doctrine of the soul, which is held in the same sense in which Crookes also formed an experimental doctrine of the soul. Everywhere you can find him portrayed as a poor misguided soul because he dealt with spiritualism and spoke in its favor. Dwarf-like intellects simply rebel against the way of thinking and the attitude of these great men.

The fact that a researcher in the field of spiritualism can stand on the same level as a natural scientist, as in the case of the two researchers mentioned above, gave me reason to first make this a question of personality.

In fact, the 19th century has an advantage over all previous centuries in that these extremely important questions are treated as scientific questions. These researchers do not consider it impossible to extend scientific research to this field. Therefore, it may well be correct to refer to them as authorities, for what matters is not whether their observations were accurate or inaccurate, but only what they considered possible or impossible. The accuracy or inaccuracy of an experiment can be determined later. What was done wrong can be corrected later under different conditions. This applies to this research into the soul, where the only question that matters is: Can this type of soul doctrine be scientifically refuted?

We do not have a scientific doctrine of the soul, and the weakest and most insignificant things written by scholars during the 19th century are written against spiritualism. There may be some opponents of my view sitting here, but they must admit, with an unbiased judgment, that even if the writings directed against spiritualism are correct, they are all trivial and unscientific; one can also be right when one asserts foolish things.

Now that we have recognized the spiritualist movement as a necessity, so to speak, in terms of cultural history, let us look a little at the differences between the spiritualist movement and other endeavors to explore the facts of the soul.

You all know that since 1875 there has been a theosophical movement, a theosophical movement that, like spiritualism for the past forty years, has been striving in its own way to confirm the truth that material existence is not the only thing that exists, but that there is a higher existence in the world, that there are spiritual facts and beings that cannot be reached or explored with the external senses. Just as spiritualism has dealt with the question of the existence of a spiritual, a soul world according to its method, so too does theosophy deal with these higher worlds. It is a simple historical fact that the founders of the theosophical movement, before they came to the realization of working in a theosophical sense, were themselves involved in the spiritualist movement. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the great emissaries of the Theosophical Society, started out in the spiritualist movement, and the theosophical association they initially formed was even called a society of dissatisfied spiritualists. Blavatsky and Olcott sought nothing other than spiritual truth after they had come to the realization that the Theosophical movement was correct. What they changed was only the method, the way of researching, and we will now discuss why they changed it.

It is the task of all spiritualists and spiritualists and all religious movements to prove that there is a higher spiritual life; that something spiritual lives in man, that man is a spiritual nature in himself, that his life between birth and death is only a part of the whole of human life, and that man is something else besides his physical being. These spiritual researchers strive to provide proof of this. That is what they have in common. That is what they strive for together, and in this goal they will also come together to form a necessary counterbalance to the materialistic trend. Truth cannot be attained by separate paths, but only in complete unity, in harmonious striving. And not only the common goal, but also the knowledge of the common origin of these two movements should contribute to the attainment of this unity. It was a common place of origin from which both the spiritualist and spiritist movements and theosophy originated. So not only the goal, but also the origin is the same. Those who can look a little deeper into the inner driving forces of the spiritual movement know this. What we see externally, what lies immediately before our outer eyes from the spiritual movement, takes place in the world of effects, not in the world of causes. The spiritual researcher knows that much of what takes place before your senses has its causes in much higher spiritual worlds. We grope around almost like blind people when we walk up and down in the sensory world, and have no idea what is going on behind the scenes, where higher spiritual powers, as it were, pull the strings of what takes place before our sensory eyes. Thus, the spiritual researcher also recognizes that the spiritualist, spiritist, and theosophical movements have a common origin.

Anyone who follows the development of humanity with an open spiritual eye knows that there is just as much development within the spiritual life of humanity as there is within physical nature. Just as there are beings within physical nature who grope in the dark, and others who grope in the dark and also hear, and so on, so too in spiritual life there are all degrees between the undeveloped soul of a Hottentot and the genius soul of a Goethe or Newton. We can see, then, what enormous differences exist, both in the gradation of sensory development and in the scale of spiritual development. There are highly developed natures among humanity, and those who have found them know how to bear witness to them. These great natures are the leaders in spiritual development. They are not only, as Schopenhauer said, an ideal brotherhood reaching out to each other through the ages, but a real society working with and within each other. The theosophist knows of their existence and calls them the great brotherhood of the so-called adepts. Anyone who honestly believes in development must believe in this possibility; but anyone who has experience of it can testify that such beings exist.

When the materialistic turning point came in the middle of the 19th century, when the higher beings saw that a materialistic flood was coming, it was they who brought about the opposite pole. They did not criticize this materialistic movement for a moment. They knew that modern technology would take a tremendous leap forward as a result, and that was a necessity. Therefore, the materialistic movement should not be fought. Only in relation to the exploitation of materialistic science with regard to the question of the soul did it become necessary to create a counterpole, a spiritual current, a spiritual wave to counterbalance the materialistic one in humanity. This spiritual wave is initially expressed in the occurrence of spiritualistic and spiritualist phenomena. People should be shown that there is something else besides what natural science is able to grasp with its means. Those brothers who knew how to interpret the signs of the times, who have always been the leaders of humanity, also sent the spiritualistic tidal wave over humanity. They have been working for centuries. Unknown and misunderstood, they will emerge in individual personalities in immeasurable work for humanity. As long as humanity as a whole could turn to scientific leaders, as long as it could obtain information about burning questions of the soul, those older brothers were able to guide spiritual humanity in hidden mysteries. They then sent their scouts out into the world on paths known only to the so-called occultist. Many who truly study history encounter such spiritual influences which, if they are merely materialistic researchers, they cannot explain, but which become clear to them when they turn to the right spiritual researchers.

In the 19th century, things changed. Precisely because the scientific leaders failed, it became necessary to create obvious evidence for the existence of a spiritual world. But now it turned out that the three decades of the spiritualist movement from 1840 to 1870 initially aroused interests that were quite different from those intended. Do not object that wise leaders can also be mistaken, since they should otherwise have foreseen this. That is a matter that must be discussed in another way. It initially turned out that the interests associated with spiritualist phenomena were not those intended. It was to be pointed out in a striking way that there is a purely spiritual life alongside the physical one. But what was nourished at that time were only interests of an all too human, personal nature. It was communication with the deceased that was sought above all else. But that was not at all what the messengers of humanity were supposed to bring. The purpose of these phenomena was not to satisfy human curiosity, even if it was of a beautiful and noble kind. Rather, humanity was to be given knowledge and insights which, when correctly applied to themselves, would lead them to a higher, spiritual life. Unfortunately, too much spectacle was sought, and research into the spiritual world was conducted in a way that cannot lead to the real ennoblement of humanity. That is the reason that led to the founding of the Theosophical Society.

Let me briefly indicate what this is about. Human beings are not created by purely natural forces. That which constitutes human nature, that which forms, so to speak, the shell of the soul and spiritual life, is not created by physical force. Wisdom created the world. Wisdom also created each individual. I must assume this here; proving it to you could be the subject of a special lecture. Therefore, I will only sketch it out today.

You know that pure natural forces cannot create a watch, but that human ingenuity is necessary to produce the necessary combinations. Those who say that when we explore the organism of the living body, we find no God, no divine creative power, but only natural forces, are right. They do not find the spiritual, creative forces. Even a little reflection can clarify this. Even if you study a watch, you can explain it entirely mechanically, and yet you are ultimately compelled to ask about wisdom, about human intelligence, about the watchmaker who built it, whom you cannot find in the watch either. From this we can see that the question is wrongly posed. The comparison of the human organism with a watch is certainly valid, but it must be applied correctly. And it is correct to say that just as a watch and its workings cannot come into being without the spiritual influence of a watchmaker, so too the human soul — the highest blossoming, the highest development of the forces that have built up the human organism, the highest thing that the spirit has brought about from the outer body — cannot have come into being without the spiritual influence of its creator; this human soul with the present consciousness as we know it, which teaches us about the environment, which calculates, combines, and enlightens us about our moral life. Think what was necessary — I must speak figuratively — to create within this human organic development the basis for this blossoming of organic life, for the human spirit.

It is easy to form the mental image that these so-called builders, these lawful constructors of the organism, could only have built up to one of the lower stages, but that they would never have been able to erect this complicated human organism, which was to be used as a useful tool for the human soul. A summit had to be reached in their abilities. Let us therefore descend into those times that preceded the development of the human soul, when development had not yet reached a human level. We then find that these beings are wisely constructed, and at the same time it becomes clear to us that the powers that worked on the construction of these beings can generally be seen by us humans just as little as the watchmaker can be seen in a watch. Human beings know as little about the spiritual powers, forces, and beings that carefully prepared the dwelling place of their souls as the mechanical mechanism in a clock knows about the spiritual activity of the watchmaker.

Spiritual forces have therefore worked on the construction of our organism and are still at work within us. Those forces that have shaped our organism so that it can breathe, send blood through the veins, digest, concentrate substances and forces in the brain, and make the brain a suitable tool for the soul until the human soul could arise — these soul forces are still at work today. But just as we cannot see gravity or magnetism, just as we cannot see the forces that manifest themselves as our desires, passions, wishes, and drives, so too can we not recognize the creative forces that were at work in the construction of the organism. Imagine that human beings were not yet at the level where they are filled with what I described earlier as clear consciousness. Imagine them transported back to a time when these powers of consciousness had not yet taken possession of their organism. Before our highly developed brain could form in the course of world evolution, other forms of brain developed, which are still within us today, covered and regulated by the highly developed, perfect brain of the human beings of our time. In a way unconscious to humans, the spiritual masters of the world built up the desire and instinctive nature of humans; that nature which humans share with animals, in order to bring forth the instrument of the soul as its blossom. Even today, these spiritual beings who built us up are still active; they are beside us, within us, as real and true as this lamp here in the physical world. We move in our physical world and know about the things of the world because we have attained a clear consciousness. Around us live many beings who have remained at earlier stages of existence. Just as humans have evolved, certain beings have remained behind and form a spiritual world of their own. But even for them, evolution does not stand still. Just as our consciousness has evolved to our level and clarity, so too does their evolution continue. Our consciousness cannot be denied its further development to ever greater heights. But then, when human beings have developed further, not only to this clear consciousness, but to an even higher view, we will again recognize the spiritual worlds that always surround us.

There are two ways in which it is possible to gain knowledge of the spiritual world that surrounds us. The first is to investigate what happens to human beings when their clear consciousness is switched off. This clear consciousness is like a light that outshines the spiritual influences around us. We do not see them because they are outshone by our consciousness. But when we switch off our consciousness, we come closer to the spiritual beings who were our builders before we had clear consciousness. We then gain the insight that development is not a straight upward path, but that it also goes up and down in circles. By switching off our clear consciousness, we move back, as it were, to earlier stages of our development, where we were even more spiritual, while today we stand above that sphere with our consciousness. We actually come from a spiritual world, and this spiritual world has, so to speak, prepared what can be the dwelling, the home of the soul in the physical world. We approach the divine being in a certain way when we scale back a little the level we have reached. That is one way; that is the way that spiritualism has taken.

The other way is that taken by modern spiritual science, theosophy. Theosophy seeks to explore the spiritual world not by eliminating consciousness, but by developing consciousness to a higher level. The ideal of the theosophist is to gain insight into the spiritual world that surrounds us with complete continuity, while maintaining clear consciousness. That is the difference between the theosophical student and the spiritualist medium. The medium brings news from the spiritual world, but is merely a tool in the process. It acts as an organ, a means through which the spiritual world speaks. The theosophical researcher seeks to raise his clear, bright consciousness to the heights where he can perceive this spiritual world again. The theosophical researcher considers it an impairment of human independence, an obstruction of the independent right of human self-determination, if he is to abandon the level he has once reached in the course of nature, the level of clear consciousness, and return to the state he has already passed through in earlier phases of development.

The truths we obtain in a state of reduced consciousness may be completely inviolable, and no one may doubt the accuracy of the results of spiritualistic experiments, but this does not affect the question of whether the method of research is correct or permissible. And what matters most is whether it is in accordance with the laws of development and the intentions of the cosmic powers to take steps backward that nature has already taken forward. Steps are not taken in nature for no reason, and therefore man should not set himself back in phases of development which nature has already overcome with him. We do not want to search for the truth out of curiosity, not by incorrect, deceitful means, but only by the means which the high cosmic powers have shown us, by the means which leads through our clear consciousness. It is therefore the aim of the theosophical movement not to listen to those who reveal the truth from the unconscious or subconscious, but to those who proclaim the truth from full, clear daytime consciousness. And those who are part of the theosophical movement and possess direct knowledge of the truth have explored the truth in no other way than by maintaining full, clear daytime consciousness. They must not switch off their consciousness for a single moment. Higher development of consciousness, full, clear vision, as the adepts have, must be his striving. When we have reached this goal, we fulfill our human destiny.

Why should we believe the medium in trance more than the one who speaks from his clear daytime consciousness? Trust is necessary here and there. It is certainly more convenient to explore the truth by switching off consciousness, but the research method that maintains clear mental consciousness is more humane. Therefore, theosophists have preferred the latter path as the natural one, so that all work from the unconscious or subconscious must be described as not in line with the theosophical movement. As mentioned, the theosophical movement seeks to reach the spiritual world from a state of full, clear consciousness, and it is clear that human beings are spiritual beings who, depending on their level of development, are more or less independent of the body. Therefore, theosophy addresses above all embodied human beings, those who, while living in the body, can attain spiritual powers of vision and temporarily, with full, clear consciousness, become independent of their physical organism. The human being who is independent of the body has the opportunity to gain experience in the spiritual world, not by returning to times when clear daytime consciousness had not yet developed, but by ascending to times and periods of development in which consciousness will be higher than the average consciousness of people today.

The medium is a reminder of past times of development. In earlier times, all human beings were mediums; all had astral perception, all were once able to perceive the spiritual world. But out of this astral consciousness, our consciousness, our clear, bright daytime consciousness, gradually developed. When ascending into the spiritual worlds, which all people will have to do, they will, if I may say so, pass through that astral world again, perceiving astral again, becoming clairvoyant again. But this is only a transitional stage, just as all stages of development can be regarded as transitional stages. Our earthly career is a lesson that we must work through, that we have to learn. We should therefore not become unworldly, not be hostile to the earthly, but live entirely in the earthly and recognize there the same forces, the same beings in the earthly world that we perceive in the supersensible world, because these work into our earthly world by interweaving with human souls and thus gaining influence on the shaping of life in the earthly world.

This is also what the bee allegory of the mystery priests of ancient Greece sought to express. The bee allegory is therefore not without significance for us, for it is the human soul that was compared to the bees. Just as bees are sent out of the hive to the flowers to collect honey, so the human soul is sent out from higher regions to gather experience in the earthly world. The bees are assigned to the realm of flowers, humans to the earthly world. It would therefore not be in accordance with their destiny if bees and humans were to seek out other areas of research, to engage in regions that contain none or an unsuitable amount of the material to be gathered. That is why the Theosophical Movement has made this allegory the symbol of its work, which, in short, consists in striving for the higher development of knowledge and the formation of clear consciousness into a comprehensive one, so that it can also participate in life in spiritual worlds. The Theosophical Society therefore strives for the higher development of human beings. If this succeeds, then those interests in human nature that lead people forward will be stimulated. It is not curiosity that should drive us to learn about the spiritual world. And what we learn should give us the strength and power to achieve the goal set for us by the cosmic powers.

The spiritualist-spiritist movement will awaken in its followers the awareness that there is a spiritual world. Theosophy and spiritism agree in this endeavor. But, as already explained, the method of achieving this goal is different. The reasons why the Theosophical Society does not approve of the research method of spiritism can be stated in a few words: At the present stage of our cosmic development, there is a great danger in switching off human consciousness. According to the entire course of cosmic development, human beings must act on Earth with this consciousness. If they switch it off, they are helplessly and unconsciously at the mercy of spiritual forces. An example will clarify this. There is a great difference between entering a den of criminals with clear consciousness and a bright mind and knowing your way around, and entering without this clear awareness. This is not only true in the extreme case of the den of criminals, but everywhere in the world. We must grasp the things that come to us with clear consciousness and understanding. We must not allow ourselves to become mindless tools, not even of spiritual powers, for they could then do all sorts of things with us. This is precisely what has contributed so greatly to hindering the culture and development of mediums. The insight that human beings should only enter into relationship with spiritual beings while maintaining their full, free right of self-determination is gaining more and more ground among leading spiritualists, and it is probably only a matter of time before the other method of spiritual research cultivated by theosophists will also be adopted by spiritualists. Clairvoyance is what both theosophists and spiritualists strive for. Both theosophical students and spiritualist mediums are tools, but only spiritualist mediums are without will. Those who know the dangers can speak of the tremendous powers one must face in that world; powers that have a destructive, oppressive effect on us; powers that have a beneficial influence on the one hand and a harmful influence on the other. What was beneficial when man still lived in his subconscious is harmful to him today. If we surrender ourselves without will to the powers that previously drove our development, then we are their tools for good and for evil. That is why we must never allow our consciousness to be clouded. And this has enabled us in our research to recognize great truths, while the spiritualist researcher must more or less fish in murky waters. It has led us to the realization of what leads to the goal; it has allowed us to recognize what is hindering us in the process.

Above all, we must learn to find our way in the spiritual world. We must possess the knowledge that makes this possible, that is the prerequisite for insights into the spiritual world. Anyone who wants to become a skilled mechanic must study mathematics. Anyone who wants to be at home in the spiritual world and not move around in it in a dazed and aimless manner must have thoroughly grasped the basic truths of theosophy. What the theosophists recognized in 1875 will gradually bring more and more spiritualists over to their side. The two movements do not need to fight each other, even though their research methods are radically different, as I have shown; they should balance each other out. What the followers of one movement have to offer, they may bring; what the followers of the other movement have to offer, they may lay down on the altar of humanity for the good of the whole. In this way, humanity will truly be advanced by both movements, whereas conflict between the two directions could only lead to losing sight of the great goal. What is needed is not conflict, but harmony between the two movements, which should above all lead to the common goal: to lift humanity out of the materialistic current of the present.

This requires the imparting of knowledge of the spiritual world. Knowledge of eternity and the true nature of the soul, as well as the opportunity this offers to look up again to the great spiritual powers of nature that have shown us the way. And how few have enough self-knowledge to understand where humans come from and where they are going, the home of the soul, so that they can find what gives life meaning and significance! In order to obtain all this, humans must have come to the conviction expressed by Johann Gottlieb Fichte when he spoke of that spiritual world that opens our eyes to the eternal and then lets us say: "It is not only after I have been torn from the context of the earthly world that I will gain entry into the supernatural; I already am and live in it, far more truly than in the earthly world; even now it is my only firm standpoint, and the eternal life that I have long since taken possession of is the only reason why I may still continue in the earthly world. What you call heaven is not beyond the grave; it is already spread around our nature, and its light shines in every pure heart."