Spiritual Teachings Concerning the Soul

GA 52 — 30 May 1904, Berlin

XIII. The History of Spiritualism

Today, it is my duty to speak to you about a subject that, on the one hand, has millions of enthusiastic followers around the world, but on the other hand, has also encountered fierce opposition; not only opponents who vehemently combat this field of so-called spiritualism, but also those who ridicule it, who lump it together with the darkest superstition or with what they call dark superstition; opponents who merely want to dismiss it with empty words of wit and scorn.

Well, it is perhaps not entirely easy to talk about such a topic in our present day, where the “pros and cons” usually immediately ignite the most heated passions. And I would like to ask those of you who may be enthusiastic followers of spiritualism, if any of the statements I am compelled to make do not seem to correspond entirely with your views, not to condemn them immediately, bearing in mind that we representatives of theosophy are connected with spiritualists in at least one respect: the intention to explore the higher spiritual worlds, those worlds that go beyond what can be heard with the ears, seen with the eyes, or touched with the hands in everyday life. We agree on that. On the other hand, however, I would like to ask scientists to be clear that the movement in whose name I speak has chosen its motto not merely as a figurehead, as a phrase, but in the most serious sense of the word: No human opinion is above the truth. — I would like to point out that perhaps scientists should also take into account how scientific views have been subject to change over time, and how what is considered scientifically established today cannot be considered established for all time.

So, without taking sides, and bearing in mind that no human opinion can take precedence over the truth, let me briefly outline the development of the spiritualist movement.

Above all, I would like to emphasize that the founders of the Theosophical Movement, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and the great organizer, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, themselves started out in the Spiritualist Movement, were experts on the Spiritualist Movement, and only turned to the Theosophical Movement after they had energetically sought the truth within the Spiritualist Movement but had not found it.

Theosophy is not about fighting spiritualism, but about seeking the truth wherever it can be found.

I would like to emphasize something else that may surprise some, but will probably not surprise others who are in the know. Let me say this: you will never hear the final word on spiritualism and similar matters from people like me who are compelled to speak about it. You know that in all sciences there is a precept that is simply justified by scientific methods, and that is the precept that the results of science should be presented to a wider audience in a popular way. If you want to become more intimately acquainted with these results, if you want to know the more intimate truth, then a longer path is necessary: a path through the various methods into all the details. As a rule, researchers are not in a position to present in popular lectures what goes on inside laboratories and observatories. If this is the case for physical science, then in the great spiritual movements of the world, with regard to what are called spiritual insights, those who are insightful, those who are allowed to speak the words, are required to withhold the last word, because the last words are of a completely different nature. They are of a nature that can hardly be discussed publicly. And so you will never be able to hear the very last word on this matter from those who call themselves occultists—unless you are able and willing to follow their paths in the most intimate way. But for those who are knowledgeable about the matter itself, the way in which something is said will also reveal something that is said not only between the lines, but perhaps also between the words.

After this introduction, let me move on to the topic itself, which undoubtedly must have tremendous cultural and historical significance, even for those who want to ridicule it. Let me talk about the matter in a way that really sheds light on it, namely from the point of view: What is today's spiritualism looking for? Is it seeking something new, or is it something ancient? Are the paths it is seeking completely new, or have these paths also been trodden by humanity for centuries or even millennia? — If one asks oneself these questions, one will most quickly arrive at the goal with regard to the history of spiritualism. What spiritualists are seeking is undoubtedly, first of all, knowledge of those worlds that lie beyond our sensory world, and secondly, the significance of these worlds for the goal, for the destiny of our human race.

Let us ask ourselves: Have these problems not been the tasks of humanity ever since it has strived and desired something on our Earth? — We must say yes. — And since they are undoubtedly the highest of tasks, it would seem absurd from the outset if something completely new had appeared in world history in relation to these questions. When we look around at the spiritualist movement, both old and new, it seems as if we are dealing with something completely new. Its strongest opponents claim that it has brought something completely new into the world, and other opponents say that never before have people needed to fight this movement as much as they do today. There must have been a change in the way humanity views this matter. This becomes clear to us in a flash when we realize that humanity has behaved in three different ways toward the questions we today call spiritualist.

There is one type that can be found throughout antiquity, a type that only changes in Christian times. Then we have a second way of approaching these questions, which prevailed throughout the Middle Ages and into the 17th century. It was not until the 17th century that what we today rightly call spiritualism began to take shape.

The questions that spiritualists today seek to answer were the subject of the so-called mysteries throughout antiquity. Let us try to clarify what is meant by mysteries in just a few strokes. In ancient times, it was not customary to proclaim wisdom publicly. People had a completely different view of wisdom and truth. Throughout antiquity, it was believed that in order to recognize supersensible truths, it was necessary to first develop supersensible organs. It was clear that spiritual powers lie dormant in every human being, powers that are not developed in the average person, that spiritual powers lie dormant in human nature, powers that can be awakened and developed through long exercises, through stages of development that are described as very difficult by the followers of the mysteries. Once such powers had been developed and one had become a seeker of truth, it was believed that the seeker of truth would relate to ordinary people in the same way that a sighted person relates to someone born blind. This was the goal within the sacred mysteries. The aim in the spiritual realm was similar to what a doctor aims to achieve today when he operates on a person born blind in order to enable him to see. It was clear that, just as a person born blind who undergoes surgery will see the colors of light and the shapes of things, so too will a person whose inner senses are awakened see a new world that cannot be perceived by the ordinary mind. Thus, the followers of the mysteries sought to transform a person of a lower nature into a person of a higher level of development, an initiate. And only the initiate should be able to discern the supersensible truths through direct perception, through spiritual intuition. The truths could only be communicated to the masses through images. The myths of antiquity, the legends about gods and the creation of the world, which today — and in a certain sense rightly so — appear to us as childish views of humanity, are nothing more than disguises for supersensible truths. Through images, the initiate communicated to the people what he had been able to see within the temple mysteries. All the mythologies of the East, the Greek and Roman mythologies, the Germanic mythology, and the mythologies of the savage peoples are nothing other than pictorial, symbolic representations of supersensible truths. Of course, this can only be fully understood by those who study these myths not only as is customary in anthropology or ethnology, but also in their spirit. Such a person sees that a myth such as the myth of Hercules represents a deep inner truth; they see that Jason's retrieval of the Golden Fleece represents a profound insight that can be seen in its truth.

Then, with the advent of our calendar, a different kind of myth emerged. I can only give a rough and crude outline of what I have to say. A certain foundation of higher, spiritual truths was established and made the subject of religious communities, namely Christian ones. And this foundation of spiritual truths was now removed from all human research, removed from immediate human endeavour. Those who have studied the history of the Council of Nicaea will know what I mean, as will those who understand the words of St. Augustine, who says: I would not believe in the truth of divine revelation if the authority of the Church did not compel me to do so. — Faith, which establishes a certain foundation of truths, takes the place of the old mystery truths, which hold them in images. And now follows the epoch in which the great masses no longer receive those truths that were supposed to provide insight into the supersensible world in images, but simply through authority. This is the second way in which the masses and those who led them related to the highest truths. The mysteries were conveyed to the masses through contemplation; in the Middle Ages, they were conveyed through faith and preserved through authority.

But alongside those who had the task of maintaining them among the masses through faith and authority, there were also those in the 12th and 13th centuries — they existed in all ages, but did not appear in public — who wanted to develop themselves up to the highest truth through their own direct observation. They sought it in the same ways in which it had been sought within the mysteries. Thus, in the Middle Ages, alongside those who were merely priests, we also find mystics, theosophists, and occultists, who speak in a language that is difficult, almost incomprehensible, for today's materialists and rationalists. We find those who had penetrated the mysteries by means of paths that elude the senses. And in even more incomprehensible language spoke those who, as mystery priests, held the guidance of the spirit in their hands. Thus we hear of one who had the ability to send his thoughts miles away; another boasted that he could turn the whole sea into gold, if it were permitted. We hear of another who spoke of being able to construct a tool, a vehicle, with which he could move through the air.

There were times when people did not know what to make of such statements, as they had no idea how to interpret them. In addition, prejudices against this kind of research had flourished since ancient times. We will soon understand where these prejudices came from. When Christian culture spread across the Mediterranean countries in the first centuries of our era, it became apparent that the rituals and ceremonies of Christianity, as well as most Christian dogmas, corresponded to ancient pagan traditions, and were not so very different—albeit in a diluted form—from what had been practiced in the ancient pagan Mithras temples. Those whose profession it was to defend the reputation of the Church said that evil spirits had inspired the pagans with these beliefs; they had mimicked what God had revealed to the Christian Church within the pagan world. But it is a strange kind of mimicry that precedes the original! The whole of Christianity has been mimicked in the pagan mysteries — if we use the accusers' words — that is, what the Church later found! It is understandable that any path other than that which went through Christianity, through authoritative faith, as Augustine characterizes it, was regarded as incorrect and, over time, even as one that was not inspired by good powers; for it was the Church that had to convey the good powers.

Thus these traditions continued throughout the Middle Ages. Those who wanted to arrive at the highest supernatural truths independently, on their own paths, were regarded as sorcerers, as allies of evil or of evil spirits. The milestone is the Faust legend. Faust is the representative of those who want to arrive at the mysteries through their own knowledge, and who must therefore have fallen prey to evil powers. Research should only be conducted in the traditional writings; only belief in authority should lead to the supernatural powers. Nevertheless, even though they were reviled and persecuted as sorcerers, initiated spirits realized that the time would come again when progress toward truth would have to be made on one's own human paths.

Thus we see that from the middle of the Middle Ages onwards, secret societies re-emerged in Europe, leading their members to develop higher intuitive powers in the same way as the ancient mysteries had done. Thus, within such secret societies — I mention only the one that was the deepest and most significant, that of the Rosicrucians, founded by Christian Rosenkreutz — the path to the highest truths was taken in the manner of mysteries. This course can be traced strictly historically into the 18th century. I cannot explain in detail how this happened; I can only cite one example, the great representative of secret science in the 16th and 17th centuries, Robert Fludd. In all his writings, he shows those who have insight into these areas that he knows the ways to arrive at the truths, that he knows how to develop forces that are of a completely different nature than the forces within us that see some kind of light body before us. He shows that there are mysterious ways to arrive at the highest truths. He also speaks of the Rosicrucian Society in such a way that the relationship is clear to every initiate.

I would like to present just three questions to show you how veiled these questions were discussed at the time, questions which, he says, everyone who has reached the lowest level must be able to answer with understanding. To rationalists and materialists, these questions and their answers will seem rather meaningless. The first question that must be answered by anyone who wishes to rise in a dignified manner to higher spiritual spheres is: Where do you live? — And the answer to this is: I live in the temple of wisdom, on the mountain of reason. — To truly understand this single sentence, to have the inner experience of it, means to have already opened certain inner senses.

The second sentence was this: Where does truth come from? — And the answer to that is: It comes to me from the productive — and now comes a word that cannot be translated into German at all: from the highest . .., the mighty universal spirit that spoke through Solomon and wants to teach me alchemy, magic, and Kabbalah . . . — That was the second question.

And the third question is this: What will you build? — And the answer to that is this: I want to build a temple like the tabernacle, like Solomon's temple, like the body of Christ and ... like something else that cannot be spoken of.

You see — I cannot and will not go into these questions further — that for all non-initiates in such societies, what are called supernatural truths have been shrouded in a mysterious, mystical darkness, and that the non-initiate must first prove himself worthy and have reached a moral and intellectual peak. Those who had not passed the tests, who did not have the strength within themselves to find the experiences within, were not considered worthy and were not admitted to the initiation. It was considered dangerous to know these truths. It was known that knowledge is connected with an enormous power, with a development of power that the average person cannot even imagine. Only those who had reached that moral and intellectual height were capable of possessing these truths and this power without endangering humanity. Otherwise, it was said, without having reached that height, they would be like a child sent into a powder magazine with matches.

Throughout all these times, people have also considered the explanations of phenomena that are recounted everywhere in popular folklore and have been recounted for thousands of years—phenomena that today's spiritualism offers again—to be possible only for those who possess the highest supernatural truths. The things that spiritualism recognizes today are not new, but ancient. In ancient times, it was said that humans are capable of influencing other humans in ways that are otherwise not possible: certain people cause knocking sounds to be heard in their surroundings, objects to move with or without contact, contrary to the laws of gravity, objects to fly through the air without the use of physical force, and so on. Since the earliest times, it has been known that there are people who can be put into certain states, today called trance states, in which they speak of things they could never speak of in their waking consciousness, and that they also communicate about other realms that do not pertain to our sensory world. It was known that there are people who communicate through signs about what they see in such supernatural worlds. It was also known that there are people who are able to see events miles away and also report on them; people who can foresee and predict future events through their prophetic gift. All of this — let us not examine it today in terms of truth — is ancient tradition. Those who believe they can accept it as truth take it for granted. Such non-physical, non-sensory phenomena were considered true throughout the Middle Ages. Although the Church of the Middle Ages regarded them as being caused by evil arts, that is not something we need concern ourselves with here. In any case, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the path to the supernatural world was not sought through these phenomena. Until those times, no one claimed that a dancing table or a ghost appearing in some way, seen with the eyes or otherwise in a trance, could reveal anything about a supernatural world. Even if someone said that they could see a conflagration in Hanover from here, it was believed; but no one saw in it anything that could seriously provide information about the supernatural world. Those who wanted to have supernatural perceptions sought them through the development of inner powers in secret societies. And for those who were insightful, it was taken for granted that the supernatural could not be sought in this way.

Then came a different era in the development of the West; a time when people began to seek all truth by means of what we now call natural science. The Copernican worldview and physiological research emerged, as did technology, the discovery of blood circulation, the discovery of the egg cell, and so on. Insights into nature were gained through the senses. Anyone who approaches the Middle Ages without prejudice, but wants to get to know the worldview of the Middle Ages in its true form, will soon be convinced that medieval thinking did not imagine heaven and hell as places in space, but that they were spiritual entities. No reasonable person in the Middle Ages would have thought of espousing the worldview that is attributed to medieval scholars today. Copernicanism is not new in this sense. It is new in a completely different sense, in the sense that since the 16th century, sensory perception has become the decisive factor for truth; that which can be seen, that which can be perceived with the senses. The worldview of the Middle Ages was not false in the sense that it is often portrayed today, but it was simply one that was not seen with the physical eyes. Physical sensuality was a symbol of something spiritual. Even Dante did not form his mental image of hell and heaven in an earthly sense; they were to be understood spiritually.

This point of view was broken with. This is what the real psychologist of human development discovers. The sensual was elevated, and now sensuality conquered the world piece by piece. But man got used to it without noticing. Only the inquiring psychologist, rushing behind development, is able to form a picture of it. Human beings become accustomed to such changes. They view everything with their feelings and senses, and now only the sensual is accepted as true. Without anyone realizing it, it became a principle of human nature to accept only that which can be seen in some way, that which can be verified by sensory observation. Nothing was thought of such circles that spoke of initiation and led to supersensible truths by secret paths; everything had to be demonstrated sensually.

What then became of the supersensible view of the world? How could one find the supersensible in a world where one wanted to seek truth only in sensory effects? There were individual phenomena that could not be explained by the forces of nature known at that time, rare, so-called abnormal phenomena; phenomena that physicists and natural scientists could not explain and that were simply denied in a world where only what could be explained by the senses was accepted. There were those phenomena that had been handed down through the millennia, to which people now turned: now they sought them out. In contrast to the urge to adhere only to external sensory appearances, the urge to seek the supernatural found refuge in such phenomena. People wanted to know what could not be explained by scientific criticism; they wanted to know how it worked. When people began to seek evidence of another world in these things, the birth of modern spiritualism had arrived. We can specify the time and place where it happened. It was in 1716, when a member of the Royal Society published a book describing the western islands of Scotland. It contained everything there was to know about “second sight.” This is what cannot be perceived with ordinary eyes, but can only be experienced through extrasensory research. Here you have the precursor to everything that was later done by the so-called scientific community to research spiritualist phenomena.

And now we are already at the gateway to the entire spiritualist movement of modern times. The personality from whom the entire spiritualist movement originated is one of the most remarkable in the world: Swedenborg. The entire 18th century was under his influence. Even Kant grappled with him. The personality who was able to bring the modern spiritualist movement into being had to be someone like Swedenborg. He was born in 1688 and died in 1772. In the first half of his life, he was a natural scientist who was at the forefront of the natural sciences of his time. He embraced them. No one has the right to attack Swedenborg as an uneducated person. We know that he was not only a fully qualified expert of his time, but also anticipated many scientific truths that were only discovered later at universities. Thus, in the first half of his life, he not only stood firmly on the scientific standpoint, which sought to explore everything through sensory perception and mathematical calculations, but he also rushed far ahead of his time in this regard. Then he turned entirely to what is called spiritualism. What Swedenborg experienced, whether you call him a seer or a visionary, was a very specific group of phenomena. And anyone who is even somewhat initiated in this field knows that Swedenborg could only experience this group of phenomena.

Just a few examples will be given here. Swedenborg saw a conflagration from a place sixty miles away from Stockholm. He immediately shared this with the company he was in, and some time later it was heard that the fire had occurred just as Swedenborg had described it. Another example. A high-ranking personality inquired about a secret that a brother had not fully revealed before his death because he died prematurely. The personality turned to Swedenborg with the request that he find him and ask him what he had wanted to say. Swedenborg fulfilled the request in such a way that the personality in question could have no doubt that Swedenborg had penetrated this secret.

Here is a third example to show how Swedenborg moved in the supernatural world. A scholar and friend visited Swedenborg. The servant said to him, “You will have to wait a moment.” The scholar sat down and heard a conversation in the next room. However, he only heard Swedenborg speaking; he heard no reply. The matter became even more striking to him when he heard the conversation unfold in wonderful classical Latin, and especially when he heard them talking intimately about the circumstances of Emperor Augustus. Then Swedenborg went to the door, bowed, and spoke to someone whom his friend could not see at all. He then returned and said to his friend, “I apologize for keeping you waiting.” I had an important visitor—Virgil was with me."

People may think what they want about such things. But one thing is certain: Swedenborg believed in them and considered them to be real. I said: only a personality like Swedenborg could have come up with such a method of research. It was precisely the fact that he was firmly grounded in the natural sciences of his time that led him to this view of the supernatural nature. He was a man who, in the age of burgeoning natural science, had become accustomed to accepting only the sensory, the visible; everyone who knew him knows that. the reasons for this will become clear in the lecture I will give here next time on the subject of “Hypnotism and Somnambulism” — and so he was also dependent on it as someone who sees the spiritual in the world. Just as he insisted on recognizing as true only what he could calculate and perceive with his senses, so too did he shape the supersensible into the form it had to have for him; under the influence of the thinking habits of natural science, the supersensible world was pulled down into a deeper sphere. I have given the reasons why it approaches us in this way, similar to the views of the sensory world. Next time we will hear how this comes about. The preconditions for this, however, are provided by the spiritual development of people who are accustomed to the sensory world.

I do not want to talk now about the meaning and the kernel of truth in what Swedenborg saw, but rather about the fact that as soon as one enters this realm, which is the basis of Swedenborg's views, one sees in this realm that which one is predisposed to see; one sees that which one has developed within oneself. A simple example can serve as proof of this.

When the spiritualist wave spread in the second half of the 19th century, attempts were also made in Bavaria. It turned out that in experiments, which were attended by scholars and took place in various locations, very different spiritual manifestations occurred. At one such event, the question was asked whether the human soul is inherited from the parents, so that the soul is also inherited, or whether it is newly created in each human being. In this spiritualist society, the answer was: Souls are newly created. At almost the same time, the same question was asked in another society. The answer was this: The soul is not created, but is inherited from parents to children. It was found that one society had followers of the so-called creation theory, and the other society had some scholars who were followers of the other theory. The answers were given in accordance with their beliefs, in accordance with the ideas that lived within them. Whatever the facts may be, whatever the reasons for these facts may be, it has been shown that what man receives as revelation corresponds to how he views these things. Whether it appears to him merely as an intellectual manifestation or as a vision, it is the same; what man sees is based on his own predispositions.

Thus it came to pass that this search for sensory-supersensory evidence became precisely a child of the natural sciences of the materialistic age. And indeed, the principle was established that the supersensory world should be sought in the same way as the sensory world. Just as one convinces oneself in the laboratory of the reality of magnetic forces or the forces of light, so one wanted to convince oneself of the supersensible world through sensory perception, through what takes place before one's eyes. People had forgotten how to view the spiritual in a purely spiritual way. They had forgotten how to develop faith in supernatural powers and learn to recognize that which is neither sensory nor analogous to the sensory, but can only be grasped through spiritual intuition. They had become accustomed to having everything conveyed to them through the senses, and so they wanted these things to be conveyed to them through the senses as well. Research moved in this direction. Thus we see how the Swedenborgian trend continues. Nothing new is offered to us; spiritualism offers nothing new! We will review this later and then understand it better.

All phenomena known to spiritualism were explained in this way. We see the South German Oetinger, who put forward the theory that there is a supernatural substance that can be seen as a physical phenomenon. Only, he says, supernatural matter does not have the coarse properties of physical matter, not the impenetrable resistance and coarse mixture. Here we have the substance from which materializations are taken.

Then we have another, Dr. Johann Heinrich Jung, called Stilling, who published a detailed report on ghosts and ghostly apparitions and described all these things in it. He tried to understand everything in such a way that, as a believing Christian, he did justice to the phenomena. Because he was predisposed to be a Christian believer, the whole world seemed to him to reveal nothing other than the truths of Christian doctrine. And because at the same time natural science asserted its rights, we see in his account a mixture of the purely Christian point of view with the point of view of natural science. On the path we call the occult, the phenomena are explained by the intrusion of a spiritual world into our world.

You can find all these phenomena recorded in the works of those who have written about spiritualism, demonology, magic, and so on, in which you can also find many things that go beyond spiritualism, as in Ennemoser, for example. We even see carefully recorded how a person can put themselves in a position to perceive the thoughts of others who are standing in distant rooms. You will find such instructions in Ennemoser, and also in others. As early as the 19th century, you will find a certain Meyer, who wrote a book from the standpoint of spiritualism about Hades as a revelation of spiritualistic manipulations, advocating the so-called doctrine of reincarnation or reincarnation. There you will find a theory to which theosophy has led us back, and which shows us that the old fairy tales are the expression of higher truths prepared for the people. Meyer came to this through sensual displays.

In Justinus Kerner, significant for the moral weight of the author, we find all the phenomena known to spiritualism. For example, we find that in the vicinity of the seer of Prevorst, objects—spoons and so on—are repelled by her; it is also recounted how this seer communicates with beings from other worlds. Justinus Kerner records all the messages she gave him. She herself tells him that she sees beings from other worlds who pass through her, but whom she can nevertheless perceive, and that she can even see such beings who have entered with other people. Some may say of such things: Kerner fantasized and allowed himself to be deceived by his seer. But I would like to say just one thing: you all know David Friedrich Strauss, who was a friend of Justinus Kerner. He knew what the situation was with the seer of Prevorst. You also know that what he achieved runs counter to the spiritist movement. He says that the facts communicated by the seer of Prevorst are true as facts—this cannot be disputed by those who know anything about it—he considered the matters to be beyond all doubt.

Even though there was still a large number of people who were somewhat interested in such matters, interest was steadily declining. This was due to the influence of the position taken by science. It refused to regard such phenomena as true statements in the 1840s, when the law of conservation of energy was discovered, laying the foundation for our physics, when cell theory was discovered, and when Darwinism was in its infancy. What emerged during this period could not be favorable to pneumatologists. They were therefore strictly rejected. Thus, everything they had to say was forgotten.

Then an event occurred that meant victory for spiritualism. The event did not take place in Europe, but in the country where materialism was celebrating its greatest triumphs at that time, where people had become accustomed to considering only what their hands could grasp to be true. This happened in America, the country where the materialistic way of thinking I have mentioned had developed to a great extent. It originated from phenomena which, in the crudest sense, belong to those that must be called abnormal, but nevertheless perceptible to the senses. The well-known knocking sounds, the phenomena of table turning and the accompanying knocking sounds, the audibility of certain voices that sounded through the air, accompanied by intelligent manifestations for which there was no sensory reason — it was these that pointed so tangibly to the supersensible in America, the country where people attach great importance to outward appearances. Like a storm, the view that there is a supernatural world, that beings that do not belong to our world can manifest themselves and reveal themselves in our sensory world, gained recognition. It swept through the world like a storm.

A man, Andrew Jackson Davis, who studied these phenomena, was called upon to explain these things. He was, like Swedenborg, a seer, but he did not have Swedenborg's depth. He was an uneducated American who had grown up as a farmer's boy, while Swedenborg was a learned Swede. In 1848, he wrote a work entitled “The Philosophy of Spiritual Communication.” In this work, he presented a text that arose from the most modern needs that had arisen within the modern struggle, in which only the sensual was to be accepted, in which everyone wanted to bring their personal egoism into play, in which everyone wanted to grab as much as they could and be as happy as they could. In this world, according to the habits of thinking that were attached only to the material, one could no longer have any sense of a belief that led beyond the sensory world. People wanted to see and they wanted to have a belief that satisfied the needs and desires of modern humanity. Above all, Davis states clearly that modern people cannot believe that one group of people will be blessed and another group damned. That was what modern people could not tolerate; an idea of development had to intervene. And so Davis was given a truth that faithfully reflects the sensory world. Let us characterize it with an example.

When Davis's first wife died, he had the idea of marrying a second wife. He had reservations about this, but a supernatural revelation caused him to give himself permission to do so. In this revelation, his first wife told him that she had remarried in the land of sunshine, so he considered himself justified in entering into a second marriage here as well. At the beginning of the first part of his book, he tells us that he was raised as a Christian farmer's boy, but soon came to realize that the Christian faith could not provide conviction, because modern man must understand the what and why, and where the path leads. I was sent out into the field by my parents, he says. Then a snake appeared. I went at it with my pitchfork. But the prong broke off. I took the prong and prayed. I was convinced that prayer must help. But behold [the rest of the text is missing in the transcript]. How can I believe in a God who lets me experience such things? — he said to himself. And so he became an unbeliever. Through spiritualist séances he participated in, he became capable of trance and became one of the most prolific spiritualist writers. He emphasizes that the other world looks much like the sensory world. It would be unthinkable that a good father would not care for his children, since the father travels far and wide for this purpose, and so on.

You see, the earthly world is transferred to the other world. That is why this way of thinking spread like wildfire throughout the world. In a short time, the followers of spiritualism could be counted in the millions. As early as 1850, thousands of mediums could be found in Boston, and in a short time, a capital of 200,000 marks could be raised to found a spiritualist temple. You will not deny that this has great cultural and historical significance. However, given the modern way of thinking, this movement only had a chance of success if science took hold of it, that is, if science believed in it.

If I were to give a lecture on theosophy, I could speak at length about the fact that there are quite different powers behind the staging of spiritualist phenomena. Deep occult powers are at work behind the scenes. But that cannot be my task today. Another time, I will talk about who is actually the true orchestrator of these phenomena. But this is certain: if this occult orchestrator wanted to ensure that these phenomena thoroughly convinced materialistically minded humanity of the existence of a supersensible world, if they were to be believed in the long term, then the scientific circles had to be won over. And these scientific circles were not so difficult to win over. Among the most insightful, among those who were capable of thorough and logical thinking, there were many who turned to the spiritualist movement. In America, there were Lincoln and Edison; in England, Gladstone, the naturalist Wallace, and the mathematician Morgan. In Germany, too, there were a large number of outstanding scholars who were well established in their fields and who were convinced by the spiritualist phenomena through mediums, such as Weber and Gustav Theodor Fechner, the founder of psychophysics. This also includes Friedrich Zöllner, of whom only those who know nothing about the famous experiments he conducted with Slade can say that he had gone mad. Then there was also a personality who is still underestimated today: Baron Hellenbach, who died in 1887. In his numerous books, in his book on biological magnetism and in his book on the magic of numbers, he presented his experiences in the field of spiritualism in such an ingenious way that these books will be a veritable treasure trove for studying the path taken by this movement, especially in more enlightened minds in the second half of the 19th century.

There was a European impetus to the American movement, and it came from a man who was steeped in European culture, a student of Pestalozzi, and it came at a time that was already significant for its other discoveries. This spirit is Allan Kardec, who wrote his “Theory of the Spirit World” in 1858, the same year in which many other works that were epoch-making for Western education appeared in a wide variety of fields. Some of these works need only be mentioned to indicate the significance of intellectual life at that time. One is Darwin's “On the Origin of Species,” another is a fundamental work on the psychophysical field by Fechner. The third is a work by Bunsen, which introduces us to spectral analysis and gives us the opportunity to discover something about the material nature of the stars for the first time. The fourth was the work of Karl Marx: “Das Kapital.” The fifth was a work by Kardec, a spiritualist work, but of a completely different kind from the American works. He advocated the idea of reincarnation, the reincarnation of the human soul. This French spiritualism quickly gained as many followers as the American version. It spread throughout France, Spain, and especially Austria. It was in harmony with the ancient wisdom teachings of theosophy. It was something that spirits like Hellenbach could also engage with. And so Hellenbach, a fundamental social politician who played a leading role in important political affairs in Austria in the 1860s and 1870s, proving with every single step what a clear and sharp thinker he was, advocated this form of spiritualism founded by Kardec: spiritualism in scientific form. Thus it came about that spiritualism took on a scientific form in Germany. Even those who, unlike Hellenbach or Gladstone, Wallace, and Crookes, who accepted the spirits of ancient Christianity in angelic form, but who only wanted to speak of the human being who incarnates again and again and the intrusion of beings unknown to us, whose form Hellenbach leaves open—even such spirits founded scientific spiritualism in Germany. But even those who wanted nothing to do with the afterlife could no longer ignore the facts as such. People like Eduard von Hartmann wanted nothing to do with the theories of the spiritualists, but said that the facts could not be denied. They were not deterred even by the period of exposés. The most famous was that of the medium Bastian by Crown Prince Rudolf and Archduke Johann of Austria. The mediums who had convinced our scientific circles were exposed with the medium Bastian. Anyone who has even a little insight into this field knows how right Hellenbach is when he says: No one will claim that wigs do not exist. Should one therefore also believe that there is no real hair because wigs have been discovered? — And for those working in the occult field, the statement applies that it can certainly be proven that some banks are fraudulent; yes, but didn't this bank also do real business in the past? The assessment of spiritualist truths is hidden behind such comparisons.

We have seen that since the 18th century — we can designate the year 1716 as the birth year of spiritualism — scientific and materialistic ways of thinking have completely adapted to modern thinking, including materialistic views. A new form was sought to approach the higher, supernatural truths, and everyone who encountered these facts sought to understand them in their own way. The Christian faith found in this a confirmation of its ancient church beliefs; some Orthodox Christians also embraced it in order to find favorable evidence for their cause. Others, too, have found their account in this from the standpoint of material thinking, which judges everything only according to material conditions. Even those who were thorough scientific researchers, such as Zöllner, Weber, Fechner, and also several well-known mathematicians such as Simony and so on, sought to get closer to the matter by moving from the three-dimensional to the four-dimensional. The philosophical individualists, who could not believe that there is an individualistic development in the spiritual world as well as in the physical world, were led by thorough investigation to realize that the human way of being—seeing with physical eyes, hearing with physical ears—is only one of many possible ways of being. The representatives of a supersensible spiritualism such as Hellenbach also found their ideas confirmed in spiritualistic facts. And if you imagine a person who knew how to respond to the peculiarities of each individual medium, who knew how to adapt to the most difficult circumstances, so that it was a blessing to meet him, it was a man like Hellenbach. Even those who spoke only of a psychic power, in which one does not think much and does not need to think much, even these followers of a psychic power, such as Eduard von Hartmann or spirits like du Prel, of whom I will speak next time, they all interpreted the facts in their own way. There were many theories, from the popular interpretations of the people, who were concerned with manifesting spirits, writing mediums, speaking mediums, messages through knocking sounds, and so on, from these faithful seekers in the old way, to the most enlightened spirits: everyone interpreted these phenomena in their own way. This was at a time when this uncertainty prevailed in all areas, at a time when the phenomena could no longer be denied — but the spirits of human beings proved completely incapable of doing justice to the supersensible world.

During this time, the foundation was also laid for a renewal of the mystical path, a renewal of the path that had been followed in earlier times in the secret sciences and mysteries, but in such a way that it is accessible to anyone who wants to follow it. In order to open up an understanding of the paths, the Theosophical Society was founded by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The study of wisdom, as cultivated in the mysteries and by the Rosicrucians in the Middle Ages, has been revived through the Theosophical Movement. The Theosophical Movement seeks to spread what has been sought in other ways in more recent times. It is based on the ancient movements, but also on the latest research.

Those who become more familiar with the Theosophical Movement will find that the path of Theosophy or spiritual science, which leads to supersensible truths, is truly spiritual on the one hand, and on the other hand answers the questions: Where does man come from, where is he going, what is his destiny?

We know that one had to speak in one way to the people of antiquity, in another to those of the Middle Ages, and again in another way to modern people. The facts of theosophy are ancient. But if you seek the path of theosophy or spiritual science, you will be convinced that when understood, comprehended, and penetrated in its original form, it satisfies all the requirements of modern science. He would be a poor theosophist who would want to give up any of the scientific truths for the sake of theosophy. Knowledge on the bright, clear path of true science — yes, but not knowledge limited to sensory things, limited to what happens in humans between birth and death, but also knowledge and understanding of what lies beyond birth and death. Without justification, spiritual science cannot do this, especially in a materialistic age. It is aware that ultimately all spiritual movements must converge in one great goal, which spiritualists will ultimately find in spiritual science. But it seeks spiritual paths in other, more comprehensive ways; it knows that the spiritual cannot be attained in the sensory world, nor through events of a purely sensory nature, perhaps through a vision analogous to the sensory. It knows that there is a world that can only be glimpsed by undergoing a kind of spiritual operation similar to that performed on a person born blind who is made to see. It knows that it is not right for modern man to say: Show me the supersensible through the senses. She knows that the answer is: Man, rise to the higher spheres of the spiritual world by becoming more and more spiritual yourself, so that your connection with the spiritual world may then be like your connection with the sensory world through your sensory eyes and ears.

Theosophy or spiritual science takes the point of view expressed by a believer of the Middle Ages, a profound mystic, Meister Eckhart, who characterized that the truly spiritual cannot be sought in the same way as the sensory. In the 13th and 14th centuries, he meaningfully expressed that the spiritual cannot be obtained through sensory events, through anything analogous to the sensory. That is why he states the great guiding truth that leads to the supersensible: People want to look at God with their eyes, as if they were looking at and loving a cow. They want to look at God as if he were standing there and here. That is not how it is. God and I are one in knowledge.

Not through events that seek to make the higher world present to us in a way that is called supernatural but is still in the nature of the sensory world around us, through knocking sounds or other sensory events that can be perceived — not through such seemingly supernatural events, which he characterizes by saying: Such people want to see God as they see a cow — but rather through the development of the spiritual eyes, we want to see the spiritual, just as nature has developed physical eyes for us to see the physical. Nature has equipped us with external senses to make the sensory world perceptible to us. But the path to further develop ourselves in the sensory world toward the spiritual, in order to be able to see the spiritual with spiritual eyes — this spiritual path we must walk ourselves in free development, also in the sense of modern development.