Where and How Does One Find the Spirit?

GA 57 — 15 October 1908, Berlin

Where and How Can One Find the Spirit?

For several years now, we have been discussing facts about spiritual life. Today marks the beginning of a new series of lectures. Anyone who has picked up a program will already know that the subjects of this year's spiritual science lectures cover a wide range. On the one hand, you will find lectures that delve deeply into our spiritual life; but it will also be shown how spiritual science in particular is called upon to delve deeply into the subjects of practical life in the broader sense. Today, however, as I would like to emphasize in my introduction, we will focus on a specific point of view; today we want to orient ourselves particularly toward the spirit as such. Today's lecture is therefore intended to be introductory, programmatic, and orientational.

When the word “spirit” is uttered, it refers to something that, as long as there is human longing and human hope, is the goal of all human beings, both primitive and highly developed. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that what the word spirit means is met with a deeper understanding in our day. The science of the spirit appears today to be both the most desirable and the most confusing, for human beings cannot approach spiritual research with cool objectivity. What does this question stir up in our souls, the deepest emotions, the most intense passions! People are not indifferent to the answers to these questions from the outset. If people look a little deeper into their souls, they will realize that they have an opinion, albeit unspoken, about what they think the answer should be. All questions belonging here affect people in such a way that one can say: one answer may offend people in one way, another in another. One person feels hurt by a sober consideration, while another believes that the freedom of research and science is under attack if one goes even slightly beyond exact research.

The peculiar nature of human development, especially since the rise of the natural sciences, has led to the greatest possible confusion prevailing today regarding the concept of the spirit, particularly in circles that should cultivate something like the science of the spirit. If one wants to understand anything about the spirit, such a sum of subtle and intimate concepts is necessary that conceptual confusion is highly significant here and is detrimental. Modern man is right to turn first to the foundations of science, even if he wants to know something about the spirit. Then he must first turn to psychology. It should be “the science of the soul.” It will soon become clear to those who approach what is called the doctrine of the spirit without prejudice what is meant today by the science of the spirit. Today, there is hardly anyone who talks about these things and does not confuse soul and spirit. I want to tie in with real phenomena.

Some time ago, a “psychology” book was published by a person who is considered significant in his field. It is an example of how the science of the soul is practiced today. But that is not what I want to start with now to show the confusion that has arisen in the concepts of soul and spirit. On one of the first pages, we read: When bloodlessness occurs in the brain, the result is fainting, because then mental capacity ceases or at least diminishes. Mental exertion, on the other hand, causes blood to flow to the brain. Stimulants act on the brain through the nervous system, and so on. — First of all, it must be pointed out that someone who wants to present a “science of the soul” here uses the terms ‘soul’ and “spirit” as essentially synonymous, and is unaware that they are different things. This is precisely where the problem lies. Spiritual researchers would say that in cases of blood loss and fainting, only the soul's activity is paralyzed, but there is no reduction in spiritual activity. Similarly, an influx of blood to the brain is caused only by the soul's activity. Goethe's words apply here: No matter without spirit. — In fainting spells, a different mental activity is present, so that the soul withdraws from the brain, as it were, and gives way to a different mental activity than when it is present.

Contemporary psychology makes no distinction between soul and spirit. That is why it is important to first form a clear concept of what spirit is. This is very difficult. People today, as if driven by some force, believe that everything is determined by material processes and want to regard spirit only as an effect, a consequence of matter. The spiritual researcher seeks spirit not only in human beings, but everywhere around us. In everything it appears as an inner physiognomy. It is spread throughout the universe. No human being, no animal, no plant, no stone can exist without spirit being the foundation of that being. I like to use an image to illustrate this. Imagine a container of water in which the water is gradually cooled. This may result in something like a partial impact of ice chunks, so that we have a few ice chunks floating in it. Now let us assume that some being has no ability to perceive water, but only ice. In that case, only the ice would emerge from the water, but the water itself would be denied by this being. “There is only ice everywhere, but no water,” this being would say.

Humans behave similarly toward spirit and matter. Just as in our image the ice hardens from the water, so matter arises from the original, from the spirit. Matter is nothing other than condensed spirit. For those who can see, it emerges from the spirit, but for those who cannot see, it emerges from nothingness. Everything in the universe is condensed spirit. When the materialist comes along and says, “What you call spirit does not exist,” his logic is flawed, for he should really only admit that he cannot perceive spirit. And someone with sound logic should only use it to talk about something whose existence he has admitted, namely matter. When we speak of the soul, we must never separate it from the concept of inner life, which we see most clearly in the human soul.

The difference between spirit and soul is best illustrated by an example. Let us imagine that we see an event before us that makes us tremble, that fills us with fear and terror, for example, someone firing a gun at us. A third party who sees this feeling of fear in us can only say that the other person has this expression on their face, but that it depends on the nature of the person. A person who has perhaps forgotten how to be afraid would face the danger fearlessly. But the other person faces the event with fear and terror. We describe as psychological that which is stimulated within us by an external perception. For the spiritual, however, there is no outside and no inside. What is outside is also inside. If you examine your inner self, you will notice that there is a transition from the psychological to the spiritual, but that there is a difference between what we refer to as psychological and spiritual. The feelings that arise within us cannot be disputed, because they differ from person to person. One person might experience a world of feelings when looking at a painting by Raphael, while a primitive person might feel nothing at all. In between, there are all kinds of gradations. Here we are dealing with something psychological. Something spiritual, however, is given to us in mathematics, for example. No one can understand what a circle is through experience. This requires an inner perception. It is so simple, but people do not understand it. We know that everyone can experience the spiritual in the same way we do, if only they create the necessary conditions for it. To the same extent that we realize that we are moving from an inner experience to one that is accessible to all, we should also realize that we are then moving from the soul to the spiritual.

Let us assume that a person rises to such a height that he or she is truly able to say something about a thing in the outer world that people can agree on. In doing so, he or she rises to the concept, to the idea of the thing. Then we should realize that this is exactly the same as what was there before the thing, according to which the thing was created. Only someone who believes they can gain something spiritual from a world in which there is no spirit can believe that they can gain something from a glass of water in which there is no water. When we look at a stone, a plant, any being in the outside world, so that we allow not only the uplifting, beautiful, and glorious to affect us, but also the sad, when we allow the actual essence of things to affect us, we must become aware that we are allowing what was there before the thing, what it arose from, to shine within us. In this way, the physical appears to us as a condensation of the spiritual.

Many prejudices have their origin in the habit of forming the mental image of the outside world as something spiritless and of representing the spiritual as something that humans bring to it. Humans can only have in their consciousness what the outside world has on them. Let us remember what is so often said on this occasion: one can only know that a table exists, namely the table itself, which exerts a given effect on one. The fact that such a judgment can be made is an example of the widespread lack of understanding of the nature of the spirit. There is a simple image that can show us what centuries of research simply overlook when it is claimed that humans know nothing about the thing in itself. When something like this is said, it seems perfectly plausible. Physics, science in general, will repeatedly point out that you do not actually perceive “yellow,” for example, but only movements of the ether. These movements trigger the yellow color in you, just as the movements of the air trigger sound. You cannot step outside yourself; you only see what is within you. — This entire conclusion is completely erased by a simple image. Imagine you have a seal and sealing wax. The name Müller is pressed into it. Not a trace of the brass of the seal has been transferred to the sealing wax. But what matters, the name, has been completely transferred to the sealing wax. Now the sealing wax could also say: I know nothing about the seal, because nothing from the outside can be transferred to me. — It is exactly the same with science. The name Müller is completely transferred to the sealing wax. Anyone who claims that such an effect is not possible has no understanding that there is no boundary between the material and the spiritual, that one passes into the other. And so we must become ever clearer that the spirit has nothing to do with what is within us, but that it is external and within us. We must distinguish between soul and spirit. Then we will have laid the foundation for knowing that all the foundations of life are foundations of the spirit. Psychology increasingly seeks to reduce the spiritual to the purely physical. We have even had to experience the spiritual being derived from physical and purely mechanical processes! The sciences that are not consciously materialistic today are so unconsciously.

Let us go back once more! Let us think how fainting occurs as a result of a lack of blood in the brain, thereby paralyzing the soul. We must approach this process with Spiritual Science. This shows us that human beings are not only the material beings that we can perceive with our outer senses, but that they are complex beings. The physical body is a condensation, a coarsening of something more spiritual, more subtle, which lies beneath it, initially a coarsening of the etheric or life body. We see the human being as a ball of water that has partially condensed into ice, so that the lump of ice floats in the water from which it was formed as a fine mother substance. This is how it is with the physical and etheric bodies. Matter is a different form of spirit than spirit itself, just as ice is a different form of water. But the etheric body is not yet the finest. It is the condensation of the astral body. Now we already have the human being as a threefold being. Humans share the physical body with all beings of the physical world. The etheric body can initially be recognized purely logically in the following form. If we take a rock crystal, its form remains intact until it is destroyed from the outside. That is the essence of the mineral. This is not the case with plants, animals, and humans. We have the same substances in humans, but they are so complexly composed that the human body would immediately fall apart if it did not have a fighter against the decay of the physical body within it: this is the etheric or life body. Only when the etheric body is outside, as after death, does the physical body decay. But what prevents decay between birth and death is the etheric or life body. Humans share this with plants and animals, but only animals share the astral body. Here, with the astral body, we are already entering the realm of increasingly subtle spiritual members; we are already entering the realm of the soul.

Spiritual science could speak of three members of the human being: body, soul, and spirit. But if we examine these more closely, we divide them into the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. If we imagine a human being standing before us, we first have the physical body, insofar as it can be seen physically. But we also have the etheric body, the fighter against decay. However, this is not the whole of the human being. Even the most primitive human being knows that joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain live within them. We call the bearer of all that goes on inside the astral body. Materialists might object: But that is only an effect of physical processes, it is not real. — If that were the case, if these processes were only an outflow of physical processes, for example of the blood circulation, then it would be mere quibbling to speak of an astral body. But what we call astral is not a consequence of physical processes; on the contrary, nervous processes are consequences of the astral. That which arouses joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, was there before the physical body. We can see how the last remnants of the direct effect of the spiritual on physical processes are expressed in us today, so to speak. The feelings of shame and fear have often been pointed out before. A person turns pale because of fear and anxiety. What has happened there? Or when a person feels: There is something inside me that I want to hide — and he blushes. Feelings of shame and fear are soul processes, soul experiences. But they express themselves in physical processes. When we are afraid, we want to gather all our inner strength to assert ourselves; the blood contracts within us, as it were. Here we can see it clearly: an approach that is unconsciously materialistic has turned the whole process upside down.

Pragmatism, which originated in America, has expressed the view that when we are faced with a loaded gun, it is not fear that makes us tremble, but something that emanates from the gun that makes us tremble at first. The result of this is the onset of fear. People do not cry because they are sad, but they are sad because they cry. Materialism plays such tricks on you. Spiritual Science, however, shows us that everything that happens, the flowing of water, or a process we observe under the microscope, or a human being, an animal, a plant, is just as much an emanation of the spiritual as the soul-spiritual is the cause of feelings of fear and anxiety. Thus, we find the spirit everywhere around us, if only we are accustomed to seeing everything as the physiognomy of the spirit. This is the way in which everyone can attain the spirit. Or one could say: here, the human being sees the spirit through the veil of the material. But is it also possible to see the spirit directly? This requires that the human being take the word “initiation” very seriously. Goethe made so many statements that are important for Spiritual Science, for example: “Thus the eye is formed by light for light.” The human eye gradually developed from indifferent organs. Goethe shares with all spiritual scientists the certainty that human beings can look back on a long, long development. If there had been no light, there would never have been eyes. Just as animals lose their eyesight in dark caves, so light has formed the eye.

In the same way, sounds conjure up the ability to hear, smells the ability to smell, and so on. This is how it has been in the past, and this is still how it is today with regard to the physical organs of human beings. But it is also true for the spiritual organs. One can only speak of light and color when the organs for this are present; but light has been there long before. It is the same with the spirit. It is also there beforehand and is capable of awakening the dormant spiritual abilities in human beings, which then perceive the spirit in the same way that the eyes perceive light. The spirit forms the spiritual organs, just as light forms the eyes. In this way, human beings can develop the spiritual organs that are formed by the spirit for the spirit.

When something appears to us as the physiognomy of the spirit, we can grow into a spiritual world if we have the patience to develop and educate ourselves. Spiritual Science speaks of the spirit in yet another way. And just as we learn from botanists, physicists, and so on, what they discover about the secrets of the physical world, so there is and always has been a Spiritual Science. Only today, the majority of people know nothing about the hidden worlds of this Spiritual Science. At first, this science was cultivated unnoticed by the rest of the world, cultivated in the mysteries. Today, Spiritual Science must step forward and publicly proclaim what it has to say, just as physical science publicly proclaims its results. But just as physical science uses external tools, the spiritual researcher must be a tool unto himself. Such researchers have always existed. Only those who develop the organs can tell what it is like in the spiritual world. But once it has been expressed, simple, healthy common sense is sufficient to understand it. Only for research is a different development necessary. Just one example will be given of how spiritual development takes place through intimate processes. This path is not tumultuous. Many become citizens of the spiritual world without their fellow human beings having any inkling of it. But the field that allows us to recognize how we must work on ourselves if we want to gain insight into the spiritual world is vast. An example will be given of how intimate this work is.

There are three stages of knowledge: first, knowledge of the physical world; then imagination, which has nothing to do with fantasy; it leads in a certain way to the spiritual world. The third stage is the inspired and intuitive world. The imaginative stage of knowledge is attained by having the patience to do certain inner exercises for a long, long time, which do not detract from the outer world, but only make one more capable and practical. But at the same time, they lead into the higher worlds. For example, here is one such instruction from the teacher to the student: Take a look at a plant. It grows out of the ground, develops leaves, flowers, fruits; observe the entire development of the plant, how it develops chlorophyll, and so on. The plant can be a model for human beings. Just as the plant is permeated by green pigment, so the human being is permeated by red blood. Although the plant is on a lower level than the human being, it still has something over him. In its substance, in its matter, in its chlorophyll, it is not permeated by base instincts, desires, and passions. The human being is no longer chaste and pure, but has his higher

development by taking in drives, desires, and passions. The expression of this is red blood. Imagine these two side by side, and then think of Goethe's words, which are the words of all spiritual teachers throughout the ages:

And as long as you do not have that,
This: Die and become!
You are only a dull guest
On the dark earth.

This means that the substance, which has been ravaged by desires and passions, must be purified and cleansed again so that it is elevated above itself and, although it stands on a higher level, becomes chaste and pure again. The blood must once again be the expression of this chastity and purity. Imagine the red rose, there you have the chaste plant sap before you in red. Of course, it is still plant sap, but you may see something in the red plant sap that can be like the dawn of a higher development of man, represented in a symbol: the black cross with red roses. Immerse yourself in this symbol, excluding all other thoughts, and experience how human beings must develop themselves back up to the purity of the red rose petal. If you experience this, you will experience a first trace of the spirit.

So this is an image to which others and others are always added. These images are there to conjure up the spiritual organs within the soul. Then the human being finds all peace and help in the spiritual world. That is why Spiritual Science is of such enormous importance for the outer world as well. It is true what Novalis says: Man is the most perfect tool, if only he wants to be. And: Man lives in a spiritual world that he can perceive if he is flexible enough to develop the necessary organs within himself. And it is true what Goethe has Faust say:

The spirit world is not closed;
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Come, bathe, student, undaunted
Your earthly breast in the dawn!

So spoke one who had recognized the spirit through spiritual organs, and so he spoke when he wanted to establish a motto for all spiritual researchers.