Spiritual Science as a Life's Work

GA 63 — 6 November 1913, Berlin

2. Theosophy and Antisophy

Eight days ago, when I attempted to explain the nature of spiritual scientific research and its relationship to the spiritual world, I took the liberty of pointing out how it is not at all surprising to those who are involved in this spiritual science, who in a certain sense recognize their life goals in it, that this spiritual science encounters the most diverse opposition, misunderstanding, and so on from the most varied points of view of the present. Now, I do not consider it my task to enter into a rather unproductive discussion of individual opponents or individual points of view from which such misunderstandings and opposition arise, for there is another standpoint that can be taken on this matter. That is to try to uncover the roots of every possible opposition to spiritual science. If one understands these roots, then many individual instances of opposition become explainable.

Now, I would like to make it clear that what I have been presenting here for years as spiritual science is by no means the same as what is called “theosophy” by this or that group. For what is sometimes called theosophy today offers little incentive to agree with it in any way. But not from the standpoint of contemporary prejudices, not from the standpoint of any ambitious aspirations that occupy the name of theosophy, but from a justified point of view, the spiritual science represented here can be called theosophical. And this justifies the topic of this evening, which is to discuss the relationship between theosophy and what in human nature itself I would like to say, rebels against this theosophy, what could be described as a mood in the human soul that is all too easily present and that, out of passion, out of emotion, but often also out of a certain belief, thinks it must turn against theosophy, and which should be referred to here as antisophy.

If you consider what was said eight days ago, you will remember how attention was drawn to the fact that spiritual science, or, let us say today, because spiritual science is to be understood as theosophical, that theosophy comes to its insights when the human soul does not simply remain where it is in everyday life, but when this human soul undergoes a development within itself through its own drive, through its own activity. And this development can be undergone. From the hints given in the first lecture this winter, we have seen that through such a development the human soul reaches a completely different inner state than it has in everyday life, that the way it feels itself, the way it places itself in the world, becomes completely different from what it is in everyday life. Through the development referred to here, something is born in the human soul, as it were, which is like a higher self within the ordinary self, a higher self which, to use Fichte's words, is endowed with higher senses, with senses that perceive a real spiritual world, just as the soul perceives the natural physical world with the help of the outer senses. This is the basis of all theosophical knowledge, that this knowledge is not sought through the ordinary state of mind, but through a state of mind that must first be developed. But one immediately sees that a certain prerequisite underlies what has just been said, a prerequisite that, however, remains no great prerequisite for those who actually follow the path indicated in the description of this development. What seems to be a prerequisite becomes for them a real experience, an experienced fact. The prerequisite seems to be what, in essence, lives in every human soul as a longing, no matter how much one may object to it and no matter how much is objected to it; the prerequisite seems to be that if a person descends deep enough into their soul, they will find something in that soul that connects them to the divine-spiritual foundation of existence. To find the point within oneself where the self-aware soul is rooted in the divine-spiritual foundation of the world is surely the goal, the longing of every human soul. And everything that calls itself theosophy, or at least is entitled to be called that, consciously professes this goal, this longing. Accordingly, “antisophy” could very easily be grasped as an idea, as a concept. It would be opposition to everything that lives in the longing to grasp that deep point in the human soul where this human soul is connected with the eternal sources of existence.

How can such antisophy develop in the human soul?

At first glance, one might think it paradoxical and strange that opposition could arise against what must surely be recognized as the noblest aspiration of the human soul. But lo and behold: spiritual science shows that antisophy is not something entirely arbitrary in the human soul, but that, on the contrary, it is necessarily grounded in the human soul in a certain way, that it belongs in a certain way to nature, to the essence of this human soul. The human soul is not actually theosophically minded from the outset; it is actually antisophically minded from the outset. One must delve into some of the insights of spiritual science itself if one wants to properly appreciate this seemingly paradoxical statement.

If the spiritual researcher truly experiences something of what was described in the previous lecture, if he achieves the characterized change of mood, the different state of his soul, then he enters a real spiritual world. Before his spiritual gaze, what can be called outer nature, outer sensory existence, is, as it were, immediately erased; only a memory remains of what has been experienced in ordinary consciousness, and a real, actual spiritual world appears, a spiritual world in which the human soul can be recognized not only in the time it lives between birth or conception and death, but also in the time between death and the next birth. Attention was already drawn to repeated earthly lives in the last lecture. Human beings are thus referred to that existence in which they are a spirit among spirits, in which they are when they have laid down their physical existence with death. And this world is experienced in the same way as external nature is experienced by the external senses; in this world, the soul is confronted with those forces that not only confront human beings in their ordinary consciousness, but which also constitute this ordinary consciousness itself. Yes, this is also the world that builds the tools for ordinary consciousness and the entire physical body with the entire nervous system. It becomes a truth for the spiritual researcher that we as human beings are not only built up from the forces that lie in our hereditary line, that come from our ancestors, but that what comes down from spiritual-soul regions intervenes in the system of these physical forces and represents a system of spiritual forces that take hold of the physical organization given to us by our father and mother, and within it form in a plastic way what we are to become according to the earlier earth lives we have lived through. Something like an extension of memory occurs through that spiritual science I spoke of last time, an extension of memory beyond the present earth existence into regions of spiritual experience.

When we look at the world and human development in this way, a certain boundary arises in this human life, a certain turning point in a very special way before the soul. It is the turning point that lies in the first stage of human childhood development. There we see how, in the very earliest stages of childhood development, the human being lives something like a dreamlike life, a life that must first acquire the full clarity of self-awareness, the full clarity of remembering experiences. The consciousness of early childhood is a dull one. Human beings sleep or dream their way into existence, so to speak, and that which actually makes us feel human, our developed inner life with its clear center of self-consciousness, only appears at a certain turning point in our childhood. What actually presents itself in the sense of spiritual science before this turning point?

When the spiritual researcher observes the child before it has reached this turning point, he sees how the spiritual forces that have descended from the spiritual world and taken hold of the organism in order to shape it plastically in accordance with previous earthly lives are working fully on the whole organism. And because the totality of the spiritual forces that make up the human soul pours into everything that lives and weaves in the organism, that forms and builds up the organism and organizes it so that it can later become the tool of the self-conscious being, because, in other words, all the forces in the soul are used to build up this organism, nothing remains that could somehow result in a clear self-awareness in the very earliest childhood. All the soul forces are used to build up the organism; and a consciousness that is used to build up the organic being can at most bring it to a dreamlike state, but is for the most part a sleeping consciousness.

What now occurs for the human being at that turning point of which I have spoken?

Gradually, more and more resistance arises from the organism, from the body. One could describe this resistance by saying that the body gradually solidifies within itself; especially the nervous system solidifies, no longer allowing itself to be freely and plastically worked on by the soul forces, but offering resistance. This means that part of the soul force can only pour into the human organism; another part is, as it were, repelled, unable to find points of attack to work its way into this human organism. Perhaps I may use an image to show what is actually happening here. Why is it that when we stand in front of a mirror, we can always see ourselves in the mirror itself? We can do this because the rays of light are reflected back by the reflective surface. We cannot see ourselves in plain glass because the rays of light pass through it. This is how it is with a child in its first year of life: it cannot develop self-consciousness because all its soul forces pass through it, just as rays of light pass through plain glass. Only from the moment when the organism has consolidated within itself is part of the soul force reflected back, just as rays of light are reflected back by the mirror. The soul life is then reflected in itself, and the soul life reflecting in itself, experiencing itself, is what shines forth as self-consciousness. This is what constitutes our actual human experience in earthly life. And so, when the turning point described above has been reached, we live in this reflected soul life.

What does the development that the spiritual researcher undergoes mean in relation to this soul life?

This development, as I described it last time, is in fact, I would say, a leap across an abyss. It is such that the spiritual researcher must leave the region of the thrown-back soul life, that he must leave behind everything that has emerged as soul life after this turning point, and must penetrate into those creatively active, plasticizing soul forces that are present before this turning point. But the spiritual researcher must dive down into what is present in the human being before this turning point, in the most tender age of childhood, with full consciousness, with the consciousness that he has developed in his reflected soul life. There he plunges into those forces that build up the human organism in the most tender childhood, which later can no longer be perceived because the organism transforms itself as if into a mirror. The spiritual researcher must indeed cross this abyss. From what is soul life reflected back by organic nature, he must enter into creative spiritual-soul life. To use this philosophical expression, he must advance from the created to the creator. Then he perceives something very definite when he descends into those depths that lie, as it were, behind the organic mirror. Then he really perceives that point where the soul unites with the creative world source of existence. But he also perceives something else: he perceives how it makes sense that this throwing back has taken place. If the turning point had not occurred, if the throwing back had not taken place, then human beings would never have been able to achieve the full development of earthly consciousness, of clear self-awareness. In this respect, earthly life is an education in self-awareness. The spiritual researcher can only penetrate the region that is otherwise only experienced by humans as a dream by first acquiring the prerequisites for this within earthly life, by educating himself to self-awareness, and then penetrating with this self-awareness into that region which is otherwise experienced without self-awareness. From this, however, it is clear that the most valuable thing a human being can acquire for earthly life is alert self-awareness — for the sake of which we actually enter earthly life, which is closed off from the experience of the actual roots of existence in ordinary experience. In everyday life and in ordinary science, human beings live within what, after this turning point, permeates and interweaves their soul life. They must live in it in order to achieve their earthly goal. This does not mean that, as spiritual researchers, they are not allowed to step outside of it, so to speak, and look around in the other region where their roots lie. — Perhaps I may also express it this way: Human beings must step out of the region of creative nature in order to confront themselves in their own being, thrown back upon themselves, and to find themselves in relation to the spiritual-soul nature that is connected with the sources of existence.

Thus, as we see, human beings are actually separated from the region in which they must find what can be found within spiritual science as spiritual researchers because of their earthly task. If human beings, without spiritual scientific training, were ever to confuse what they can experience in one region or the other, they would never be able to achieve a truly clear standing within the world in such moments of confusion. All human sensory existence is based on the fact that human beings are set apart from where the sources and roots of existence, where the spiritual world in its intimacy, can be found. And the more human beings want to live in the sensory world, the more clearly they want to place themselves in it and feel their way into it, the more they must step out of the higher world. What we have as ordinary, everyday practical knowledge derives its strength and power precisely from this stepping out, as I have just described.

Is it surprising, then, that human beings first learn to appreciate what they have by being placed outside the spiritual world? In ordinary life, they are not inside the spiritual world, they are not inside that which constitutes the source of their existence. And they had to be placed outside of it in order to live their earthly existence in the appropriate way. As a result, human beings naturally develop an appreciation for everything that is not connected with the source of existence. An appreciation of knowledge and an attachment to everything outside the source of existence develops. So it is natural that a person who develops such an appreciation will reject anything that approaches them at the moment when it wants to bring them news from a world in which they are not initially present. For they must basically regard it as something outside of which they naturally stand. Through their life, people are not inclined in their souls to recognize that which connects them, so to speak, with the innermost core of the world, but rather to recognize that which connects them within themselves, insofar as they stand outside these spiritual-soul roots of the world. In ordinary life, human beings are anti-theosophical, not theosophical, and it would be naive to believe that ordinary life could be anything other than anti-theosophical. One can only become theosophically inclined when, like a recollection of a lost homeland in the soul, first a longing arises — and then, through healthy recognition, more and more the urge to penetrate into the spiritual-soul root of the world itself. The theosophical attitude must first be acquired from the anti-theosophical attitude. In an age such as ours, this is basically quite repugnant to many souls. In our age, when external culture has achieved such admirable accomplishments, something has developed that evokes a natural feeling for external experience, a natural inclination toward external experience, which suppresses the longing just mentioned. It is quite understandable that the human soul is anti-sophisticated, especially in our time. But on the one hand, in the whole nature of human development, and on the other hand, precisely in what is happening at present, we must recognize the necessity of a theosophical deepening of humanity for our time. For the observer of human spiritual development, many things come to mind. One thing should be pointed out that can show us how, in our time, an anti-sophical mood is, in a sense, something that is taken for granted.

Diogenes Laërtius tells us how the ancient Greek sage Pythagoras, who was regarded as a very wise man by Leon, the ruler of Phlius, was once asked by him how he actually viewed life, how he felt about life. Pythagoras is said to have replied as follows: It seems to me that life is like a festive gathering. Some people come to participate in the games as competitors; others come as merchants for the sake of profit; but there is a third kind of people who come only to watch. They come neither to participate in the games themselves nor for the sake of profit, but to watch. That is how life appears to me: some pursue their pleasure, others pursue their profit; but then there are those like me, who call themselves philosophers, as seekers of truth. They are there to watch life; they feel as if they have been transported from a spiritual home to the earthly world, watching life in order to return to this spiritual home.

Now, of course, such a statement must be taken as a comparison, as an image. And one would probably only get the complete view of Pythagoras if one added something supplementary, without which this statement could very easily be interpreted as if philosophers were only the gawkers and good-for-nothings of life. For Pythagoras naturally means that philosophers can benefit their fellow human beings in their contemplation not only by inspiring them to contemplate themselves, but also by seeking that which is not directly useful in life. But this is what, as it is developed further and further within itself, leads to the root source of existence; so that what is perceived as “without benefit,” so to speak, is what leads to the eternal in the human soul. This should be added. But Pythagoras meant to express something special: that in what is not placed in the external use in the development of the human soul, but is deepened in itself, one finds the drive to immerse oneself in the eternally imperishable; that one must therefore develop something in the soul that cannot be directly applied in outer life, but which the human soul develops out of an inner urge, out of inner longing and determination. The recognition of such striving is presented to us in the distant past of European spiritual life in Pythagoras.

Let us now turn our attention to a phenomenon of more recent times, which I mention not to recount philosophical curiosities, but because it is truly indicative of the nature of the spiritual life of our time.

A worldview called pragmatism has spread from America to Europe, where it is also appreciated by certain individuals. This worldview seems rather strange when compared to what Pythagoras demands of a worldview. This worldview of pragmatism does not ask whether anything that the human soul expresses as its knowledge is true or false in relation to anything other than this human soul, but only whether a thought that a person forms as a worldview is fruitful and useful for life. So pragmatism does not ask whether something is true or false in any objective sense, but rather asks the following, for example. Let us take one of the most significant concepts of human beings: Should humans think that there is a unified self within them? They do not perceive this unified self. What they perceive is the succession of sensations, perceptions, ideas, and so on. But it is useful to perceive the succession of sensations, perceptions, ideas as if there were a common self; this brings order to perception, enables humans to do what they do from the soul, as if from a single mold, and prevents life from fragmenting. Or let us turn to the highest idea. Pragmatism does not concern itself with the truth content of the concept of God, but asks: should one grasp the idea of a divine being? And it comes to the answer: it is good to grasp the idea of a divine being, for if one did not grasp the idea that the world is ruled by a divine primordial being, the soul would remain desolate and barren; so it is good for the soul to accept this idea. — Here, the value of worldview is interpreted in a completely opposite sense to that of Pythagoras. For Pythagoras, worldview should interpret what is not considered useful in life. At present, however, a worldview is spreading, and there is a prospect that it will capture many minds, which says outright — and in practice it has already done so —: What is valuable is that which is thought of as if it were there so that life may proceed in the most beneficial way for human beings!

We see that human development has progressed in such a way that the very opposite of what was regarded as the hallmark of a correct worldview at the dawn of European worldview life is now regarded as such. This is the path that human development has taken in terms of attitude, from Pythagorean ‘theosophy’ to modern pragmatic antisophy. For this pragmatism is thoroughly antisophia — it is antisophia for the reason that it regards all the ideas that the soul can form about something that lies outside the sensory world from the point of view of practical value and usefulness for the sensory world. That is the significant point, and that is the other point of view I have to mention: that something is intruding into human souls in our present time, like an excess of antisophical sentiment. How widespread today is what Du Bois-Reymond, a brilliant representative of natural science, once developed as his Ignorabimus speech at a natural science conference in Leipzig (1872)! Du Bois-Reymond admits, and he develops this idea in an extraordinarily witty way, that what should rightly be called science can only deal with the laws of the external world, the world of space and time, and can never lead to an understanding of even the slightest element of spiritual life as such. Later, Du Bois-Reymond even spoke of “seven world riddles” — the nature of matter and energy, the origin of motion, the first emergence of life, the purposeful organization of nature, the emergence of simple sensory perception and consciousness, rational thinking and the origin of language, free will — which he says science cannot grasp because science is already dependent on a field that must be that of “naturalism.” And characteristically, Du Bois-Reymond ended his debates in 1872 by saying that if one wanted to understand even the slightest element of spiritual life, one would have to penetrate something completely different from the element of science: Let them try the only way out, that of supernaturalism. And he added the meaningful words, which should be added not as proof, because anyone who takes his arguments can convince themselves that they are not proof of anything that is derived from here or there, for which these or those reasons are given, but as something added that he asserts in a very dogmatic way from his state of mind: Only that where supernaturalism begins, science ends.

What does such an addition to the other sentence mean, that in order to comprehend even the simplest spiritual element, one must resort to supernaturalism, that one adds: Only that where supernaturalism begins, science ends? One can make a peculiar discovery, which I can only present today as a kind of assertion, but which will be fully clarified by much of what follows in the subsequent lectures—one can make a remarkable discovery when one looks around at what scientific life is today. And in order to say at least a few words about a misunderstanding that keeps cropping up in this second lecture in this series, I would like to point out that these lectures are in no way intended to be antagonistic toward contemporary science, but are held from the standpoint of full recognition of contemporary science—insofar as it remains within its limits. I must say this because, time and again, I do not want to say what kind of assertions arise that these lectures are being given in an anti-scientific sense. But that is not the case. Nevertheless, although everything that is said here is based on a complete recognition of the great, brilliant, and admirable achievements of modern science, it must be pointed out that it can be strictly proven that nowhere in the vast field of scientific life is there even the slightest justification for the assertion that science ends where supernaturalism begins! There is no justification. One discovers that such a claim is made without any justification, out of an act of will, out of a feeling, out of a mood of the soul, out of an anti-sophical mood. And why, that must be the next question, is such a claim made? Here again, spiritual science can provide a kind of insight.

Such a mood is, in fact, comprehensible externally as a “mood” from everything that has been discussed today. However, in order to go into the spiritual-scientific explanation of what has been characterized above, I must make a few assumptions. There is much in the human soul that can be described as subconscious soul experiences, as soul experiences that are so present in the soul that they determine our soul life, but do not fully shine into the clear consciousness of the day. There are depths of human soul life that do not express themselves in concepts, ideas, or acts of will, at least not in conscious ones, but only in character, in the nature of volition, in the imprint of human soul life. There is a subconscious soul life; and everything that can be in the conscious soul life, everything that plays a role there, also plays a role in the subconscious. Affects, passions, sympathies, and antipathies, which we consciously feel clearly in our souls in ordinary life, can also be in the subconscious regions, but are not perceived there; instead, they act in the soul like a force of nature, acting in the soul in the same way that, for example, digestion takes place unconsciously in the organism—only that they are spiritual and not physical. There is a whole region of subconscious soul life. And much of what people assert in life, what they believe and think in life, they do not believe and think on the basis of premises of which they are fully conscious; rather, they believe and think it and represent it out of their subconscious soul life, because emotions and inclinations of which they are not conscious urge them to do so. Even the best representatives of external empirical psychology today have come to the conclusion that what people assert does not lie entirely within the realm of pure reason, within what people consciously perceive. There is a whole branch of experimental psychology today that deals with this. Stern is a representative of this school of thought, which is concerned with showing how even in the most scientific assertions, human beings have something that is colored and tinged by their sympathies and antipathies, their inclinations and emotions. And even purely external psychology will gradually prove that it is a prejudice to believe that one can really see everything in everyday life or in ordinary science that leads one to make one's assertions. So today, even for external psychology or the study of the soul, it is no longer an absurd claim to characterize the discovery just mentioned by saying: When someone says: Where supernaturalism begins, science ends — this is indeed expressed as a basic attitude by Du Bois-Reymond, but it is also a basic attitude of countless souls of the present who know nothing about it — it is no wonder that one understands it as emerging from the subconscious life of the soul. But how does it emerge? What compels the soul to present as dogma: Where supernaturalism begins, science ends? What was at work in Du Bois-Reymond's subconscious soul life at that time, and what is at work today in the subconscious soul life of thousands and thousands of people who set the tone in life when the statement is uttered or felt as if it were subconsciously underlying them? Spiritual science gives the following answer to this question.

We are very familiar with an emotion in human life that we call fear, terror, or anxiety. When this emotion of fear or terror arises in ordinary life, it is something that every human soul knows. There are also very interesting external scientific studies today on such emotions as fear, terror, and anxiety; for example, I recommend everyone to take a look at the excellent studies by the Danish researcher Lange on emotions, which include those on fear, anxiety, and so on. When we experience fright in everyday life, especially when the fright reaches a certain degree, something occurs that quietly numbs the person so that they no longer have complete control over their organism. They become “frozen with fright,” they have a particular expression on their face, but all kinds of special accompanying symptoms of fright also occur in their physical life. These accompanying phenomena have already been described quite well by external science, as for example by the researcher mentioned above. Such terror affects the vascular nature of the human being and manifests itself symptomatically in the same. Physically altered states and especially the need to hold on to something externally occur when we experience terror. “I'm going to fall down” is something many people who have been frightened have said. This points more deeply to the nature of fright than is commonly thought. It stems from the fact that when the soul experiences fright, the organism undergoes changes. The forces of the organism are concentrated convulsively on the nervous system, which becomes overloaded with soul power, so to speak; this causes certain vessels to tense up, and this tension cannot then be released.

Now, however, spiritual research examines the human soul when it is engaged in the activity of thinking and imagining, which is devoted to external nature, to the external world. For one can investigate the nature of that kind of activity in which a soul leaves the rest of the body at rest, in a certain state, and directs outward thinking toward external experimentation and observation. If one considers the image of such a person from a spiritual scientific perspective, it is exactly the same as that of a person who is in a state of quiet terror. As paradoxical as this statement may sound, the diversion of the soul's powers from the whole organism has an effect very similar to fright, to numbness caused by fright. The “coolness” of thinking that must be generated in scientific observation is, as paradoxical as it may sound, related to fright, to fear, and especially to anxiety. and a dedicated researcher who truly lives within his research thoughts is, when his thoughts are directed outward, or when he thinks about something that is in the outside world, in a state that is akin to fear.

What distinguishes devotion to the outside world from spiritual research development is that the latter is based on the detachment of the soul's activities from the mere brain, so that what is caused by a one-sided, convulsive effort of soul activity and the flowing of one part of bodily activity at the expense of the other does not occur. And this state, which is akin to fear, produces what I characterized earlier. Of course, everyone can deny this fear I am now speaking of, because it occurs in the subconscious. But it is all the more certainly present there. In a certain sense, the researcher who focuses his eye on the external world is perpetually, continuously in such a state of mind that the same thing prevails in the subconscious regions of his soul life as consciously prevails in a soul that is in fear. And now I will say something that sounds simple, that is not meant to be simple, but that may be understood precisely because of its simplicity. When someone is in fear, they can very easily fall into a mood that can be described with the words: I must hold on to something; I need something to hold on to, otherwise I will fall! This is the mood of the scientific researcher, as has just been described: he must concentrate on one-sided thinking; he subconsciously develops fear and needs external, sensory matter to hold on to so that he does not sink into subconscious fear, which, if it does not advance to theosophy, finds nothing to hold on to and otherwise, like the fearful person who wants to hold on to some object, clings to matter. Give me something in the external material world that I can hold on to! This mood lives in the subconscious of the ordinary scientist. This leads to the subconscious affect of accepting as science only that which does not allow for fear, because one clings to the materialistic conception of the world. And this gives rise to the anti-sophistic mood: Where supernaturalism begins, science ends — namely, that which one can hold on to ends.

But this indicates something that must understandably be present in an age where the whole of nature, the whole essence of the age, demands immersion in external observation and external nature in many respects. This indicates something that does not live in the individual personally, but that really lives in all those who today develop an anti-sophistic mood, whether this manifests itself in the statement: Theosophy is something that flies over science; there is no certainty in it, it leaves the safe ground of science, or whether it manifests itself in someone saying: What people represent as theosophy only leads to inner or outer mischief; surely nothing in this field is certain in the scientific sense, but one must develop a mere belief that comes from here or there. Whether someone says: My family order will be torn apart if a member of the family professes theosophy, or whether another says: If I devote myself to theosophy, the joys of life will be spoiled for me — all these things are of course not correct, but they are said out of a certain mood: they are a embellishment of the anti-theosophical mood. And this anti-theosophical mood is understandable. For the truly theosophical person, who knows that the human soul must always seek connection with the world with which it is connected in its deepest roots for its salvation and health, nothing is more understandable than the anti-theosophical mood. Every kind of opposition, every kind of misunderstanding, every kind of abuse, even of agitation against theosophy, is understandable, quite understandable. And anyone who may express such misunderstandings, such opposition, and the like, should always bear in mind that, no matter how much he may rage or be angry or vent his feelings toward Theosophy, even in the worst case, this will not be the least bit incomprehensible or surprising to the theosophically minded person, because the latter can understand him. The theosophically minded person differs from him only in that the one who fights or rages in this way usually does not know why he does so, because the sources for this lie in the subconscious, which stimulates the anti-theosophical mood from within itself; whereas the theosophically minded person can at the same time know that this anti-theosophical mood is the most natural thing in the world as long as one has not understood what the noblest striving of the human soul is. Being in an anti-theosophical mood does not show that one has judged well or thought logically, but only that one has not yet taken the step to understand that theosophy speaks from the sources of existence.

And even those who are not spiritual researchers can understand this theosophy, can fully absorb it and make it the living elixir, in a spiritual sense, of their soul life. Why? Because what the spiritual researcher experiences beyond ordinary sensory experience can be expressed in the same language in which the experiences of everyday life and everyday science are expressed. That is the aim of these lectures, that the same language be spoken for the spiritual regions — not the outer language, but the language of thoughts — as is spoken in outer science. However, one can experience the strangest thing, for example, that in those who turn against theosophy out of an anti-theosophical mood, one cannot recognize the language they use for external life and external science when they indulge in the spiritual realm.

What Theosophy can be for human beings is to give them the possibility of a connection with the original source of their existence, and then to point them to the point where the depths of their soul are connected with the depths of the world. By grasping in theosophy the divine creative forces that organize him, that enter into existence with him and take hold of his body in order to shape it plastically, human beings stand with theosophy within that world force which, in addition to the body, can also give the soul health and strength, security and hope, and everything it needs for life. Just as human beings penetrate the creative source of existence with theosophy in relation to everything that lies beyond the physical world, so too do they penetrate the creative source of existence in relation to their moral life. Existence is elevated, elevated in the best sense of the word. In theosophy, man feels his destiny, his value, but also feels his tasks and duties in the world, because he finds himself truly connected to that of which he is otherwise only an unconscious link. Life outside this source, life in antisophy, desolates the existence of the soul. Basically, all spiritual desolation, all pessimism, all doubt about existence, all inability to cope with one's duties in life, all lack of moral impulses springs from an antisophical attitude to life. Theosophy is not there to give admonitions and the like, but to point to the truth of life. Those who recognize this truth will find the impulses of life in both the external and moral spheres. Theosophy, so to speak, puts the human soul in the position it must have, for it gives the soul that which makes it feel truly transported to a foreign land into which it had to come. For theosophy is not hostile to the earth. When people understand themselves through it, they understand themselves in such a way that they must rise again from a foreign land, where they must be in order to attain their full human significance, into the world where they have their roots, where their home lies. And from this knowledge of home, from this feeling of home that theosophy can give, the soul receives courage to face life, knowledge of life, clarity about its duties, about the impulses of life, which always remain dark and dull under the anti-theosophical mood, even if one thinks they are still bright and clear. Theosophy truly creates the mood that, if the word is not misused, can become a monistic mood of the soul, a feeling of oneness with the spirit that weaves through and lives through the world. And knowing oneself in this spirit is theosophy, such knowledge of oneself in this spirit that one knows: what lives and weaves within me is pulsed and powered by the spirit that permeates all existence.

Nevertheless, the best minds of human development felt one with this theosophy, even if they did not always ascend to what can be given as world knowledge at the beginning of the twentieth century, for world development progresses. When Fichte, sharply contoured in his trains of thought, attempts to present the nature of the human ego throughout entire books, and when what emerges for him from trains of thought quite different from those discussed here crystallizes, as it were, into words: The human being who experiences himself in his /ch truly experiences himself in the spiritual world within – then that is theosophical mood, theosophical world consciousness. Then that is something that, precisely in Fichte, has shaped the beautiful words that stand out as a necessary consequence of theosophical world consciousness. It is truly magnificent how Fichte, in his lectures “On the Vocation of the Scholar,” coined a few sentences in which what he had thought about so much, and what appears to be a theosophical mood, crystallized into words: When I have recognized myself in my ego, standing within the spiritual world, then I have also recognized myself in my destiny! We would say: that the self has found the point where it is connected in its own being with the roots of the world's being. And Fichte goes on to say: "I boldly lift my head toward the threatening rocky mountains, and toward the raging waterfall and the crashing clouds swimming in a sea of fire, and say: I am eternal and defy your power! Break down upon me, you earth and you heaven, mingle in wild tumult, and you elements all, foam and rage and grind in wild battle the last sun-dust of the body I call my own—my will alone, with its firm plan, shall boldly and coldly hover over the ruins of the universe. For I have seized my destiny, and it is more lasting than you; it is eternal, and I am eternal like it.“ These are words that come from a theosophical mood. On another occasion, when he wrote the preface to his ”Destiny of the Scholar," he spoke these meaningful words against the anti-theosophical spirit: "We may know as well as they, perhaps better, that ideals cannot be represented in the real world. We only claim that reality must be judged according to them and modified by those who feel the power to do so. Assuming“ — as Fichte says; I would perhaps not allow myself to say this so readily if it were not Fichte who said it — ”that they cannot be convinced of this, they lose very little in the process, once they are what they are; and humanity loses nothing in the process. It merely becomes clear that they alone are not counted on in the plan for the ennoblement of humanity. Humanity will undoubtedly continue on its path; may benevolent nature rule over them and grant them rain and sunshine at the right time, wholesome food and undisturbed circulation of juices, and at the same time — wise thoughts!"

So says Fichte. And one feels at one with the theosophical mood, even if, as I said, the spirits of past times could not speak about the spiritual world in such a concrete way as is possible today; one feels at one with these personalities who had this theosophical feeling, this theosophical mood. That is why, even when I say such daring things in these lectures, I always feel in every word, in every sentence, in agreement with Goethe, and especially in agreement with Goethe in the theosophical mood that permeates everything he thought and wrote in a full and lively way; so that he could also say a good word with reference to the theosophical and antisophical mood, a word with which I will allow myself to conclude today's reflection on “Theosophy and Antisophy.” Goethe had heard a very antisophical word that came from a brilliant, significant mind, that of Albrecht von Haller. But Albrecht von Haller basically lived in a particularly antisophical mood, even though he was a great natural scientist of his time; nevertheless, it is an antisophical word when he says:

No creative spirit penetrates
into the innermost depths of nature.
Blessed are those to whom it shows
The outer shell!

Goethe felt this, even though he did not use the words theosophical and anti-sophical, as an anti-sophical mood. And he characterizes somewhat drastically, but with words intended to reject such a way of looking at things, the impression that Haller's anti-sophical words made on him, expressing the thought that, under such a way of looking at things, the soul would, so to speak, have to lose itself, lose the power and dignity given to it in order to know itself:

“Into the innermost nature —”
O you philistine! —
“No creative spirit penetrates,”
You and my siblings
May you not remember
Such words;
We think, place by place
We are within.
“Blessed are those to whom
The outer shell reveals!”
I have heard this repeated for sixty years,
I curse it, but secretly;
Tell me a thousand, thousand times:
She gives everything abundantly and gladly;
Nature has neither core
Nor shell,
She is everything at once;
Just examine yourself most of all,
Whether you are core or shell.