Spiritual Science as a Life's Work

GA 63 — 23 April 1914, Berlin

12. Spiritual Science as a Life's Work

I would like to conclude this winter's series of lectures this evening with a reflection on the significance of spiritual science for human life.

During this lecture series, it has often been pointed out that spiritual science does not merely seek to be a theory about the world that one accepts or rejects like other theories, but that spiritual science hopes to be a truly new element of life, something that can penetrate the whole human being, the constitution of the whole human being, what one might say, the “world mood” of the whole human being, and that through such penetration with spiritual science, the human being has a real asset in life. What has already been indicated in this regard in the relevant passages of the individual lectures will not only be summarized today, but also examined in somewhat greater detail.

In the course of this winter's lectures, it has been pointed out again and again that spiritual research is based on something quite different from any other research, especially any other research in our time. It has been mentioned that in all other research, indeed in all activity of the human soul in life, it is above all important that the human being develops his powers of judgment and will as he has them, and that he applies them directly. When we face life, we are compelled to appeal directly to our judgment in order to make a decision in one sense or another; and on the other hand, when we face life in such a way that our will is called upon, we can only apply the strength of will that we have developed through our normal education. In short, in every moment of ordinary life, but also of ordinary science, we are forced to accept ourselves as we are.

In contrast, spiritual science is actually quite different. And it is precisely the fact that it is so different in this respect that creates so many opponents and adversaries in our time. The spiritual researcher cannot accept himself as he is. I emphasized this particularly in my description of life between death and a new birth. What we otherwise apply directly to the outer world in life, what we develop from our power of judgment, our will, and other soul impulses, what we must develop and apply directly to the outer world in the moment, so to speak, in order to make decisions about it or to influence it, the spiritual researcher initially uses as a preparation for the level of knowledge that he or she is to attain only after this preparation. The maturity of judgment and the strength of will are not initially applied outwardly, not in such a way that we make immediate decisions or enact acts of will, but they are applied in a spiritual process in such a way that the spiritual researcher uses the inner technique, the inner handling of the powers of judgment, to advance his soul, to make it ever more mature. And the will is exercised in such a way that the soul can develop to a different point of view than the one it already stands on. One could therefore say: What is otherwise applied directly to the world — in spiritual research it is applied in preparation for what is to be gained after this preparation. What matters is that the soul transforms itself into a different instrument of knowledge and will than it initially is. Hence also that mood in which the spiritual researcher approaches knowledge, and of which I have already spoken in these lectures, that mood which is expressed in the fact that he actually always has the feeling: What you have otherwise used directly to judge things — now you must withdraw it from the outer world in order to advance yourself; now you must wait until your soul has matured in order to allow the knowledge of truth to come to you.

Thus, what otherwise flows outward from our soul, as it were, is first applied to the work on this soul itself. This, however, brings about a mood of activity in the human being, a mood of inner activity, not that mood of simply accepting the world, of surrendering oneself to the world; and thus the forces that could be called the new forces of activity of the soul are called upon in the soul.

And then we saw something else that can be said to reinforce and confirm what has just been said even further: that everything that is initially available to human beings in terms of external sensory perceptions or thinking and imagining, which are bound to the brain, cannot provide spiritual research with any powers of knowledge, but that spiritual science must first appeal to the activation of forces that otherwise remain dormant in the soul. I have pointed out that true clairvoyant knowledge, in the genuine sense of the word, is based on the fact that at every moment the spiritual scientist must immerse himself in the processes and things he wants to know, and that what he wants to perceive and know immediately disappears if he does not immerse himself with his whole active soul. We passively surrender ourselves to an external color or an external sound; they have an effect on us. What we want to recognize in the spiritual world can only be recognized in activity. The moment we confront things and beings in the spiritual world with a passive soul, what we have recognized would disappear or turn into hallucinations or illusions, if it is still there. The soul must not rest for a moment in the spiritual realm.

When we consider that the soul can only ascend to the stages of spiritual knowledge that I have described in my “Occult Science” and in “How to Know Higher Worlds” as the stages of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive knowledge, only by continuously developing inner activity, then we will understand that spiritual scientific research can only provide people with knowledge that also requires a special kind of understanding. I have repeatedly pointed out that in order to understand what the spiritual researcher explores in the spiritual worlds, one does not need to be a spiritual researcher oneself, although the books mentioned show that in our time, to a certain extent, anyone can become a spiritual researcher. For there is an immediate, secret language in every soul through which it can understand what the spiritual researcher says, even if it cannot itself be active as a spiritual researcher, just as one can understand a picture even if one is not a painter. But even this understanding must be struggled for by the soul of the present-day human being; for nothing is more natural to the present-day human being than to say: Truth must come to me; I must remain passive toward it, it must be given to me! One feels downright insecure when one is supposed to do something first, when one is supposed to train the soul first in order to recognize the truth. Therefore, it is very easy to object to the spiritual researcher: You are establishing concepts of truth that are not the same as the concepts of truth in external life or external science; and these concepts of truth say: I believe what is confirmed to me by the facts, what is revealed to me, so to speak, by the facts.

Many years ago, I took the liberty of calling this way of approaching knowledge and life, on the one hand, factual fanaticism. On the other hand, there is a certain dogmatism to which one surrenders, a dogmatism of facts, which means the same thing to the soul, even if it lies in a different field than any other dogmatism. One feels, so to speak, that one has no inner strength, I would say, no momentum or carrying power to grasp the truth, to let the truth be present in the soul, if one no longer feels guided by the leash of external facts or the external science that describes these facts. Spiritual science, however, because it has to speak about things and processes that do not belong to the field of ordinary life, makes it necessary to struggle to attain an understanding that is not dependent on the guidance of external facts and that does not submit to a dogma of facts, but rather feels the light of truth shining in an inner, soul experience. Inner grasping of living truth is what the modern soul must first become accustomed to. One can say outright that the modern soul is not capable of mustering the strong inner forces necessary to experience truth directly, rather than having it dictated to them. But this feeling is necessary if the results of spiritual science are to be examined and understood by souls. But when one brings oneself to such an inner experience of truth, then spiritual science becomes immediately understandable to every soul. For what some people argue against spiritual science, that here or there, somewhere in the field of natural science or historical science, there is something that could be said to convince us that the so-called truths of spiritual science are errors or fantasies, does not speak against spiritual science. There is nothing in the entire scope of scientific or historical knowledge that is not in complete harmony with the findings of spiritual science. This has often been emphasized in these lectures. But those who first become accustomed to scientific thinking, and also to historical thinking, acquire certain habits of thought, absorb prejudices, as it were, and it is these prejudices that must first be overcome. Opposition to spiritual science arises not from the judgments of science, but from prejudice. And when one considers what has been said in the lectures given here: that spiritual science creates powers of cognition that are not like passive looking with the eyes or passive listening with the ears, but like an inner gesture, like inner listening with the physiognomy of the soul, which must therefore become something active if the soul wants to penetrate the spiritual world, then one will understand that spiritual science can only be understood if human souls gradually become accustomed to drawing up from their depths the active soul forces, those forces that must be enlivened as free inner activities in the soul.

Out of this conviction, I have so far avoided, although in the future it will not be possible to avoid when difficult problems arise, to assist these lectures in any way with illustrations or photographs. The modern soul is only too inclined to view anything passively. But what spiritual science brings to light must be grasped inwardly, must be thought through, felt through, and often willed and empathized with. By appealing to what is present in every soul, but often only slumbering there, spiritual science awakens in the soul forces for spiritual life itself which, when activated, represent a high good in life, a good that will be needed more and more by human souls. Only those who are short-sighted could deny that human life is becoming more and more complicated, that our development in earthly existence is progressing in such a way that more and more inner powers of orientation will be necessary in order to cope with life in every direction. Apart from the many other reasons that speak in favor of spiritual science entering contemporary culture, the most important one is that the more we live into the future, the more human souls will need to draw on these stronger forces purely in order to orient themselves externally in life. Life itself will demand these stronger forces from human souls.

Of course, in a short lecture we cannot present everything that spiritual science — I am not saying spiritual research — has to offer life in terms of life's assets through a living understanding and comprehension of what spiritual research brings to light; we can only characterize the individual categories as a whole. I would like to start with what is directly related to the individual human being.

I have often referred in other contexts to the nature of that rhythmic alternation that occurs in human life in the course of twenty-four hours: waking and sleeping. What can be said about this from the standpoint of spiritual science has already been mentioned in part in various lectures. Today, I would just like to point out that, in addition to what they experience in their immediate soul mood and can feel directly subjectively, human beings have a very special kind of remedy in sleep. If you listen to modern medical science today, you will find that, insofar as it is intelligent, it is entirely of the opinion that we have a remedy in sleep, in proper, healthy sleep. For sleep is what develops those forces in the whole human being that compensate for a certain daily expenditure of energy. While waking life in a certain way, one might say, weakens the body through states of exhaustion and fatigue, through states of weariness, while ordinary waking life draws from the sources of illness — not always, of course, but it can — in sleep we are primarily dealing with the unfolding of healing forces. One need not go so far as to recommend that people sleep as much as a well-known doctor recently did in Berlin, but the fact remains that healthy forces are at work on people during sleep, and that anyone who can see life from this perspective will say that one of the best remedies for many illnesses is to bring about healthy sleep. Of course, I cannot discuss how to bring about healthy sleep in this lecture. Whether spiritual science has anything special to say about this will be discussed on another occasion.

Now, through what unfolds during sleep, the human being can basically only restore what we have used up. During sleep, as spiritual science shows and as has often been explained here, the soul is removed from the physical body of the human being; the spiritual-soul is in its own world, in the spiritual world. And this different relationship of the soul to the body, as opposed to what is the case in waking life, is connected with the invocation of healing forces. Spiritual research, as we have seen, calls upon the spiritual-soul aspect of the human being to become free from the physical, from the bodily — for there is no other way to investigate the spiritual-soul aspect. Everything that the spiritual researcher investigates is investigated outside the physical body. When he puts what he has investigated into concepts and words, and when the human soul truly acquires an understanding of what he has to say, then a very special influence will be exerted on this soul, which is not itself engaged in spiritual research, but only responds with understanding to the messages conveyed. This soul will strive inwardly to summon those powers that can be called powers of understanding for the results of spiritual research. These are powers that are more or less independent of the physical body. By bringing to understanding what the senses offer us, what the mind offers us, which is bound to the brain, we remain dependent on our physicality even with this understanding, we strain the body, wear it out, let our activity run its course in the whole sphere from which illness also comes. If, on the other hand, we use our understanding — but our living understanding — to enter into what spiritual science offers, we live and weave in the sphere of healthy forces.

If this can easily be denied, of course: “easily,” and if it can be said: well, one knows many people who are concerned with the results of spiritual science and do not at all give the impression that they live in the field of healing forces, then such a statement may be entirely justified. It should by no means be presented as unjustified. But it must be said in response: it is not by engaging with the results of spiritual science in the same way as one engages with other sciences or with ordinary life that one penetrates into it. What I called “homunculus” in the last lecture can be developed just as well in spiritual science as in other sciences. If one wants to understand spiritual science in the same way as one wants to understand the results of ordinary sciences, then one does not have the right relationship to it. Spiritual science arises from spiritual research, from the spiritual life of the spiritual researcher, from continuous activity; and the understanding that is brought to it appeals only to a very small extent to the fatigue of the physical body, that is, to what the usual powers of cognition of ordinary life appeal to. As a result, however, truth itself must become something like a living being, both for the spiritual researcher and for the believer and understander of spiritual science. And so it does. Whereas truth is otherwise received as a sum of judgments, as something that is merely thought, spiritual science is received as something that permeates the soul like spiritual blood, something that enlivens it from within. One receives truth as a sum of spiritual living beings; one feels as if one is permeated by living existence through spiritual science when one truly understands it. But then it actually has a healthy effect, a healing effect even on the physical body. And just as sleep, during which the soul is also outside the physical body, can truly be called a remedy for many illnesses, so too can spiritual science be called such a remedy. However, it can only be called a remedy by those who are willing to understand the following important point.

It is understandable: just as one approaches external medical science or art, one will also approach spiritual science, because one retains the same habits of thinking. Often, when one wants to penetrate it, one will say: What remedy do you have for this illness, which one for that one? And often spiritual science is asked to provide remedies. Certainly, spiritual science will also reveal what real, concrete remedies are; but one must understand that it does not only want to indicate this or that remedy, but that it gives itself above all. Only it is not always accepted with understanding. What spiritual science can say when asked for a method of healing is the answer: Take me myself, then you will feel my healing powers! But this is inconvenient for some who are often looking for something completely different. — Of course, it would be trivial to object that spiritual science could not help some who were engaged in it and who died early or were afflicted by this or that illness. For one would first have to prove the opposite: that someone who, with the help of spiritual science, lived to the age of 45 would perhaps have lived only to the age of 35 or 40 without it. Methods of refutation are often not so easy.

Above all, it must be pointed out that sleep can only compensate for what is damaged or depleted in the physical body, i.e., it can only draw on forces from the spiritual worlds to the extent that the limits of the spiritual faculties that a person brings into existence through birth allow. Spiritual science draws its forces from the world with which the human being is spiritually connected. It can therefore be said that sleep is a remedy insofar as it can compensate for depleted, exhausted forces. Spiritual science, either through what it is in itself or what it is able to give, provides human beings with forces that they do not already have within themselves, that are not already present in their predispositions; it opens up a higher source of healing for human beings than ordinary, normal life can provide, even with the best sleep. And what can radiate from the soul in a healing way, as it were, through a living immersion in spiritual science, can be compared to what ordinary medical science can do, by saying: Even conventional medicine can basically only call upon those healing powers for human recovery that are already within the human being, but are suppressed by opposing forces. Spiritual science, on the other hand, brings new forces into effect in the human being, forces that are only just developing, that are not yet predisposed; it appeals not only to the human being as a microcosm, but to the connection of the human being as a microcosm with the great spiritual world.

To illustrate this more clearly, I would like to point out something that already stands at the boundary between the physical and the spiritual. Although it is certainly true that spiritual science gives human beings a gift that enables them to prevent, to a certain extent, illnesses that would otherwise afflict them, if we engage with spiritual science even a little, we quickly become aware of an even more significant gift for the life of the soul itself. I am referring to memory. Who would not complain of a decline in memory as they grow older? Anyone who has even a little contact with people knows how much memory and other faculties decline with age, and how much people complain about this decline. The faculties with which we are equipped for our memory from the fund of human life, as we enter existence through birth, are exhausted. And no matter how healthy one might live outwardly, they would still be exhausted; and although some external means might improve what is not improved, the powers that are innate to us would still be exhausted.

But one will find that: if one actively takes up what spiritual science has to offer to human beings, and if one acquires habits of thinking and ways of imagining that are completely different from the usual ones, one will notice that the powers that were formerly the powers of memory do indeed diminish as one grows older, but that they are replaced by something that is a much better memory. Gradually, what can be called a looking back on events emerges from the spiritual depths of the soul. Just as we normally look at things in space, we gradually learn to look at things in time. The powers that memory does not otherwise develop, because it usually has a reserve fund in the immediate physical body, remain hidden until we reach a certain age. These hidden, dormant powers of memory are brought forth from the soul: powers of perception of the past. And when we properly immerse ourselves in spiritual science, we cultivate something over the course of our lives that continues our ordinary, acquired memory, whereby a person who truly grasps spiritual science in a living way remains equipped much longer with the ability to overview the past, as well as the opportunity to draw guiding forces for the future from the past, than someone who does not want to engage with spiritual science. Anyone who delves into such things in their finer distinctions will already notice how memory becomes something else, but not something less faithful, rather something that works more faithfully than the memory that is innate to us through our physical powers.

This is what shows us, not from day to day, but through careful observation of life, how refreshing and invigorating the gifts of life can be that are given to the human soul by spiritual science, and other things besides. Of course, spiritual science cannot heal what has been physically destroyed in the body here or there. Spiritual science will never fall into a fanaticism that could be directed as a fanatical opposition to external scientific medicine, as sometimes occurs in similar directions in this field; it will point out that what is to be healed physically must also be healed physically. But that into which the forces of an intensified spiritual life, as it can be produced by spiritual science, can pour themselves, that gives a boundless wealth of life.

How, with people's materialistic mindset, has precisely that which is good for them in terms of health and life-promoting factors gradually become mere dry knowledge! Not to prove anything, but only to explain something, I would like to point out how we can observe the healing instincts — the sense of what is good for the organism — in animals. In humans, however, we can observe a tendency, caused by the forces of activity connected to the brain and nervous system, to move further and further away from a healthy life, and as a result, humans ultimately want to transform everything that is good for them into dry, external knowledge. Today, we already see people who are no longer able to fully develop their instinct, which tells them when they have had enough to eat, but who have scales next to their plates and weigh how much meat they are allowed to eat. This is only a radical expression, but anyone who follows these things will see how the sensations of life are gradually being transformed into separate, abstract knowledge. This is also expressed in the fact that people can no longer act on their own behalf, based on their own feelings, when it comes to their health and illness, but want to hand over this responsibility to someone else.

In this respect, spiritual science can be an extraordinarily important asset in people's lives, as it strives to penetrate a world from which human beings seem to have descended, but in which they still stand. For in truth, human beings have sprung from the spirit in their spiritual and physical nature. And while the part of our being that is bound to the brain and nervous system distances us from our life instincts, through an understanding immersion in spiritual science we draw closer again to living, active life, so that those who develop a living understanding of spiritual science within themselves are not left to their animal instincts; but will permeate them with the spirit in such a way that he will not allow himself to be dictated to by a separate, abstract knowledge: you should eat this much, you should drink that much, you should walk this much, exercise this much, and so on; Instead, they will directly spiritualize their instincts, allowing the spiritual goods they receive through spiritual science to flow into their instincts, and thereby knowing: this is what you should do in life! One could even say that human beings have distanced themselves from life through the knowledge that is bound to the brain and nervous system; but through spiritual science he will once again permeate life with new content, and through this he will once again know directly: this is good for you, this is beneficial for you, that is not good for you! He will go through life with certainty; he will stand firm and oriented in life because he will build a bridge between the deepest reasons for life and his existence around him. And this will extend not only to health and sickness, but to all of life.

Let us consider: if we want to be healthy, we must appeal to spiritual forces that are active, that rise in a living direction. When we otherwise judge in life, we do so in such a way that we make our judgment dependent on what we have seen; we remain completely passive with our own soul. And this is precisely where ordinary science, when it has to make judgments, prides itself on not drawing the directing forces, the striking and swinging forces of judgment, from its own soul. This bringing to life of the forces of truth, the powers of judgment of the soul, is the one thing that spiritual science can bring to human beings as a gift of life. The soul that wants to penetrate spiritual science must increasingly accustom itself not to allow judgments to be given to it, but to judge actively, to open up an inner source of judgment. In this way it acquires what might be called skill in judging, inner freedom to use the powers of judgment, presence of mind that springs directly from the soul when it needs to orient itself in the world or deal with the world. One could foresee a spiritual asset of spiritual science that can be characterized in the following way.

Let us assume that we have to educate, and the development of the young person is brought into the light of spiritual science, is illuminated by spiritual science. As a result, the person will grow up in a different way, will grow up in such a way that they will be increasingly inclined, wherever they stand and go in life, to appeal to their inner source, to the momentum and impact of their inner judgment, to develop presence of mind, to experience the truth inwardly. In this way, they will go through life. And so people whose education has been guided by spiritual science will approach life in a completely different way than those whose education has not truly been in the light of spiritual science. They will instinctively feel within themselves, because their thinking will not be abstract but will enter into their feelings: This or that is good for me to begin! How many people today, within our materialistic culture, stand there with their lives, their thinking, and their judgments, and do not know: What am I good for? What should I do? This will happen less and less when souls familiar with spiritual science find themselves in situations where they have to make decisions. They will feel that their spiritualized instincts give them joy. This joy will not deceive them; it will be the right one, and they will find their way into life correctly.

Those who represent spiritual science today stand by it, if it is to flow truly from their own convictions, in a different way than one stands by another spiritual current. But one does not have the right attitude toward it simply by being subjectively enthusiastic about the results of this spiritual science and by feeling the urge to carry these results before one's fellow human beings. Today, when it is not one of life's pleasures to represent spiritual science, some people might still hold back on this or that, if only the goals of spiritual science could be achieved in the same way as the goals of other sciences. But one comes to speak openly about the insights of spiritual science when one recognizes how a culture that has taken on an increasingly materialistic character, even where one does not want to be materialistic, penetrates souls and minds and makes them more and more passive, and when one further recognizes, with reference to where human beings are learning more and more to orient themselves in life and to place themselves in life, how spiritual science is a necessity for continuing life. And when one recognizes how those forces that naturally and securely place human beings in life must die out, then what spiritual science knowledge is is forced onto one's lips, demanded of one; and then one wants to have more than what human language, which is in some respects unruly, can offer, in order to show humanity how necessary for the further progress of humanity is the treasure of life that only spiritual science can give in our time.

And when, within our modern culture, there is less awareness of what it actually means to be completely subject to a dogmatism of facts, to be completely dependent on the specialization in science brought about by this fanaticism for facts, then perhaps one understands what it means that spiritual science leads people to acquire inner elasticity, inner mobility, inner flexibility, and liveliness of judgment, and thereby to become what one might call an inwardly free human being who can stand in life in such a way that he grasps the fundamental source of life itself, because the essence of his soul is connected with the primordial forces of existence. It will become increasingly necessary for humanity to develop inner elasticity, inner gymnastics, so to speak — if I may use the expression: inner “dancing” of the powers of judgment in subtle inner activity. Spiritual science will have to bring this to humanity as a gift of life. A way of thinking that carries the power of truth within itself, which human beings will need in the face of an increasingly complex future, is a gift that spiritual science can give to humanity. For this reason, we will have to accustom ourselves to developing an understanding of what can only be grasped inwardly, because through spiritual science we ally ourselves with the inwardly living truth, which does not allow itself to be pressured from outside to judge, but is enlivened by the living power of truth, just as the organism is inwardly enlivened by the living power of blood. And just as the organism is enlivened by the living power of the blood and, through it, breathes in the right relationship to the outside world, so spiritual science will give human beings the ability to be lived through by the inner living truth as by a spiritual-soul heart that breathes in the surrounding world, where the spiritual must be inhaled in order to make the soul so healthy, capable and strong that it can counteract the inner breath with what makes it a free inner organic force, the force that pulsates in the blood.

One might say: in the present, one is not able to believe in this spiritual breathing. In the future, one will be able to believe in the inner heart for spiritual breathing and thereby develop human freedom for the soul. Just as what man is as a living being can only be developed by his ability not only to breathe in the air within him, but also to transform it in a living way and to develop a separate living organism in a subtle way, physically, so will he develop more and more inner spiritual blood that enlivens him spiritually, and it is by being active and transforming external knowledge and external insight that human beings become truly free beings.

And when we look from the side of knowledge to the side of will, we must bear in mind that spiritual science brings to human beings concepts, ideas, and results of spiritual research that live freely in the soul, so freely that they are independent of the soul, of the external physical body, and also of drives and external impressions. How does the human being act under normal circumstances? He acts on the basis of external impressions or external impulses. Spiritual science has nothing to do with what is connected with the external organism. It fills the human being with what dwells in the organism, what comes from the spiritual world and not directly from the organism. Human beings are increasingly losing the ability to act on external impulses and external sensations; but what they receive from spiritual science provides them with inner forces, so that they act from within. This has a significant impact on human life.

What force alone can prompt action if not that which is demanded of us by the external world, which provides the impulses for action? What impulses can then be effective?

A little consideration will show that it must be a comprehensive impulse that penetrates the soul, filling it with a comprehensive force: this is the impulse of love, which flows directly from the soul, but only flows directly from it when it is driven by inner impulses. Spiritual science, understanding of spiritual science, will provide human beings with a treasure of life that is of unlimited value: an ever freer and freer inclination toward action, which alone can enliven the power of action when the impulses are spiritual, and thus the power of love.

I have often said in these lectures that spiritual science is the great school of love for life. Not that spiritual science wants to talk about love at every opportunity. This talk of love and love again reminds one first of Schopenhauer's words: “Preaching morality is easy, establishing morality is difficult,” but also of something else. When one always hears talk of love! Love! Love! — when one hears that associations are being founded that want to preach love — spiritual science may perhaps sometimes describe things radically; but it will be possible to find out what is meant in each case — then it seems like the good-natured Schildbürger who wanted to catch the light in sacks and empty it into their houses. But love does not empty itself into the soul in this way. The human soul is similar to a stove, which does not need to be told to warm the room, as this is its job; it does so automatically when we put wood in it and light it. Perhaps someone might say: you cannot see from the wood that it gives off heat. And yet it does give off heat! By putting the wood, which looks completely different, into the stove and lighting it, we bring warmth into our house. By becoming accustomed to the concepts of spiritual science, we become accustomed to free judgment, to free orientation in the world. By fertilizing our memory in this way, we bring the impulses of human love into our soul and become accustomed to them. And just as it is certain that warmth is created in a house when wood is used correctly, so it is certain that love, active human love that can really help, is kindled by those impulses that enter the soul through spiritual science. Spiritual scientific concepts are the fuel of the soul for love.

Of course, there are many objections that can be raised here as well. Above all, it could be argued that some people, in their opinion, do not find enough love in those who are engaged in spiritual science. But here, people must rise to the challenge of realizing that something that may appear unloving here or there may in fact be quite loving. For example, if someone, out of a misguided instinct or pure selfishness, does something unpleasant, and is rebuked out of a healthy instinct, this may be a better expression of love than many words that might be “loving” at such a moment, but would do nothing to help except to aggravate the situation that caused the person concerned to commit this or that error. — But the right, true experience will show that no one who is imbued with spiritual science remains unaffected by its influence in terms of the development of love.

Spiritual science will have a remarkable effect on the moral sphere, on the sphere of helping people and being effective in human affairs. It will not work like external means that are intended to deter people from this or that. It will work differently, quietly in the soul, but in the soul of each individual, so that they find the right ways to express love. Spiritual science will work like conscience, just as the inner voice of conscience may not punish externally, but is all the more certain a guide for the soul. Those who familiarize themselves with the concepts of spiritual science will experience that where they do wrong in the true sense of the word, spiritual science has placed a power within them that acts like a reinforcement of conscience, like a corrective, pointing the way in life. And so spiritual science will not work for the best in the moral sphere through programs, through external associations, through activities such as are otherwise customary when one wants to spread this or that; but it will work, let us say, by incorporating itself into culture, like the moral conscience that is advancing through humanity. In the elevation of moral conscientiousness that will become part of every soul that is imbued with spiritual science, the whole of modern culture will be given a gift of life if spiritual science finds understanding.

When viewed in this way, one can gain an idea of what it can be for the healthy, physically and morally healthy enlivening of the human soul, for the liberation and free formation of this human soul. No one will deny that it can be an unlimited asset in physical and moral terms, an asset that will be greatly needed, as I have often mentioned, and that we will be compelled to live into more and more in the future, a life asset that can be luminous and invigorating for human beings above all because it aims to be understood inwardly, because it does not approach human beings from the outside, as it were, but connects inwardly with their soul, does not impart external knowledge to them, but makes the soul into something that is truly worthy of this soul. When this is understood — and it will gradually be understood — then spiritual science will be viewed less hostile by those who still view it very, very hostile today. Today, it is still quite understandable when people come with their materialistic knowledge and say: Knowledge that enlivens and sustains people can also be gained by looking at the outside world; that is where true knowledge is gained. That is certainly true. But let us take a look, not just theoretically, but in a lively way, and see that spiritual science provides lively knowledge everywhere; and let us compare this with what a materialistic worldview can give to human beings.

Those people who are still building such a materialistic-atomistic world structure themselves, who are, so to speak, at its origin, are still exercising their souls in the process. Haeckel himself, Ostwald, his closest disciples, and others are still actively involved in this; they can still develop inner forces, and one could still compare what they work out for themselves internally with their science with what is gained through spiritual science, which appeals to the inner soul forces of human beings. But for those who are no longer at the forefront of the development of such materialistic worldviews, or who passively adopt such a worldview, what a materialistic worldview does to the soul is like food that is not digested, that cannot develop the forces that need to be developed, that the soul truly hungers for. It is possible to stave off hunger without actually eating. It works. But what hunger indicates cannot be staved off for the outer organism without food. In the same way, the soul's hunger for spiritual nourishment can be stifled by spoiling the appetite for spiritual life through a materialistic worldview. But in the long run, this does not work for the human soul.

This is not the place to discuss truth and error in spiritualism. It certainly contains some grains of truth, not just error or deception and the like. I would just like to point out that those who stand on the ground of a materialistic worldview apparently do not approve of this spiritualism. If one thinks about it in this way, with a mind that is not internally animated, then one can only say that the materialistic worldview is as distant from spiritualism as it is from spiritual science. But if one really looks into the becoming of the world, then one knows something quite different. Then one knows that the soul's hunger for spiritual nourishment cannot be stifled, and that it is the materialists who give rise to spiritualism! Spiritual science is opposed from the materialistic side. But one will see that wherever spiritual science is prevented from emerging, spiritualist societies and circles are formed! The fathers of spiritualism are the philosophers and materialistic worldviewers. With a way of thinking that is only abstract, one cannot see through this connection. One makes the same mistake in thinking as the one who says: I intend to raise the child that has just been born to be a really good son; I am preparing everything for this. But the son will by no means always turn out as the father has imagined; under certain circumstances, he may become a rather bad brat. What materialists imagine about the connections in the world has nothing to do with living life. And so it may happen that they produce the “son,” the brat, whom they themselves do not know as such a son. For spiritualism is the son of materialism. Why is this so? Because the soul's appetite for spiritual life cannot satisfy its hunger, and it ultimately ends up doing what physicists or chemists do, where the external events of life are presented, where the “spirit” is to be presented without inner participation. This is more convenient than having to make an inner effort every moment when one is supposed to ascend to the spirit. But this is nothing more than a search for the same worldview that materialism produces. — I only want to cite this as an example of how abstract thinking enters into life. Such thinking will naturally believe that materialism cannot produce spiritualism. How could it! On the other hand, thinking that has inner power and influence in the sphere of truth will see through the world in a completely different sense, and through such thinking, human beings will be able to place themselves in the world in a completely different way than through abstract, dead thinking, which is also only a “homunculism,” as was explained last time.

Thus we see that spiritual science can truly be described as a sum of life's goods. Certainly, those who believe that life is exhausted in mere external goods will not consider what has been said to be so infinitely valuable. But those who know how even external goods depend on the soul's inner ability to orient itself in the world and on the soul's own healing powers will not find it daring to think that such conditions can only be properly seen and understood in relation to all social circumstances and what today serves as the occasion for so many “cures” today, but which are nothing more than external cures and can lead to nothing more than external measures, will not find it a daring thought that such conditions can only be properly understood and the right remedies found for them when people rise to the level of spiritual science. And one really must say: in all this there is something that brings words to one's lips when one speaks of spiritual science.

This spiritual science still encounters much opposition and hostility today. Over the course of this winter, I have repeatedly pointed out that such opponents are to be expected. And their reasons are so compelling, or seemingly compelling, because they are so easy to find and because they are, in essence, so extremely plausible. One can really understand every opponent of spiritual science, and they do not even need to say anything incorrect; they can even say something quite correct. Let me conclude by mentioning how they can say something correct.

Let us suppose that someone who may be a very intelligent person says: Here comes a spiritual scientist and talks all kinds of nonsense that Kant long ago refuted — those who base themselves on Kant say so — because Kant has long since proven that human capacity is not sufficient to penetrate the spiritual world; and if this spiritual scientist were to study Kant, he would soon fall silent on the subject.

What the intelligent man — they are all intelligent! — says is not entirely incorrect. It may be quite correct. If, at a time when there was no microscope, someone said that one could find nothing other than macroscopic things because the human eye cannot see anything else, this may be quite astute. But what use is it for the further progress of human thought and life? Although it is true that the human eye cannot see down to the cells of organisms because its vision is limited, humans have nevertheless constructed the microscope, and likewise the telescope, and can now see where the vision of the human eye cannot reach. Just as it can be very astute for someone to prove that the human eye is incapable of seeing cells and the like, so it can be very correct what those people say who speak of the limitations of human cognitive abilities. But does it matter whether it is correct or not? Just as it is correct that the human eye cannot see cells, but culture has led to an sharpening of the eye, so there are spiritual methods which, despite the correctness of Kantianism with regard to the limitations of the faculty of cognition, bring about a strengthening, an invigoration of the soul life, so that man can see into the spiritual world. This and other things that opponents of spiritual science cite must be grasped and understood.

Not to boast or praise, but to communicate something that needs to be said, let it be mentioned that more and more people are now finding that they can feel the living, fruitful impulse that runs through spiritual science, even in the present. Proof of this is that we are now in a position to build a college for spiritual science in Dornach near Basel, in the canton of Solothurn. The intention is not to concentrate spiritual science in one place; that must be made clear. Rather, it is to prove that we are able to show how spiritual science can be active, can be creative, through the creation of architectural, sculptural, and painterly forms and in the harmonization of these individual effects in such a building. This building should only serve as a model for the fact that spiritual science is capable of directly influencing life. And the fact that friends of spiritual science have been found to provide the relatively large funds necessary to create this university building is already proof that spiritual science is, in part, rooted in the souls of the present day.

It should be mentioned in passing that all kinds of fairy tales are being spread about this university building for spiritual science in Dornach, such as the latest fairy tale that has been put on my desk: that this university, which was indeed once to be built in Munich, could not be built because we would have been rejected there. And all kinds of other fairy-tale stuff is being put forward in connection with this. In reality, however, the situation is that we were not rejected, but that certain circles in Munich, which must be consulted when something is to be realized, were unable to come to a conclusion with their expert opinion. The situation was such that these circles could wait ten years with their expert opinion, but we could not wait ten years with the construction! — Another fairy tale tells that a kind of competition arose among various cities because of the construction, and that other cities won this general competition of cities against Munich. This is not meant to say anything against the artistic city of Munich; but it must be said that even if the people of Munich are now sorry that the College of Spiritual Science has been built elsewhere, not many cities were fighting over it! No one has fought over us yet. Incidentally, the newspaper in question is not particularly well informed when it writes that Basel “seems” to have emerged from this competition as the most favorable city.

I only mention this because the construction of this College of Spiritual Science is now giving rise to more opponents of spiritual science here and there, and because it may be an outward sign of how spiritual science is already finding understanding, that the construction of this college could go ahead, so that such an artistic symbol of what spiritual science stands for can exist in the world. Those who want to be opponents of spiritual science, however, always put forward the argument that they say: Who are they, these followers of spiritual science? Judgmentless people! People who are easily swayed by faith or authority! But usually the people who talk like this are people who would very much like others to listen to their authority or to what they regard as authority! And because the adherents of spiritual science do not do this, but have attained a certain impartiality, which is the only thing that counts in spiritual science, these people are opponents. Impartiality, freedom from the prejudices of a materialistic or otherwise dogmatic worldview, will be necessary if one wants to understand spiritual science. And with this understanding, one will call into the soul the gifts of life in the moral, cognitive, and volitional realms, as was indicated today, for those who really engage more intimately with this spiritual science. But those who feel and grasp its living life will become increasingly aware of one thing: this spiritual science is connected with what must give humanity the new lifeblood, the spiritual lifeblood, that is necessary for its future. Even if what is connected with this spiritual science causes some teething troubles — as it is meant here, this spiritual science is, after all, still in its infancy — there is no justification for everything that appears to be right. One thing may perhaps be said at the end, especially today, when this lecture concludes the winter series. Something that tempts us from outside, something that could lead us inwardly to advocate spiritual science in the same way that one is led to other spiritual currents — that is not really what prompts the spiritual researcher to speak, what makes him try to bring this spiritual science to his fellow human beings; but solely the realization that with this spiritual science, the genuine, true, and fruitful goods of life, for which every soul that wants to understand itself must hunger, could enter into the human soul, and that this human soul, even if it does not yet know it today, longs for these goods of life, that it must have them if it is not to wither away. This is the feeling that imposes itself on the representative of spiritual science, which lives in him as he represents it. And with this confession I would like to conclude these winter lectures:

As if the truly genuine aspects of a fruitful future culture, towards which human beings should be striving, were looking at the representative of spiritual science and demanding that he represent this spiritual science, so it stands before him, this science itself. What fills him with hope, with confidence in life and in the healing power of spiritual science in relation to the humanity of the future, is concentrated in a feeling of something genuine; and he cannot help but develop a belief in this feeling of the genuine nature of human beings, a belief that stems from true knowledge, which in a certain sense also knows: This spiritual science must have an effect, even if it has many opponents; it must endure, it must prevail. And as it appears to the genuine believer, it is the genuine element in the future development of humanity. Not the untrue, the inauthentic, but only the genuine can have an effect, can endure, can prevail!

With this expression of confidence in spiritual science, I conclude these winter lectures.