The Eternal in the Human Soul

GA 67 — 20 April 1918, Berlin

10. The Supernatural Human Being III

The questions of human free will and immortality in the light of spiritual science

It is not a coincidence that the two significant mysteries of human soul life are being dealt with in this lecture; rather, I hope to show that the comprehensive question of human free will and the question of the immortality of the soul are closely related from a spiritual scientific point of view and are best considered together. However, it will be particularly noticeable in this consideration that a spiritual scientific examination must take a slightly different path than other scientific considerations, for the simple reason that other scientific considerations — especially as they are commonly practiced today — can usually point directly to the results that are available. A spiritual scientific approach, especially of the kind that is to be pursued today, needs to point out more precisely how the researcher arrives at his results; and in this reference to the research path, it will be necessary to seek essentially what can be regarded as a kind of evidence, a kind of proof of the matter.

Now you know that the questions of free will and immortality have been and continue to be discussed scientifically from the earliest days of human thought to the present day. In the second half of the nineteenth century, attempts were made to present these two questions as arising from a childish view of human thinking. Recently, this view has been abandoned. People have become more cautious, but the main point has not changed. Essentially, it can be said that, however cautious they may be, philosophical observers of these questions do not get much further than a kind of admission that human methods of thinking are actually insufficient to determine anything definite about these questions. I will not detain you with an overview of what has been presented to people in this regard, but would like to consider my topic from the point of view that has been emphasized in all of these lectures here. I would just like to say in advance that it is striking that, despite the serious application of all possible human means of thinking and all possible acumen, ordinary philosophy does not produce much more than a kind of doubt in these questions. After the last few remarks, this will not surprise you, especially when you consider that the highest revelations of the human being must come from the innermost core of this human being, and that this innermost core of the human being must be sought in the supersensible, that is, in a realm that cannot be accessed by the ordinary powers of cognition, which are bound to the outer human organism. It is therefore not surprising that, before entering into spiritual scientific observation, no particular light can be shed on these questions. Researchers always find that they are working with inadequate means of cognition. Without being clearly aware of it, they sense that there is a supersensible life within the human being as it lives, but that everything that this human being can observe with the help of the ordinary organism is either directed toward the sensory world or abstracted from it, abstracted from it, so that when we observe the innermost core of human nature, we find ourselves in a situation comparable to that of the human eye, for example. The eye can perceive the things around it, but it cannot perceive itself. Since the eye is an external sensory organ, i.e., an external object, it can of course observe another human being, insofar as that being is an object of the senses. But one thing is clear: one is only able to observe this human eye if one can take a position outside of this eye. The observer of the human self, of the human soul being in its core essence, is in a similar situation. They would have to be “outside” the human soul being if they wanted to observe it. And here it cannot be said that another person can observe this human soul life, because only human physicality is visible to another person. It is not enough for another person to focus their attention on the soul being; it is necessary for the observer of their own being to actually be able to step outside their own being in order to observe it. Perhaps another comparison will help us to illustrate what is the subject of today's consideration.

There is another way of seeing the human eye: by looking at it in a mirror. But then one does not have the living essence of this eye before one, one has the image of this eye before one. This comparison fits in with what I want to explain insofar as, through the methods that spiritual science must employ in order to gain insights into the questions to be discussed today, one must, in a sense, place oneself in a position that first shows in image what one experiences as a human being within oneself and in oneself, and that one places one's actual human being in a position that turns what one otherwise has before one as living reality into an image.

What is necessary in order to observe one's own human being is precisely this stepping out of one's own being. For even if one wants to have one's own being before one as an image, one must stand outside the image. This can only be done through the methods of research that I have spoken of as a fundamental principle in all my reflections this winter: by applying to the soul those inner activities — call them “exercises” or whatever you will — that lead to bringing the human soul out of itself so that it can face itself objectively. In my last lecture, I outlined some of what the human soul must do in order to attain this life outside the body in cognition. I do not need to repeat what I said the day before yesterday; I would just like to point out that I have described in detail what the soul must do to attain what I am about to describe in the book How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds, in the second part of An Outline of Occult Science, and in the book The Riddle of Man. The point is that the human soul life, as it lives in everyday life from waking up to falling asleep, is intensified, brought to “waking up,” that is, to a state that relates to everyday consciousness as everyday consciousness relates to dull dream consciousness. Just as one awakens from dreams to full daytime life, so it is possible to awaken to a higher consciousness, which I have called “seeing consciousness.”

If, through concentration of thought, feeling, and sensation, one strengthens one's soul life to such an extent that one can enter into this seeing consciousness, then one is initially able to disregard everything that otherwise stands in the way of everyday human perception through the senses. One has moved beyond this sensory perception. One lives in a different inner soul being, living initially in what can be called imaginative consciousness. I call it imaginative consciousness, not because something unreal is to be represented, but because in this consciousness the soul is filled with images, initially nothing but images, but images of a reality. And besides, the soul is filled with images of which it sees very clearly that they are not reality itself, but images of reality, and the soul still knows that it stands within the real context of the world, that it does not weave these images out of nothing, out of arbitrary ideas, but out of an inner necessity. This comes from the fact that the soul has placed itself within the real world context and, from this position, does not create images in the same way as mere fantasy, but rather that the images woven retain the character of reality.

It is of particular importance to consider this first stage of spiritual experience carefully, because error can arise in two directions. One is that one can confuse what is meant here as the imaginative world with those images that arise from a pathological, abnormal consciousness, with all kinds of visions or the like. But from what has been developed here earlier, you will have seen how, already in the work of the spiritual researcher on the path to entering the spiritual world, all the precautions are taken that strictly reject the indefinite floating and hovering in all kinds of visionary things. The vision enters the soul in such a way that one does not feel involved in its creation. It appears as an image, but one cannot participate in the creation of the image; one is not inside the creation of the image. Therefore, one does not know its origin. The visionary image always comes merely from the organism, and what emanates from the organism is not spiritual-soul, but perhaps a veiling of something spiritual-soul. What is at stake is to distinguish precisely between the whole unconscious life in all kinds of visions and what the spiritual researcher means by imaginative consciousness. This consists in being present in everything that is woven in images, just as one is present in fully conscious thinking that moves from thought to thought. There is no other way to enter the spiritual world than if the activity through which one enters is as fully conscious as the most conscious life of thought. The only difference is that thoughts as such are shadowy, faded, and are acquired from external things or somehow arise from memory, while what is meant here by imagination is woven by the soul itself at the moment it arises.

It should be noted, however, that this imagination must not be confused with what is rightly called fantasy. What the human imagination weaves is also woven from the subconscious; however, especially when the imagination works as Goethe's does, it is often bound to the inner laws of real life. But in what he weaves in his imagination, man is not so deeply involved that he is conscious of his weaving. In constructing the imaginative image, he is left to an inner real necessity. In imaginative experience, however, he does not weave as he does in imagination, but in such a way that he surrenders himself to an objective world necessity. It is absolutely necessary to know that what the spiritual researcher must first work on appears in his consciousness as an objective reality, is neither visionary nor fantasy, but must be distinguished from these two — I would say polar — opposites as something standing in the middle. One is actually in a similar situation when standing in imaginative life as when standing with one's sensory human being in front of a mirror. One knows: the one who stands there stands in a reality, he is a reality that feels like one of flesh and blood, but nothing from this reality passes into the mirror. In the mirror there is only an image; but this image is a reflection, and one knows it in its relationship to reality.

So one stands — now in the spiritual-soul sphere — when one has brought the soul into the spiritual-soul world in the appropriate way. But at the same time, one knows that the first thing one encounters is a world of images, an imaginative world, and one also knows that this imaginative world has a relationship to reality, just as the mirror image has a relationship to the physical human being walking in flesh and blood. This imaginative knowledge is, in a sense, the first step toward entering the spiritual world. What the soul experiences in imaginative knowledge is a certain intensification of ordinary soul life, an intensification for the reason that in every moment that one lives in imaginative consciousness, one knows that if one ceases one's own activity, if one does not investigate imaginatively, if one somehow interrupts one's consciousness, then at the same time the perception of the imaginative ceases. This gives a special nuance to the inner life of consciousness, the nuance that consciousness feels, as it were, empowered internally and, moreover, feels itself in a continuous activity emanating from itself, an activity that it cannot cease and in relation to which consciousness must not slacken for a moment. Ordinary everyday consciousness is supported in its imagining by external impressions, can surrender to these external impressions, and therefore does not require the soul to work as intensively as it must in imaginative consciousness. In contrast, imaginative consciousness represents something that is not found in ordinary consciousness. This is the first stage reached by the soul seeker who wants to penetrate the spiritual world.

A second stage is that the practitioner, who has made himself, as it were, an instrument for experiencing the spiritual world, must now be attentive to what he experiences with his imaginative thinking. They must acquire the ability not only to become aware of the images, but also to become aware of the activity just described, which must never be neglected while engaging in imaginative research. They must, in a sense, develop a heightened, strengthened self-awareness. This, however, brings about something very special. It is only then that one can truly grasp the full meaning of imaginative knowledge. For once one has sufficiently prepared the soul, one knows that imaginative consciousness leads to nothing but images; one has only a world of images before one, no reality at all. One knows that it is a world of images, but only images of reality. However, by going a little further in the spiritual development process, by diverting the soul's attention away from the images and directing it more toward one's own activity, toward the strengthened self-awareness that must develop there, one arrives at something that is even less familiar to ordinary daily consciousness than the imaginative world. Namely, one comes to the point where, as if by drawing on the self-persistence of these powers of holding, the images gradually ebb away and disappear. What one has first brought forth now gradually disappears. But it is not reality that disappears; instead, the images that one first saw spiritually and soulfully are replaced by something that reveals itself from the images, something that “speaks” from them. The images become animated, as it were; they say something to you, just as the colors and sounds of external objects say something. Whereas at first you only had images, now a spiritual-soul reality emerges from the images, and a second stage of supersensible consciousness begins, for which I have not yet found a better word – despite the misunderstandings associated with it – than inspired consciousness. This occurs when the activity of the imagination is held, and held in such a way that, through the forces of holding, the images flow away, so to speak, and what can speak as reality from them really speaks to the human being. Then one notices something extraordinarily significant, and in all these things it is important not to take a single step in spiritual research without developing full consciousness. One must be clear about every step one takes. Anything vaguely mystical, anything dreamlike, cannot grow on the soil of spiritual science. What one becomes aware of is that the whole world of images one had at first was actually only a means of penetrating to reality. The visionary describes his images. The imaginative knower also has images; but he will only describe them in such a way that he believes they are the means of penetrating reality. He will not say that reality is given to him in the images, but at most: something like sense organs is given to him in the images. The sense organs are also something that leads to reality, but one does not look at it oneself by looking at reality. So one does not look at reality by looking at or describing the images, but the images must first ebb away. Just as the eye, if it were not completely transparent, if it were clouded and itself perceptible, could not see an external reality, so too, for the imaginative images, spiritual-soul realities cannot appear before these images have ebbed away, become a means, become spiritual eyes and spiritual ears, albeit in a different sense than the ordinary eyes for seeing and the ordinary ears for hearing. That for which the images are only the means is what already lies behind the images. What now expresses itself through the images is spiritual reality.

But again, it is a special experience that consciousness has with this now attained level of its knowledge. In the images, consciousness is tense; it must maintain its activity. And now, in a certain way, precisely because it directs its attention to its own maintenance, consciousness has come to a comprehensive solitude. With its own activity, it gradually falls into a comprehensive solitude. The images fade away, the imagination ceases. But consciousness now behaves more passively, more sufferingly, toward what speaks through the imagination. What it now takes in, it recognizes as coming from reality. It is placed in a position as if effects of reality were coming from all sides, but reality itself cannot be reached. One does not stand inside reality, nor does one stand opposite it.

And again, it is important to be fully aware of this: one is now dealing with experiences, with effects of reality, not with reality itself. In order to enter into reality itself, a third consciousness is now necessary, which I have called intuitive consciousness. We will see later why I have used a more familiar and popular term here, but what is meant by intuitive consciousness at this stage is something different from what is usually referred to as intuition. For the intuition meant here is a very real inner process, not a mere feeling or a mere inner sensation. It is a matter of advancing to the third stage of consciousness, where one is neither as active, as engaged in sustained activity as in imagination, nor is one in a state where impressions of inspiration flow in from all sides. Instead, now that the liveliness of the images has been eliminated, the impressions from inspiration must also be eliminated from consciousness. Consciousness must defend itself against inspiration through a certain strengthened inner power. It must, in a sense, temporarily — but only temporarily — enter a state in which it loses itself in that which inspired it. It must be able to erase itself, so to speak, to submerge itself in the inspired, in order to then reemerge, but now to reemerge from the inspired in such a way that it now knows: What has come about through inspiration is a spiritual reality. One must grasp what one brings with one in terms of inner experience in a different way than what one carried down when one submerged oneself in inspiration. Only what one has brought up from inspiration gives full consciousness of the reality of the inspired, and nothing can be considered a spiritual reality that has not entered intuitive consciousness in this way through the three stages. This intuitive consciousness only takes effect after the soul has lost itself in inspiration. Just as a person loses themselves in sleep in the evening when they fall asleep, but emerges from sleep again in the morning, so consciousness loses itself in inspiration, but retains the power to rise again, bringing with it the after-effects of its immersion, bringing with it as full conscious reality what it has experienced in intuition.

Everything that is experience or knowledge of the spiritual world, and everything that is spoken from this spiritual world, is based on the interaction of imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Everything that has been developed in these lectures has come about in such a way that the soul has truly applied methods that are completely unknown to the majority of people today. For the majority of people know nothing at all about these methods, through which one can truly recognize the spiritual, which lives in the environment of our spirit, just as the sensory lives in the environment of our senses. But if one is able to penetrate this spiritual world through imagination, inspiration, and intuition, then one also finds in it the spiritual essence of the human being itself. But one finds the innermost core essence that lives in the human being, that is the human being and that only reveals itself through the outer physical organization, only when one faces oneself from the outside, when one has stepped out of one's own body. One comes to recognize one's innermost being in such a way that it reveals itself only in images, in imaginations. And the outer physical body, in which one was previously enclosed, now becomes itself an imagination of the supersensible, so that one now knows what one was initially enclosed in. In this way, one comes to know the human being as we regard him today, in that he gives rise to the two significant fundamental questions of free will and immortality.

More than twenty years ago, in 1894, I attempted to tackle the mystery of free will in my book The Philosophy of Freedom. At that time, I tried to speak in purely philosophical terms, so that this book could also be read by all those who consider spiritual science, as presented here, to be pure folly. I attempted to answer the question of free will from the most obvious inner observations applicable to ordinary consciousness, and I was compelled to do what is usually not done when free will is considered philosophically: to devote the entire first part of the book to a direct, unbiased observation of human thinking itself, not of thoughts. I set out to ask: What actually happens when a person becomes conscious of what is going on inside their soul as they form thoughts? I asked: How does a person's own thinking activity present itself to them? And although I did not draw the consequences in this book, I was already compelled, because the matter had to be presented truthfully, to point out that this experienced thinking — philosophers in particular did not understand what was meant by this — is basically something that is experienced inwardly in such a way that it cannot be compared with what is otherwise present in the soul life and what is bound to the human organization in this soul life. For the spiritual scientist is well aware that he stands entirely on the ground of scientific thinking. Anyone who studies the human soul life as it is lived out in ordinary consciousness between birth and death will find that this soul life is dependent — albeit in a different way than natural science believes today — on the human organism. But anyone who approaches this task conscientiously and without prejudice will find that while everything else is dependent on the human organism, true thinking is not. In thinking, the human being can rise above the organism.

This is based on the fact — and today I want to go further than I thought necessary to go in that book — that human beings do not merely have in their organization what is progressive evolution, which natural science considers solely and exclusively. In recent months, I have argued that such a view considers the whole matter one-sidedly and that it has introduced all the false perspectives into scientific thinking that are found there today. One must also look at a retrograde development, a devolution. The human organism is truly a wonderful structure; it is not only in a life that can be described with the concepts used by natural science today that life proceeds in a certain ascending development; rather, human nature itself undergoes a retrograde development, and the strongest retrograde development in this human organization is everything connected with the sense organs, with the head.

It would be very tempting, if I had forty lectures at my disposal instead of one, to point out everything that could be strictly proven from today's science that the human organization shows an upward development, but that this upward development itself is restrained, and that there is a backward development in the head. This is roughly expressed by the fact that the head is the most ossified part of the human being, which has most strongly regressed what is otherwise blossoming, sprouting life. As a result, the head is precisely the organ of ordinary consciousness, in which development does not progress but is withdrawn. While in many respects the rest of human life can be compared to exuberant development based on saturation, what happens in the head must be compared to a continuous, slow decline in development. The nervous activity of the head, indeed the entire activity of the head and also of the sensory organs, is based on the fact that the human being mineralizes in this area of his being; he breaks down, it is a slow dying, an absorption of dying towards the head. Consider the human being as he stands before you in his exuberant, upward-striving life, and how he then absorbs that descending life into his organization, his own destruction; this decay creates space, and as it makes space, something else takes its place, namely their soul and spirit. Human beings do not think because the same forces that otherwise work in their growth, in their sprouting, budding life, are also active in the head and in the entire thinking organization; no, he thinks because these growing, sprouting forces withdraw, decay within themselves, and make room for what now takes the place of what otherwise causes unconsciousness of the rest of the organism in the surging, swelling blood. Once we realize that human beings develop their free thinking not by continuing their development in a straight line, as natural science suggests, but rather by reversing their development in order to unfold their thinking, then we will understand the connection between the human organism and thinking. One will understand how thinking intervenes in the organism, but that in order for it to intervene, the human organism must first be bent back, first broken down.

I know that with these remarks I must contradict much of what natural scientists say today; but I know that anyone who correctly considers what natural scientists have discovered will find in all physiology and biology only pure confirmation of what I can now only hint at. One can trace how what occurs in the course of the life of ideas is dependent on the organism, if one only digs deep enough. Psychologists call this the association of ideas. This association of ideas can safely be left to natural scientists to investigate, for it really turns out to be something in which the organism has a say. But human beings also know that there are often moments in life when they cannot allow this association to run its course, because there would never be any logical control over thinking if association were allowed to run blindly. We know that it is one thing for ideas to flow up and join together, and quite another to direct them according to logical laws so that they become “correct.” You need only pick up one of the most popular manuals on this subject to see that people are already aware of how something that does not belong to the organism intervenes in the purely natural course of ideas. What interferes is that which can only be present in the human being when the organism first withdraws its functions, when it first breaks down, when it adds degeneration to development.

This brings me to a subject that is also frowned upon today; but it will probably not be long before an inner necessity leads people to it. One need only recall the significant speech given in the 1870s by the famous physiologist Ds Bois-Reymond on the “limits of natural knowledge,” in which he spoke about the “mysteries of the world.” Du Bois-Reymond was inclined, in a certain respect, to consider carefully not to sail full steam ahead into materialism. He established two such limits of knowledge: consciousness and matter. He rightly said: In material life, the same thing happens as in the brain: hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon atoms move according to certain laws; but this comes to the consciousness of the soul, and even the simplest sensations that arise in consciousness cannot be derived from the movements of atoms, nor can any connection between the movements of atoms and sensations be derived. And then he says, and this is significant: if we knew what was there, where matter haunts space, we might also know how matter thinks. He does not know what it is that he thinks “haunts” space. In a certain sense, he is right, but he is also right about what he considers to be the “limits” of his science. For with the ordinary consciousness that one also has in ordinary science, one develops ideas, sensations, thoughts; but all of this is actually quite distant from the processes of material life. And that is precisely why Du Bois-Reymond was able to point out: We do not know what haunts space as matter; if we knew that, we could immerse ourselves in these material processes, and we could also discover what is connected with a material process as spiritual life. In a certain sense, he is right, even though his way of thinking is entirely materialistic: that even with ordinary thinking, one is far removed from the processes of spiritual life. One does not see through them; they are more like shadowy formations; one does not penetrate down into the processes.

The moment one develops one's soul life in the way I have just described, the moment one descends into imaginative consciousness, one also comes closer to material processes — initially those of one's own body. One is then no longer as distant from them as one usually is with ordinary shadowy ideas. Ordinary consciousness has absolutely no means of determining how the life of imagination and the life of thought relate to the processes in the brain. Hypotheses upon hypotheses have been put forward, but nowhere has anything emerged that would really satisfy in this regard, apart from certain anatomical and physiological investigations, which, however, are also very far removed from the true nature of things. But by shifting into a different consciousness, one must move closer to ordinary imagination. This leads to what still sounds paradoxical to many people today, but which can be experienced, and is only experienced through imaginative consciousness. Those who can experience thinking — otherwise one only carries it out, it works unconsciously — those who can look with observing consciousness at what is actually going on in thinking, also come closer to the material processes; they are actually driven toward a kind of materialism, but it is only a materialism that finds the spirit in matter. For they learn to recognize — even if people still laugh at it today, one day they will not laugh at it — that what underlies the material process in the brain is actually a feeling of hunger that lives in the brain, not one that is spread throughout the whole body. And through this one discovers the breakdown, the regression. This is lived out as hunger, and the counter-image of hunger in the soul is the life of thought and imagination. So it is a matter of a completely normal process in our organism causing this regression, that we are always in a state of partial hunger throughout our waking life, and we owe our consciousness to this hunger; and just as we become aware of our hunger in our stomach when it growls, so we are aware of our thinking because our head is hungry.

Externally, apart from everything physiological, something occurs that can, in a sense, be taken as historical evidence for what has just been said. You know that certain ascetics, who, admittedly, take a false path rather than a spiritual one in order to attain spiritual life, also starve themselves. This “starvation,” which is brought about not by a normal but by an abnormal life, is what leads people to be more aware of what is going on inside them. This is what, in an abnormal way that is not useful for spiritual research, brings about a stronger self-awareness and thus a stronger spiritual experience. This instinct to have spiritual experiences through experiences of hunger is based on an exaggeration of the true basic facts, namely that normal conscious life in imagination and thinking is actually based on a feeling of hunger, on a process of hunger in the head. And as I said, when one discovers this in inner contemplation, one realizes that this regressive process is present, that it is actually based on degradation, and that thinking does not occur as a fact based on further development, but precisely on the suppression of organic life, which it replaces. And once you see through this, once you contemplate this marvel of the human organism, once you don't just proceed as the abstract mystics do, who repeatedly declaim: To attain knowledge of God, one must become one with the higher self, and so on, which are all just figures of speech, but when one really advances to self-knowledge and grasps the human essence in such a way that one can say: what occurs in this essence is due to what occurs as the feeling of hunger in the human organism, — when one penetrates to the concrete in this way, one realizes that what lives as thinking in the human being is, curiously enough, an unconscious inspiration. This thinking reaches the human being in its effects in such a way that he can judge mere associations of ideas as something external, because an inspiration approaches him, but remains unconscious. The spiritual researcher penetrates into the activity of thinking, into that activity which occurs when the organism regresses, and he recognizes that he is dealing with inspiration. And if one investigates, from the point of view developed earlier, as I have described, what lies at the basis of this inspiration, that is, if one dives into the inspiration and then emerges again, then this is the way to discover the spiritual-soul being of the human being before birth or conception, to discover what is actually connected with what comes down in the stream of heredity from father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and so on. One comes to what is embodied through conception; one comes to what is the spiritual-soul past of the human being in relation to their present in the body. One comes to a direct perception of the eternal in the human being.

Then, when one advances to intuition in the area just developed, one even comes to a view of what, as a former earthly life, underlies the present one, what reaches into the present from the former. Talking about repeated earthly lives is not based on something that could be described as fantasy, but on very carefully developed research, which first prepares the soul in complete independence to observe what actually takes place in the soul phenomena themselves.

When we try to grasp thinking free of sensuality in imaginative knowledge, which disappears because this thinking itself is inspiration, when we immerse ourselves in it, we experience that before entering the earthly body, the human being was in a spiritual world, which he entered from his previous earthly life. One learns about what lies before human conception and, through this, about the eternal. By being able to view thinking as that which breaks down what comes from the father and mother, which presupposes the devolution of what is developing, one learns how life here in the body is the consequence of the eternal in the human being. In the future, the way of looking at things that was otherwise common, even if only in religious beliefs, will be joined by another that will not merely ask: What happens to human beings after death? but will add the other question: From what state of spiritual-soul life does the human being emerge by leading his earthly life here? The question of immortality will be even more important in the future, because people will come to realize that life here can only be understood as a continuation of spiritual and soul life. And the first thing one discovers as an unconscious inspiration that constantly enters into life is thinking, which is built up on the basis of regression.

What I have just described as the devolution of the human head and sensory organization has a polar opposite in the human organization. Just as everything I have now characterized is based on a devolution that reverses evolution, so everything in humans that is connected with the development of their extremities — hands and feet and everything connected with them, that is, everything that is a continuation of the extremities inward, which is a great deal — represents another extreme in humans and their organism. For those who have eyes to see what is around them, human feet and especially hands are truly wonderfully formed things, even if the crude view that sees only the four monkey hands and, slightly transformed, the human extremities, does not notice the wonder of human hands and feet at all. For what underlies the human extremities does not undergo a regression, a devolution; rather, it shows the peculiarity that it goes beyond the measure of the organism's other evolution — with the exception of the head. The extremities undergo over-development, they go beyond the point to which the head and the rest of the organism go; as the rest of the organism degenerates, the extremities develop a kind of perseverance, shooting beyond the usual measure. What is physiologically connected with the evolution of the human extremities represents an over-development that goes beyond the ordinary, viewed through a faculty of knowledge that is built up in three stages. This knowledge reveals, in relation to the human organization connected with the miraculous structure of the extremities, that one can only approach it by advancing to imaginative knowledge. Only when one no longer views the human being in relation to his extremities as external physiology alone can view him, but when one comes to the spiritual foundation of the extremities, does one discover how a spiritual element is also present there. But just as what is contained in thinking already announces itself as inspiration – it is there in a very rudimentary form – so it is with the extremities. But here, what actually wants to come out, what over-development brings about, can only be grasped in images; it can only be perceived in this way. Of course, with this insight, one does not need to stop at the image, but one takes the image and tries to get behind it. And there lies the true reality! One advances from the image to the corresponding inspiration and to the corresponding intuition. What does one discover there? One discovers what is present in every human soul in an indefinite way, like a dark feeling — precisely as unconscious imagination — but which, when grasped through inspiration and intuition, represents the essential nature that goes out into the spiritual world when a person passes through the gate of death. That is where the spiritual part of our future lies. This seed is the breeding ground for what we need after death. And that is why over-development exists, because otherwise development would cease with death. This is the reason for the transition, which is necessary in order to have a spiritual-soul organization after death.

Inspiration is quite foreign to human beings, as is imagination, for that matter. Therefore, what I have now described for the human organization appears in ordinary consciousness in such a way that inspired thinking — and all true thinking is inspired — actually remains a mystery. This is the only way to explain how it has been discussed today. So it is not researched at all in philosophy, but is simply accepted. People write logics that judge mere ascending, free thinking. But where the soul gets the ability to develop logic is something we cannot fathom. We can only understand this when we realize that the soul was in the spiritual world and brought back the guidelines for thinking from there, and that what we develop as logic is not developed in the present at all. All of this is content from existence before birth or conception; it has not passed away. We live eternal life; we have not come out of eternal life. This inspires us when we rise to thinking that goes beyond mere imagination. This is proof, but one cannot see through the facts. Therefore, in this area, one comes to riddles, but not to answers.

Already a little closer, because he approaches the matter with feeling, is the person in inspiration. Subconsciously, he has the imagination that is represented in relation to the extremities. That is why philosophers also speak little about life before birth, because it can only be recognized in a higher realm that is less accessible to ordinary consciousness. The thinking that is closest to the imaginative comes up dimly. That is why it is much easier and more common to talk about what remains as immortality, but to avoid both the forces that inspire the soul and the forces that we find imaginatively, so that the images themselves pass into the spiritual world and the preparation for the next earthly life is created from the images. We enter the spiritual world with the images. What we carry in there represents, in a certain sense, our future.

The kind of knowledge I have spoken of, which rises through imagination and inspiration to intuition, makes it possible to truly see human life pictorially, as if looking at mirror images, while at the same time penetrating into the actual reality of this life. But something strange happens when one goes through everything that belongs to pre-birth and post-death life: as one emerges from one's own physicality, as one's own physicality becomes pictorial, what one otherwise has as the self-experience of the ego flutters away and disperses. This is the dangerous moment for knowledge, when the ordinary ego disperses. It is scattered throughout the world, as it were, and feels itself to be without consciousness.

This feeling is a strange and significant realization. One notices that what one has left behind, what one has emerged from, was precisely the foundation of the ordinary self. For the self that human beings call their “I” in ordinary life, the physical organization is the foundation. This self begins with conception, with birth; consciousness of it only begins later. This self, this immediate present self, is bound to the organism; one cannot find it when one leaves the organism. But this is precisely what the full consciousness of this self is based on. Now, however, one experiences this self as self-contained. It would be terrible if human beings experienced as their I what the spiritual researcher experiences as the I in its atomization when he is outside the body. How is this I experienced? It is experienced as having just submerged; for if it has not submerged into the physical body, then the human being is asleep; then the I is outside and he does not experience it. It is experienced in the body, specifically in that part of the human organism that is not the regressive main organism and not the extremities that extend beyond normal development; rather, it is stimulated in the rest of the human organism through the activity of the lungs and heart. It is stimulated by the fact that the human being is inside his organism.

What is this I that otherwise dissipates? This I becomes conscious by submerging itself in the organism. The spiritual researcher recognizes it as unconscious intuition. This is the intuition that is gained when the true I, which otherwise does not appear in consciousness at all, submerges itself in the organism, namely in the middle organism of the human being. The consciousness of the I is based on unconscious intuition. That is why you often hear people talk about “intuition,” but much less about imagination and inspiration. But it is precisely this highest form, which occurs as a process of spiritual research outside the body, that is dimly conscious. This is what Hamerling calls the “sense of self.” It flows up from the organization. This is how the organization lives. Unconsciously, imaginations flow from sensual-free thinking into that part of the human being that is embedded in the extremities, and from there they go out into the future. What lives in the present ego consciousness dissipates; it is only by being in the future that it is freed from this dissipation. This can be seen when one pursues the matter further. For there is now a threefold aspect to human nature, namely the three members of the eternal human being: that which lies before earthly incarnation, which lives into the unconscious inspiration of the organism; then that which is experienced during earthly life in unconscious intuition; and thirdly, that which is sensed as the essence of the human being after death in the imagination. These are the three members of the human being, and they always work together in the human being. In truth, the human being is not the simple monadic being dreamed of by those who like to have all knowledge conveniently at their fingertips, but in truth three selves work together in the human being: the inspiring self, which lives in thinking, carried over from the spiritual world and from previous earthly lives; the intuitive self, which lives in the present physical body; and the imaginative self, which is carried over, like a carriage carries its passengers, into the spiritual world, which is entered by passing through the gate of death.

Now, human beings can perform actions, acts of will, that are internally connected with the organization of the extremities. These actions can arise in such a way that they follow from this organization. It would be nonsense to attribute freedom of will to trivial life, to instinctive life. That is why, in The Philosophy of Freedom, I emphasized the importance of asking: Which of human beings' actions are free? For one discovers that those arising from associations of ideas are not yet free. Man is free for certain actions, but not free for others. Freedom of action develops only out of man himself, and, as I have shown in “The Philosophy of Freedom,” only those actions can be regarded as free which arise from thinking that is free from sensuality, from intuitive thinking. In order to carry out such actions, human beings must develop something that leads them out of themselves; for true thinking free of sensuality does not follow from the organization of the organism, but is based on reduction. What follows from the drives comes from the organization, as does what follows from the instincts. Human beings must go out of themselves, even if unconsciously. But how does he unconsciously step outside himself in ordinary consciousness? When he performs actions in which he is, at the very core of his human nature, quite uninvolved in relation to everything that is instinctive nature, whereby he has the free thought: “it must be done,” and yet feels only as an instrument of the event. Anyone who can truly examine human life will find, when they look at how such actions fit into life, that they fit into life in the same way that we relate to a personality we love. When we truly love them, we accept them as they are, we look at them, we transcend ourselves. Actions that can be viewed in this way, actions that have love as their innermost impulse, are the free actions of human beings, when this love is supported by insight based on intuitive thinking free from sensuality. I described this twenty-five years ago in The Philosophy of Freedom on the basis of observation; today I describe it on the basis of spiritual science. So in a free human action we have the triad: thinking free from sensuality, reduction, commanding the organism — love — action. This is the triad that lives in a free human nature: free intuitive thinking, love, action. But it must emerge in ordinary consciousness. In a sense, what I have now described must underlie it.

But the human being who acts freely is not yet a clairvoyant; he has not yet attained seeing consciousness. Just as spiritual life enters poets and artists, so it enters him through what I have called in my book the moral imagination. If one were to look into the spiritual world at the spiritual counterpart of moral imagination, one would have imaginations; for what moral impulses are does not live within us. Emotionally, the reflection of this is in the conscience; contemplatively, the reflection of this in consciousness is moral imagination, which has moral impulses. Speaking in terms of spiritual research, one says: Not only do the drives for moral impulses lie within us, but they are borrowed from the spiritual world; however, they enter consciousness as moral imagination. This is what underlies human free will.

Let us look once more at what is expressed in the higher organization of the extremities that enters into the human organization. This is not for life that lasts until death; it contains impulses that have meaning after death. They are present, live in human beings, and thus do something that has meaning beyond ordinary life; they are not based in the organism. For the organism must go beyond its measure of organization in order to bring this forth. There it accomplishes something. There it accomplishes something in human beings that has nothing to do with a mere scientific necessity, for this scientific necessity regards human beings in relation to everything that lies between birth and death. But when something occurs that is effective here but only attains its full reality after death, then it is the “future self,” if we may say so. And what does this future self grasp? I said: free thinking. The past self — the triad of selves lies within the human being — which he brings into embodiment, which inspires the human soul life, which makes it possible for us to have free thinking, free from mere imagination, which also provides the impetus for moral action. But that would remain passive. It must, however, be seized by life-giving impulses. These come from the future self. In every free action, what is the immortal essence of the human being is lived out. For the present self, which lives through the body and only acquires its meaning in the future through what is prepared by the spiritual-soul, is influenced by the future self with all its impulses and active forces that seize the free thinking of the past self. In the present human being, the immortal human being works in harmony with the future human being. This is what makes the human being a free being!

One must first realize that the immortal essence of the human being lies in a free human act in order to understand that natural science is quite right when it speaks of no free actions; for it does not consider the immortal essence of the human being, nor is that its task. But until one understands this immortal being, one cannot penetrate to what rises up from the subconscious depths and is expressed in moral actions. The human will is not free in these impulses, but the development toward freedom lies within it. Human beings are beings who are becoming increasingly free. And the more they develop what lives within them as an eternal core of their being, the more freedom they attain. We are free because we are immortal; we are free with that part of our being with which we are immortal.

This is the way in which everything can be found that natural science can never find with regard to these two questions — freedom of will and immortality of the soul; and the less it claims to intervene in these areas, the more it will remain good natural science. But it remains science that intervenes in this way in the spirit and in spiritual life. Humanity in earlier centuries and millennia, which still had a different spiritual life, did not yet need this science. But today we are approaching more and more the time when full consciousness must come about of what underlies human life. Human beings will increasingly need what the science of supersensible life can give them. I have often said that only the spiritual researcher can penetrate into the supersensible life, but what he says can be tested with ordinary consciousness, and one can accept it even if one is not a spiritual researcher oneself, although anyone can become one today. When the spiritual researcher presents his findings to ordinary consciousness, they can be understood with ordinary consciousness, provided one is not misled by what is fully justified on its own ground but constantly oversteps that ground when it seeks to prohibit research in territories other than those of mere natural events. Admittedly, many things distract from spiritual research, and anyone who believes that the spiritual researcher may have the slightest inclination toward fantasy is very much mistaken. Anyone who thinks that it is easy to penetrate the spiritual world and that, in contrast, ordinary research in clinics and laboratories is difficult has no idea of the real circumstances. Basically, all the efforts made in the field of external science are insignificant compared to what is required for real research if one wants to penetrate the areas described today.

But it is also necessary to look at this with an unbiased eye, as people often believe themselves to be unbiased, yet remain trapped in their own biases. I am reminded of this when I see how conventional philosophers repeatedly treat the questions discussed today, saying over and over again: Man consists of body and soul. You know — this was the basis for all the considerations this winter — that one cannot cope with the consideration of man unless one divides man into body, soul, and spirit. Today, only spiritual science actually does this. But the majority of philosophers today still do not speak of body, soul, and spirit, and they believe that they are pursuing science without prejudice. One only has to really look into things. Why is it that philosophers today do not speak of body, soul, and spirit — and thus cloud their own clarity about this? They believe they are conducting research without preconditions, but in reality they are following the Eighth Ecumenical Council of 869! They just don't know that it corresponds to the dogma established at that time that human beings must not be regarded as threefold, but that one may only speak of body and soul, and that the latter may at most be attributed with spiritual qualities. What was a true horror throughout the Middle Ages has carried over into modern times; and when Wundt speaks of body and soul today, he believes he is speaking without prejudice, but in truth he is only following the guidelines of the Eighth Ecumenical Council. Thus, people are under the influence of the unconscious. But today's humanity does not “believe in authority,” and therefore does not pay attention to whether those who are authorities for people who do not believe in authority arrive at their assertions from such foundations or pursue science without prejudice. That is one thing that presents itself to the observer.

The other thing is that inner strength is needed to rise to the level of imagination, to maintain the heightened consciousness so that it does not continually slip away. One must not fall into the belief that one immediately enters into fantasy if one does not progress with one's experience on the leash of external reality, if one dares, out of an inner necessity, to stand courageously in the new experience in order to enter into the spirit. People lack this inner courage, otherwise spiritual research would be able to advance more easily. Timidity and fear of loneliness lie deep in the subconscious. And those who have this timidity and fear come forward and call spiritual research a fantasy, believing that they can refute it with their arguments. If one examines their arguments, one finds that it is unconscious timidity, unconscious fear and anxiety that deceive themselves and seek to numb themselves to the reasons they put forward against spiritual research. But every spiritual researcher knows that those who immerse themselves in spiritual science with regard to the spiritual supersensible nature of human beings can come to an understanding of things. Despite all the darkness that opposes it, and no matter how much it is attacked and slandered, truth finds its way — as a spiritual German thinker has said — through human development, even through the narrowest cracks and crevices; it finds its way to humanity. Humanity will come to realize that it is a supersensible being and will need supersensible knowledge more and more for true self-knowledge, but also for real practical life. Therefore, by intuitively combining what is expressed as a mindset, by presenting the still paradoxical ideas of spiritual science to an audience, if one is serious and does not care about the misunderstandings that arise, one can draw attention to this prevailing power of truth and to this ever-living impulse. And this puts it on the tip of one's tongue, not as a phrase, but as a deeply serious conviction: even if the individual, as it is researched today, may still be gnawed or afflicted by this or that error, the impulse of truth lives in what is to flow through spiritual scientific research. Those who are involved in it feel this. That is why they say it, truly not as a phrase, but as an expression of life itself connected with the spirit: despite everything — truth must prevail in this field too!