Death and Immortality in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 69d — 19 January 1913, Vienna

11. The Supernatural Worlds and the Nature of the Human Soul

Dearly beloved! I request that the two lectures of today and tomorrow be regarded as a whole. Although I shall endeavor to present each one as a self-contained whole in a certain sense, that which I shall have the honor of presenting to you can only be fully illuminated when what is given in one lecture is measured against what is given in the other.

If today, from the point of view of the world view from which my presentations are to be given here, we speak about the nature of the human soul and its connection with the supersensible worlds, then, understandably, to someone who judges what is to be said here from the point of view of today's general education, it must at first appear strange, peculiar, perhaps even fantastic. The one who has the point of view of this world view, which starts from a kind of spiritual research, will understand this the best, because how could it not appear strange on the one hand when, compared to today's world views, which think that they stand on the firm ground of today's science, it is explained by this so-called spiritual research that the human soul is a much more comprehensive being than everything that known to man by this soul itself in ordinary life, during the whole course of life between birth and death, because this spiritual research wants to show that this human soul life is not exhausted in all that comes to light between birth and death, but that this human soul being goes its way from birth to death and again from death to birth into new life, as the consequence of the previous ones [earth lives and the cause of later ones].

Man's entire existence can therefore be divided into successive earthly lives, with intermediate stages of spiritual existence in a purely spiritual world. At first this appears quite understandably as nothing more than a fantastic thing, and no one needs to be surprised, not even those who are grounded in spiritual research, that in the broadest circles of those currently educated such a view is taken as nothing more than the fantasy of some strange enthusiasts. And if on the one hand the matter itself appears highly contestable, then to such a contestation will easily be added the other, which is also raised by many, namely the one that says: Even if there really is such a thing as a soul life that is separate from the everyday, particularly separate, man with his ordinary powers of knowledge, which are at his disposal, certainly cannot penetrate to such a solution of the world's riddles, which stand on a ground as it has just been characterized. So if someone who subscribes to the current conventional wisdom says that nothing of the kind can be recognized at all, the other would explain the matter as completely fantastic. And indeed, my esteemed audience, one does not easily come close to the research methods, the research paths, that lead to insights, of which those hinted at concerning the human soul are only a part. Man cannot arrive at such results by external performance, by external experiments, nor by the ordinary method of observation of external science, and anyone who would imagine that spiritual research can resort to methods like those of ordinary science would be labouring under a great delusion. Spiritual science cannot resort to similar proofs as the usual science. Oh, [undoubtedly] all that [to which what is said refers] lies outside the realm of what human souls can observe and what can also be experienced by those powers of human cognition that are bound to the instrument of the brain. This immediately gives rise to the question: Yes, are there any possibilities in the nature of the human soul to gain knowledge that is not conditioned by the senses, that is not through the human brain? Of course, the answer to this question can only be provided by experience, the experience of those who have come to such realizations. But anyone can ask: Is there any possibility at all of speaking of an “super-being” of the human soul that exists separately from the external corporeality of the human brain?

We must take a starting point, my esteemed audience, which I have often taken when I had the honor of speaking to you, from a fact that is intimately connected with all the highest riddles of human life, that imposes itself on man anew every day, that is only not observed because man least wants to observe in life what he experiences as an everyday occurrence. The life riddle that is to be discussed in more detail tomorrow, however, is surprisingly more significant. It is connected with the question of death and immortality. But intimately connected with this life riddle, which touches every human being so deeply, is another, everyday one. This is the life riddle that is contained in the state of change that we experience every day between waking and sleeping. We will not be talking here about the highly interesting scientific hypotheses about the nature of sleep, but rather about what spiritual science has to say in a very elementary way about the nature of the state of transition between waking and sleeping. Spiritual science must first draw attention to the illogicality of the assumption that everything that comes up during the day from morning to evening would disappear in the evening when we plunge into [darkness], into the unconsciousness of sleep. Instincts, desires, passions, sensations, perceptions, [joy and suffering], everything sinks into the unconsciousness of sleep; that it should vanish in the evening and [come again] in the morning, form itself again, that no logical thinking can assume. Therefore, this thinking can look to that, and provisionally regard as a hypothesis, what spiritual science has to say for its part. It says namely that when falling asleep, when man loses control over the outer limbs and movement, when he loses the possibility of feeling, of thinking, man's soul-spiritual being, so says spiritual science, leaves the body at this moment. Outside of the body is [then the human soul-spiritual being] during sleep, and it returns in the morning; when the person [awakens] again, begins his day life, this soul-spiritual being - so says spiritual science - [again] plunges into the [physical] body [and] begins to stir to interact with the physical-sensual outside world.

Of course, my esteemed audience, this must be a hypothesis for anyone who has not yet dealt with spiritual science in more detail; because even if one assumes that the spiritual-soul being withdraws from the body and leads its own existence, man is not able to know anything about this soul-spiritual being; even assuming that it has emerged from the external body, man nevertheless loses the possibility of feeling conscious, active and suffering in what is supposed to be outside. And if there is no possibility to show that what emerges is really present, if there is no possibility to show that a person can experience themselves outside of the body, then there can be no real proof for what spiritual science says. The one who wants to be a spiritual scientist must provide this proof, and it is impossible to look into the spiritual world, it is impossible to gain knowledge in the spiritual world, so that what is submerged in sleep [in the spiritual world] is activated in the human being as his own human soul-being, is enlivened, is raised to consciousness even when it is separated from the body. The spiritual researcher must undergo this as a development of his spiritual-soul nature in order to arrive at a [new] perception. The spiritual researcher must learn to perceive, to communicate with the spiritual-soul being, of which the human being in ordinary life knows nothing, of which he must say: Even if it is my lot to experience it, I do not know it. This implies that something could occur to the spiritual researcher that would be similar to the state of sleep [and] yet radically different. Let us assume that the hypothesis is correct; then one could say: During sleep, the human being leaves his physical body. The conscious life ceases, the [sense] organs fail to function, so the state of sleep is [constituted] by the human soul becoming [apparently] unconscious, sinking into the darkness of sleep, where it does not make use of the tools. The spiritual researcher must be able to bring about this state of the soul through his will, through his will that has been energized. He must actually bring about what otherwise befalls people without will of their own: to suspend all contact with the physical world. The spiritual researcher must artificially induce this. But that is not enough; he would not bring about anything for spiritual knowledge if he only did that; he would induce the state of sleep.

A second thing must still be [the following]: when [the spiritual researcher] has made himself independent of all service to the body through his arbitrariness, he does not fall into unconsciousness, but knows that he is in a new world with the ego, in a world beyond the ordinary world, that is, he must be able to to develop inner life and activity in the I, which otherwise appears paralyzed, feels no inner activity, no inner life; what otherwise appears as something unreal and paralyzed, he must make completely real.

At least in principle, I have to tell you, dear readers, what leads to such a revival; a detailed description of how a person can come to a real inner revival [of his soul] can be found in my writings “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds”, “Theosophy” and “[A Way to Self-Knowledge of Man]”. What is said there in detail is given here only in principle. One does not achieve this through external measures, but through intimate inner processes that can be described with the words meditation, concentration of the soul life, contemplation. What does that mean? You get the best idea if you do not initially imagine that it refers to something that is completely foreign and separate from the ordinary soul life. Everything that the spiritual researcher applies to his soul is only a continuation of what he otherwise accomplishes.

Let us take an example. One of the great advances in the spiritual life of humanity is characterized by what Giordano Bruno once did, who, as a world thinker, stood on the ground of the Copernican world view. What has been gained for the developing spiritual life with Giordano Bruno? We can construct it something like this, what was gained there: A large part of the people saw [then], in the time that preceded the Giordano Bruno, up into space, he saw [there] the various stars circling, but he imagined, the naive man of that time, that the whole space would be closed from the ether, from what was called the crystal sky, because one saw the blue sky vault. But how did Giordano Bruno look into space? He looked out into space and realized that every gaze that looks out sees infinity, and where the eye perceives a boundary, there is actually nothing. It is only through the eye, through the whole human perception, that something like a blue hollow sphere is seen. What the eye could see was thus broken through, and through the world view of Giordano Bruno that which the mission of the development of humanity needed up to his time was [broken through]. A new element emerged. [Infinite cosmic space is what the eye sees], embedded in infinite cosmic space, infinite worlds. Man can say to himself: What you see there, just as your gaze falls on the blue vault of heaven, is only an illusion, is only brought about by your interaction with the outside world, is [actually] not there at all in truth. How was such a view gained? This insight was not gained through external observation, of course, because this contradicted such insights, but through a higher energization, [a permeation] of the human cognitive and spiritual life. One had the courage to acquire inner knowledge from the information provided by the senses and thus to break through what the senses offered. Something comprehensive had been explained as appearance [– what the senses offered]. Through the fact that the human soul has developed powers within itself that can enlighten it about reality despite appearances, what is termed meditation, contemplation, [concentration] has become a continuation, as it were, of the limited development of the soul to which the leading spiritual personalities devoted themselves.

How man comes to that arbitrariness of withdrawing attention can be read [in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds?”]. Just as it is possible in ordinary life to withdraw attention from something, so it is possible, through an inner, higher act of the will, to divert all soul attention from all external impressions, so that one artificially enters into the state as one involuntarily enters sleep. But] then you must have already taken care to make your soul life so strong that you do not fall into inactivity and lethargy, and that is achieved by performing the inner soul activity that is necessary for this. And how this is to be done will become most clear to us when we consider that everything a person experiences, thinks and feels is based on the outside world. One need only reflect on how empty the human soul would be if it were to suddenly, in an instant, forget everything that comes from outside. Some soul beings would feel only too empty. But now one can also achieve a certain deepening, internalization [of the soul life] if one takes the ideas gained from external impressions, holds them back, [withdraws and] processes them inwardly. That is already a kind of meditation. It only becomes effective when the spiritual researcher brings to life ideas that do not come from outside, but which he creates out of his soul, even if they are reminiscent of external realities. I would like to emphasize one such concrete idea here, an idea that may at first seem rather foolish to the outer man: Imagine having two water glasses in front of you, one empty and one partially filled; further, imagine imagine that you are pouring water from the half-filled glass into the empty one; try to imagine that the glass does not become emptier as a result of the pouring, but rather fuller and fuller, the more water you pour. A foolish notion in the external world, but such notions are important and essential for something else. To those who would object that this notion is quite foolish, one would have to say: such a notion is not meant to depict anything from the outside, but [this notion is meant] to evoke the soul to action, to stir up an allegorical notion in the soul. What is our attitude to this? This idea can be an emblem for something [very mysterious] and profound in human life; and that is what is included in the word “love”. Wherever we look in human life, we encounter it as something that fertilizes and invigorates. It presents us with riddle upon riddle [the riddle of life at its most profound]. Who would dare to say that they can look into the depths of the soul that are touched when love is mentioned? But one of the qualities of love is wonderfully illustrated by the parable of the two jars, by this impossible idea: the one who gives and gives again and again out of love does not become emptier and emptier, but fuller and fuller, richer and richer. That is a peculiarity of what is expressed there: that the soul is given more and more richly when it gives out of love. We can apply what is given in this symbol; we are not doing anything so incredibly foolish, because we are doing it according to mathematics and geometry.

Let us assume that someone has a medal in front of them, but has no idea what its substantial content is. However, there is one thing they can see: that it is circular. They draw a circle on the medal and imagine it. Everything they can imagine as a circle applies to the medal. So what does he do? He separates the properties of things and considers them individually, separately, and in this way he arrives at his insights. With such a mental image, one cannot go as far as in mathematics. But this symbol is intended to lead to the [independent] inner life of the soul. Now, the point is to, excluding all other ideas, excluding all worries, [regarding what other life experiences are], spend a while devoting oneself entirely to such an idea, to live entirely in it. What is achieved here? What is achieved is that the person who wants to become a soul researcher has united everything in his soul that he would otherwise have fragmented into many sensory perceptions and many will impulses, that he has concentrated everything on a single idea that he has created himself and that he therefore fully comprehends [as a symbol]. An enormous amount of energy of the soul life must be applied when such a concept has no support, no crutch, in the outer soul life. But it is not enough to do such a training only for a short time. Much is necessary, as stated in the book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. Moral conceptions of all kinds [are necessary], they are particularly fruitful for the inner energization, for an inner revival, for a stimulation of the soul life.

The first thing the soul feels is not, for example, immediate supersensible knowledge – it is that it now knows: there is the possibility in you to evoke other forces than those that can be experienced in ordinary life. It is an important and essential moment in life to experience this. This moment cannot be compared to anything else that one experiences in ordinary life in another science, which one can call an expansion of knowledge in the ordinary scientific field; what one experiences there can only be compared to something else in human life, to what the child experiences after it is intimately connected to the physical for the first time, the first years after birth. We see it growing up in such a way that the soul is, as it were, not separated from the body, the spiritual influence expresses itself in physical movement, then we become aware of that [important] moment when it is aware that it is an I, until later it remembers back, while the earlier time disappears. Childhood presents itself as an inner division into a spiritual and a soul life. The physical now presents itself to the soul life as something different; a kind of birth of the soul life takes place, a detachment of the soul life; not only has the child gained something, but it has become different, it has become a different being. In the same sense, one feels one's self growing when that which can be attained through meditation occurs; [one feels something similar to the experience of the child.] In that moment, one feels more and more how something is detaching itself, just as the physicality of the child detaches itself from the soul life. The soul life becomes twofold; one sees something emerging, as when a new human being is born out of the old one, [one becomes a different being, acquires a new self, a new inner soul life awakens]; just as the child, when it begins to become aware of itself as a self, relates to its corporeality quite differently than before, so the person who has experienced this relates to his or her entire soul life. But this is a moment that is essentially different from the moment that has just been discussed in the life of the child; how, that can become clear when you consider that a person is what he has developed as his feeling, thinking and imagining throughout his life; what he now experiences in his soul, he must detach from himself like a new self. What was inward must now become outward; the greater part of it becomes outward, and a new inner, at the same time higher, soul life awakens. Only at this moment do you feel two things; the experiences are well known from the past, but you have never gone through them with such intensity.

The first thing that occurs is: Now you know what self-love is. In that moment, self-love becomes clear. Now you know: you have to separate yourself from what you were so in love with, what you thought was your everything, what you used to call your being; it is as if the ground disappears under your feet. Only now do you feel how you loved yourself, and what you have to tear out when this soul life is shown to you objectively. It must be so for everyday life, because man loves most what he is, however selfless he may think he is. One overlooks the fact that one loves most what one has gradually developed in one's soul life, [what one must snatch from oneself]. It is a difficult task to detach oneself from oneself; and without getting to the point where one, so to speak, tears out from oneself what one loves and values most in oneself, without this fact one cannot recognize the soul as grounded in the soul worlds. One also has a sense of what the expulsion of self-love is in ordinary life; one only gets to know the strength [of selflessness] that this sense now requires at a certain point in the development of meditative, concentrated mental life, which only allows the soul to become aware of itself in its essence.

The second thing is to become aware: What are you now [at your core], now that you have made your core your shell [now that what seemed to be the core is only the shell]? At first, you feel that you are not much at all, that what appears to be a new self is very thin. What is needed now is inner courage to maintain oneself in the face of the feeling of powerlessness, of the bottomlessness of the whole new being. It is basically one of the most important experiences of the spiritual researcher to tear out self-love and overcome the tremendous fear that arises when one recognizes one's own powerlessness of the new self. Now, in ordinary life, what the spiritual researcher achieves is also present in everyone; something new is not given to people at all, it can only be perceived by the soul researcher at the characterized level. There, what he actually is confronts him; only now does self-knowledge occur. Why can't people have it all the time? [Why wasn't it there before?] And here we come to the important discovery that everyone who wants to become a spiritual scientist, who transforms the nature of his soul so that he can see into the supersensible worlds, must make: He comes to the realization that it is good in ordinary life that all this [that self-knowledge] does not occur because man would not be able to bear it. The training must consist of the fact that he [at the moment when he lays aside the soul's cover] is then also able to face himself in such a way that he tears out all self-love, that he has the designated courage to a sufficient degree. The fact that a person does not face this in ordinary [real] life is a form of protection, because [the ordinary person] would not be able to bear [what used to be inside becoming external]. That is why spiritual science speaks of [this moment of] standing before the “Guardians of the Threshold”. By the threshold is meant the one that one must cross if one wants to enter the supersensible world. It is said that ordinary life finds protection through this guardian of the threshold, because only now does the possibility of the soul's relationship with the supersensible worlds begin, only now is the soul ready to look into the supersensible worlds. Only now does the human being begin to become a spiritual researcher.

For there comes a time when the human being, if he has practised such an inner strengthening of his soul life for a sufficient length of time, when he has brought such symbolic images before his soul for long enough [which he knows they serve to strengthen the soul], then his soul has become strong, then he also perceives the fruit of this strengthening, then he becomes aware of that important, significant moment, which he feels like an epiphany. Such images arise [of their own accord] from the indeterminate depths of the soul's life, which seem to show him new worlds. Now the most important and decisive moment for the soul of the spiritual researcher has come. Now he must be able to make a decision that is extremely difficult. Why it is difficult may be seen from a comparison, from the comparison of what happens to a person when new images arise in him without his doing, which do not come from external facts. You know, they are called visions, hallucinations, delusions and the like. The person who is an external scientist will be tempted to say: What the spiritual researcher experiences is nothing more than delusions that arise in an ill soul.

Now, of course, the difference cannot be readily explained, but it can become clear to anyone if they make another comparison. You will also be aware of what happens to a person who has come to such delusions through illness. To talk such delusions out of such a sick person is a futile exercise. Now it becomes clear how much a person is in love with what he has created. As a spiritual researcher, a person must not be in love with his image, and therefore he must uproot self-love; he must know: In all that comes as an image, you live only in it yourself; like shadows of your own being - what the inner nature of the soul's mood is, that is expressed in what surrounds you. That is very difficult, because you can meet people who have come to such experiences through some exercises, through states of illness, which should not be mentioned here, and the like. Oh, such people are blissful in the world that they claim to have gained. They can tell you some strange things, they are completely convinced of this new world. To prevent that from happening is part of spiritual training. Yes, the will must go further; it must not remain merely with knowledge, that does not help in the long run. A glorious new world comes to meet you, but you have to know what it means, that it has arisen from the inner nature of the soul mood. (It takes a strong will to say to yourself: All this is only a reflection of your own being; abstract knowledge is of no use here.) The willpower must be so strong that it is capable of extinguishing this entire [imaginary] ego-world so that it is no longer there. That is the Rubicon that must be crossed. You have created this world for yourself and you have to be able to extinguish this world again. Only someone who has gone through this can talk about it. But when he has managed to extinguish this entire ego-world, then he has made himself objective, and then he has freed his consciousness for the experience of an objective new world. The things come back, similar to forgotten images that lie dormant in the soul life, and yet they are quite different. Only now is the soul, through its powers, transported into a completely new world. It is so strange, what one experiences at this stage of realization; it is as if one has experienced a completely new thing, which has enabled the soul to perceive an objective spiritual world. Now the soul life has become the spiritual eye, the spiritual ear; now it does not perceive itself, one has become objective; now the soul is the spiritual eye and ear, because it no longer sees itself. Just as the outer eye [does not see itself] and knows nothing of itself, and thereby becomes permeable to the outer world, so man must, through the procedures undertaken, have made himself permeable, as it were, to the spiritual world; [then one sees the supersensible world]. When he has made himself permeable through his energy at his root, then he finds what lives within the soul!

Now, one could say that everything the spiritual researcher finds could be autosuggestion, deception. I have already mentioned here what someone told me in another [gap in the transcript]: The soul is a peculiar thing, it often imagines that it is facing a reality. — One would have to object that there is no proof of anything that can be experienced in any world except the experience itself. Only the experience provides the proof. We only need to recall a strange philosophical assertion by Schopenhauer, on which philosophies were founded. When we hear that the world is an idea and that basically everything that comes to man is only an idea, we have to answer that ideas can be clearly distinguished from experience. It is quite a different matter when we form the clearest idea of a piece of hot iron and when we actually touch a hot iron; we will get burned by the latter, but certainly not by the former. There is no proof of reality except that through direct experience. If no one had seen a whale, we could never prove that such an animal really exists. In life itself, reality is indeed guaranteed by this experience. It is the same in the supersensible worlds. Anyone who has progressed to where the spiritual researcher should go, experiences the reality of those worlds into which he has entered. When the Lord said that there are people who can imagine a lemonade so clearly that they believe they can taste it, one must say: Yes, of course, it happens that someone can imagine the taste of a lemonade from the mere idea of it, but has the experience been carried to its conclusion? It is only complete when he has quenched his thirst, and no one has quenched his thirst with the mere idea of taste. The experience must be brought to a conclusion, and this conclusion of experiences is experienced when one has [really] entered into the supersensible worlds with one's soul. Only when one has approached the supersensible worlds in this way is one in principle able to see through the supersensible self-substantial being.

This self-substantial being becomes particularly evident when one looks back on one's own life. But it is very difficult for a person to recognize this own life, because everything that it usually appears to be is actually, one might say, a one-sidedness brought about by life circumstances and by one's own disposition. We meet idealists, materialists; one regards the other as a fool. It is not enough to see through superficial self-knowledge. More profound minds, such as Goethe, for example, have known that fundamentally each of these points of view represents only one-sidedness. Material things must be recognized with material laws; spiritual things with spiritual laws. But Goethe has placed himself in each point of view and he did not come to regard the spiritualist as a fool, because he knew that one can only understand the supersensible life through one's spiritual powers. Some who have not progressed as far as Goethe think that one has to look for the truth in the middle; for someone who knows the truth, it is just as if you had two chairs, and it could happen that you sat down on the floor between the two instead of on one of the chairs. You don't get to the truth by taking the arithmetic mean, but by making each point of view your own, then you find the way to the truth, as Goethe says. But you can only do that when you have a deeper self-knowledge; when you look back on your life, you realize: you have achieved this and that because of your point of view, from which you look at the whole world, and that is how you have become what you are. In this way, life becomes an image, and one comes ever closer to what one could call the removal of the human being, because the human being is usually no more than his point of view. When man removes himself, his own life becomes an image, something that confronts him as previously mentioned in the imagination, and when he now applies his strong willpower to his life, when he suppresses everything he recognizes [through strong willpower ], when the whole of life, when it has first happened, becomes like a forgotten image, then what one is outside of the body between birth and death, what goes beyond death, [what one is outside of the individual life in a purely spiritual world]. One gets to know oneself as a spiritual being that discards the body and lives in a purely spiritual world between death and a new birth, that takes what it has experienced with it into the new life and that now helps build the human body in order to become aware of itself later. In short, through experience one will also get to know the more extensive nature of his soul, which is not limited by the boundaries that delimit our lives; [it is a nature that extends beyond the boundaries of life and goes from life to life.

In this way, this new life takes on an element that is similar to what Copernicus and Giordano Bruno brought.] While in the time of Giordano Bruno man looked up at the stars and assumed a limited world, the latter broke through it and explained it as taken out of the limitation of the soul's life; so spiritual research, in full agreement with natural science, will solve the death riddle [gap in the transcript] by showing that Just as the firmament is not a real boundary, so the boundary set for life from birth to death is not a real one, but is only created by human perception. As if from a spiritual firmament we are enclosed by birth and death; but just as Giordano Bruno broke through the limited [and pointed people to the infinity of space], so spiritual research will do the same in full harmony with science [and point to the infinity of the spirit].

But how does the spiritual researcher relate to those who cannot become spiritual researchers themselves, who can only read and hear what the spiritual researcher can communicate? The objection that only the spiritual researcher can see into the spiritual worlds is not justified. The spiritual researcher is in the same position as the painter in relation to his picture. When two people stand before the picture, one indifferently, the other with a vivid intuitive perception, a whole world can unfold for the latter. But that the picture could come into being, the cause of that is the skill of the painter. He must have overcome what led to the picture being painted, but when the viewer penetrates, what the painter thought becomes present to him. The spiritual researcher must be able to describe in ordinary terms and words what he has brought out of spiritual science. You don't have to be a painter to understand a picture. In the same way, one can sense as truth what the spiritual researcher expresses. Therefore, the results of spiritual research can be recognized even if one is not a spiritual researcher. Thus, what spiritual research reveals can certainly become part of our cultural life. Those who truly engage with the insights of spiritual research can thereby come to a real knowledge of the supersensible world and the human soul. [He can] become aware of the supersensible world with such certainty that he is put in a similar position to Goethe, who was once pushed to make his strange statement, in the face of all the objections that may come from those who, for understandable reasons, regard Theosophy as folly and fantasy. Even in ancient Greek philosophy, the denial of movement was present. These philosophers said: When [an arrow is shot and] the flying arrow is seen in one moment, it [always] rests at the point of rest, in the next moment it is at the point of rest and so on; therefore it is always at the point of rest, therefore it is not moving at all, [so there is no movement]. Goethe said, when this came before his mind's eye, which is credible proof after all:

Enemies may eye each other,
You remain calm, remain silent;
And if they deny you movement,
Go around in front of their noses.

He meant that facts have been proven, which can be proven without gaps by the intellect, but to the contrary. In the same way, one would like to behave when one has gained certainty about the reality of the spiritual world, the human soul itself and its foundation in the supersensible world. Then one would like to remember this saying of Goethe when people come and want to prove without exception from their point of view that there can be no supersensible world, and if it is, it cannot be recognized. Then one would like to hold out to these deniers of spiritual life and of the existence of the human soul in it, when they face the world view of spiritual research with hostility:

Enemy events may occur,
but you remain calm, remain cheerful,
and if they deny the spirit,
do not brood about it any longer.
Yes, in the end even agree with them,
their spirit is in a bad state.