Spiritual Science and the Future of Humanity

GA 69e — 14 May 1913, Strasburg

XI. Truths and Fallacies of Spiritual Research

The hostile attitude, the resistance against the spiritual movement, is most understandable to anyone who stands on the ground of our spiritual research. Schopenhauer also says: “Thus it is the fate of the poor truth that at the moment it appears it seems paradoxical at first, and yet it cannot help it; it has such great and wide flapping of its wings that individuality dies because of it.

Today, spiritual science has natural science as its opponent, but not the real natural science. In 1909, Charles Eliot gave a speech about the future of religions, in which he said: People have within themselves and must always have within themselves a physical and a spiritual core, which they can only explore with the knowledge of the soul-spiritual.

Two existential questions arise again and again: firstly, about man's destiny, which elevates man by crushing him, and secondly, the question of the nature of the human soul. These two questions gnaw and torment in the depths of the human soul. The hopelessness of finding an answer makes man sick right down to his physicality.

Two different circumstances arise at the birth of a human being: one is richly endowed, full of promise, while for the other it is hopeless. Such is the diversity of fate. And then there is the question of immortality. This gives rise to fear on the one hand and the desire for life to take a certain course on the other.

One can believe in immortality for selfish reasons, and not believe in it with the morality of sacrifice. But the individual, the personal, is the most valuable. Does it disappear with death? It would be a violation of the world economy if something were brought to the highest tension and then lost. External science is bound to the senses and the brain; the soul-spiritual cannot be researched with it. Spiritual science stands on the same ground as natural science. The plant consists of innumerable individual cells, [says Schleiden]. The human eye must use the microscope and the telescope for the stars. Man cannot penetrate the body of life. The essence of the human soul cannot be reached by such external means. Human knowledge comes to certain limits. It cannot fathom the actual existence of the soul. With the power of thought and other things, one cannot penetrate the essence of the soul after death and before birth.

However, the inner life of the soul can be strengthened and armed. It should just not be done with external methods, such as spiritualism. Some researchers try to get to the bottom of the soul with external experimental methods. Rochas, the serious researcher, examined the human being in whom the external aspects of the soul's life can apparently be demonstrated. He used a medium for this. A medium is like a human automaton. The active soul life is erased by magnetic lines. It can then relive another state of mind, for example, when it was ten years old, then the first experiences when it was just learning to write, then when it was an infant. Then it can be transported into a state before birth; a result as dark as chaos. One can go further and further; it can feel like an old man, then like a young child. In this way the researcher of the present wants to explore the spiritual when he has the object before him.

But the spirit cannot be brought down by external means, but only through pure soul experiences. Getting to know the soul is purely inward, and only possible through inward methods. One's own thinking, feeling and willing can be strengthened by intensifying the power of thought, which is bound to the outer senses in the waking state. This can be sharpened by means of meditation and contemplation. First, it is to be applied to the power of thought when one concentrates, out of one's innermost will, on thoughts that do not arise from external stimuli. These thoughts have a self-educating effect in that they strengthen our power of thought, through symbolic images – such as two glasses – to strengthen our soul life. This is so, even if it is called crazy, nonsensical. But there is something in life to which it relates: love. It is like geometry. This also works with symbols, symbols – [as with a] medal.

For some, it takes effect quickly, for others it takes many years. Through effort, the organs are made stronger; all soul power is concentrated on one point. This draws forces from the soul. You don't jump from one to the other as you usually would. Fifteen minutes or longer [is enough]. Every waking thought destroys a fine structure in the brain, which is restored by sleeping. Science already speaks of assimilation and dissimilation. The destructive process, when we think with the brain, reflects our thoughts to us. The materialistic thinker believes that our brain thinks. But it is an internal process. The brain is destroyed during ordinary thinking. Thought is reflected back by the brain and thus destructively intervenes in our brain. Through concentration, meditation, contemplation, one does not become sleepy. Only beginners complain about it. This is because it is difficult for the human mind to detach itself from the brain. Then we perceive the brain as something that is not being used. If a person wants to experience the mind as such, they have to free it from the brain. Then the person senses how the mind becomes a purely spiritual being. These experiences are the most unsettling.

When we are awake, we feel as if we are inside our skin. Now a feeling arises of being outside the body, of looking at it. What one previously called “I” becomes an object, its outer corporeality. This is connected with the feeling of being drawn to one's body with a hundred and more forces. Once this has been achieved, one knows two things: what one is in human life as a sleeping human being and what draws one to the body. Du Bois-Reymond, as he said, only understands the sleeping human being. But the nature of the air cannot be known through the life processes of the lungs. Waking up into the spiritual and soul life is taking oneself in; falling asleep is when the spiritual and soul life passes over into our surroundings, as when one breathes out air. The amount of air we have inhaled belongs to the atmosphere, and so does the spiritual-soul life of the spiritual-soul world. The spiritual researcher knows what happens outside the body, as if the air could look down on the lungs. The human being gets to know the connection of his soul-spiritual with the body, gets to know it in its independence from the physical body, gets to know it before birth that it previously lived in the spiritual world, how he even goes to the bodily embodiment, to a pair of parents, gets to know himself in the prenatal state, all through the independence of the power of thought.

The next soul power that can become independent is the power of speech, which flows outwards in truly spoken words. The human being has Broca's organ; speech prepares it so that it becomes what it is. Cause and effect are confused by science. Through motor forces, the larynx is set in motion when speaking, something reaches into the vibrating larynx, and from there the air is set in motion. Just as the power of thought is separated from the brain, so the power of speech is separated from Broca's system [organ] by allowing meditation to be imbued with feelings and sensations during meditation “In the light, luminous wisdom flows” [...].

This is not an external sensual effect, otherwise one would be considered a fantasist, but a fool. In this meditation, one would now like to unite oneself in enthusiasm with the shining, ruling wisdom, then the power of speech breaks free from the body. One lives in it silently and tacitly, keeping something inside, breaking off, experiencing in the soul what leads even further down than the first. One looks not only into one's own past life on earth [...] but one looks back on past lives on earth. This makes it certain that life on earth will be followed by a purely spiritual life, and that another life on earth will follow. The consciousness expands in repeated lives on earth. This is how the spiritual researcher, like the chemist, comes to his results. These are not arbitrary means, but means by which one arms one's soul life, just as the eye is armed by the microscope. Then another soul power is armed and strengthened: that which expresses itself in blood circulation and heart movement. In the ordinary life, shame and fear are spiritual-soul processes that intervene in the blood, in such a way that our blood must be released and made independent.

What happens when we add the element of will to meditation? “In that light the ruling wisdom rules and weaves.” With willpower, too, we must completely immerse ourselves in such meditation, then we release soul forces that reach into the entire cosmos and allow us to glimpse the origin and destiny of our earth. Then one sees: the successive earthly lives once had a beginning; the earth was once there for the first time. The earth was once born out of the spiritual state, and will again pass into a spiritual state. There are also many other methods to achieve such results. One must become a spiritual researcher in this way, which is briefly outlined here. But to make a painting, you have to be a painter; you don't have to be a painter to enjoy it. It would be a shame if it were only for the painters. To fathom spiritual truths, you have to be a spiritual researcher; to understand them, you just have to apply common sense, even though they may be considered heresy or fantasy.

But errors are also possible. One attains higher organs by training them as described. Thus, by awakening, one attains higher senses: spiritual eyes and spiritual ears - [as] Goethe [says]. But how do you attain healthy organs? With diseased eyes, one sees inaccurately, with an inclusion in the eye or in the twilight. One person saw incorrectly, saw what was in his own eye, in which he had an inclusion, and shot at it with a revolver. The freed thinking, feeling and willing must be healthy. This happens because the starting point is healthy, namely, that one applies a healthy power of judgment, without enthusiasm and reverie or fantasy. Otherwise, the released power of thought and speech will see ghostly things that belong to our own soul like an inclusion in the eye. A freethinker's calendar has said that children should not be taught religion because they do not come up with religion on their own. But that is not logical, because a person does not learn to speak on their own if they are placed on an uninhabited island. It depends on a perfectly sound understanding of human nature. Otherwise one faints, or it is like under anesthesia when consciousness does not function properly. It depends on a healthy moral constitution of the soul, on the moral strength of life. Otherwise man does not love what arises in spiritual life, but spiritual impotence. Otherwise we want to have everything in the spiritual realm [as we do] in the physical life. Then one perceives ghosts, like spiritualists or similar people.

The soul brings with it the soul forces from previous earthly lives, not from a previous generation. The present earthly life comes from previous earthly lives. We then understand our destiny when we understand our previous life: misfortune has made me the person I am now. The Alpine plant thrives only where it corresponds to its environment. This is how the questions of fate and immortality are solved. We grasp immortality in development; we experience development. A sound mind and sound morals lead to spiritual research. Giordano Bruno expanded the blue vault of heaven; so spiritual research expands the boundaries of human life through birth and death. Away with the firmament, which is limited by birth and death. It goes from transformation to transformation. When spiritual science intervenes in education, the human being will feel when he grows old that something lives in him that is arranging his next life; he will experience immortality, the germ and core of the following existence.

Finally, I would like to express a feeling, based on a saying of Goethe's about movement. It already occurred in Greece and has recently reappeared. It was said: Movement does not exist, the arrow is always in one place, then again in one place, again and again, but always at rest. Goethe refuted this theory as not logical, just as squaring the circle cannot be mathematically proven. It can be proved, but differently. Goethe says:

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

Or you can also say:

Enemy events may occur,
but you remain calm, remain cheerful,
and if they even deny the spirit
you do not brood about it further.
In the end, even agree with them on that point,
their spirit may be in a very bad state.