Freedom, Immortality and Social Life

GA 72 — 9 December 1918, Bern

9. Justification of a Science of the Soul in the Sense of Anthroposophy

Anyone who is able to follow spiritual life in the present with their mind will not be able to hide the fact that a large part of our contemporaries have something extremely vague in their spiritual search, that most of these contemporaries, when they want to form ideas about their position in the universe, one could say about their humanity, find it difficult to find something to hold on to.

If one investigates the reasons for this by taking an unbiased look at what people encounter in life today, what life offers them, if one investigates the reasons that lead to an unclear, an indefinite way of searching, one will probably find that it is precisely something that in a certain sense constitutes the advantage, indeed the triumph of our time, is precisely what causes this vagueness and uncertainty. What has characterized our time — for several centuries now, but especially since the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century — one might say, in the best sense and, as recent years have shown, also in the unpleasant sense, is the admirable progress of humanity in terms of scientific insight, insight into the external processes of the world's existence, and in terms of the consequences that result from this for immediate practical life.

It is easy to say, especially when one considers the particular peculiarity of how this scientific insight, this habituation to understanding the world scientifically, affects human beings, that it is connected with the impossibility of penetrating the actual spiritual realm in this way. Perhaps today's reflections will reveal to some of my esteemed listeners how the greatness and triumph of scientific knowledge are connected with the fact that science, in its own way, cannot provide any insight into the human soul.

Now, however, this scientific way of thinking, justified by the external authority it possesses, claims all the thinking habits of modern man in a certain way. It has changed everything in the spiritual structure of human beings with regard to certain types of ideas, as can be seen by anyone observing the development of humanity. If we look back at the way in which the world was viewed before the dawn of modern intellectual life — we can take Copernicanism as the boundary between the old and the new — it becomes clear that people at that time had ideas about the world that were gigantic, suitable — as they needed at the time, but which would no longer satisfy them today — to gain insight into the natural processes they encountered at that time, and how these ideas were at the same time suitable for enlightening them about what lived in their souls as ideas, as feelings, as pulsating will. Human beings had, in a sense, uniform ideas about the world, which they could apply on the one hand to nature and on the other to their inner lives.

Today, because we are not accustomed to observing the development of the soul life of humanity correctly, we do not always notice how much today's ideas differ from the older ideas just mentioned.

On the other hand, however — and we will discuss this in detail the day after tomorrow — all religious beliefs that have remained more or less unchanged since ancient times are echoes of ancient times, nourished by what lay in such ancient ideas. They have retained a certain way of thinking about the human soul and its place in the world. Scientific authority has brought tremendous upheaval to this way of thinking. People today are no longer satisfied with what has been handed down to them from ancient times, because they are accustomed to viewing the world scientifically and want science to provide them with information about the position of their soul in the universe, in the cosmos, and its development.

But here we must admit that, although people have become accustomed to no longer seeking help from the old authorities when they need guidance regarding their humanity, we must also admit that what science now offers them is not very satisfying. If we look at what is officially offered today as philosophical teachings about the soul, for example, people who seek to approach this science of the soul with their common sense and honest soul will find nothing they can make use of, so to speak. There are striking examples today that prove what I have just said to be true.

There is a remarkable philosopher — his name is Richard Wahle — who, despite being a professional philosopher, i.e., someone who is even called upon to represent philosophy as a science at a university, is strangely dissatisfied with his science, which claims to be able to provide insight into the most essential aspects of human beings, but which he cannot attribute to being capable of such insight.

I am not at all inclined to suggest that such individuals and their views have any profound influence on the thinking and ideas of their contemporaries. On the contrary, I believe the opposite is true: such personalities reveal what pulsates in thousands and thousands of our contemporaries. It is only revealed in a lonely philosopher who is dissatisfied with his own science, in a striking way.

Now, this philosopher talks strangely about his philosophy. He says: The philosophers of earlier times – with whom he is also highly dissatisfied – can be compared to cooks and waiters in a restaurant who serve people spoiled food. Today's philosophers, however, can be compared to cooks and waiters who stand around idle in a restaurant. — So this philosopher wants to say about his science that in ancient times it was useless, that it could not provide any insight into the most important things in human beings, and that today it is not only useless, but has nothing more to offer at all.

As strange as it is for a man who thinks this way about his science to officially represent that science, it is nevertheless understandable that such phenomena occur in our time. For the peculiar thing is that, since the emergence of Copernicanism and Galileanism, ideas have formed in natural science that are essentially different from the old ideas, which suited nature and spirit equally well according to the needs of the time. Natural science has made progress and formed ideas that are very different from the old ones. Spiritual science has not yet undergone such a transformation of the old ideas. Psychology has remained with the old ideas, with which people today cannot be satisfied because they have learned to think about the world in scientific terms and because an unconscious demand has awakened in them to be able to research the soul in the same way that external nature is researched in natural science. This creates, I would say, an inner conflict, especially in the best minds of our age. And this inner conflict manifests itself in the fact that they must see that what is offered in spiritual science consists in part of mere words or empty phrases. One wants to explain what a concept is. One wants to explain what a feeling is, what volition is. One wants to start from this explanation in order to arrive at the question of the eternal or non-eternal nature of the human soul. But anyone who approaches these things with a healthy mind and thinking and imagination soon realizes that there is actually nothing substantial, nothing real in what is said about spiritual life, that the old ideas have lost their power in the face of the urgency of scientific ideas, and that new ones have not yet been formed.

Thus, based on such foundations, there is today an instinctive longing among people for a new science of the soul, for new knowledge about the soul. But there is still no compelling clarity in the public consciousness about the path to be taken in this search.

From these foundations, from foundations that are entirely necessary for the development of humanity, has grown what I have often had the opportunity to speak about here in Bern, and what I would like to speak about today with reference to certain chapters, namely what I call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Today, this spiritual science is often seen as anything but what it is. It is regarded as the outflow of some sectarian current in the present, as something that wants to found a new religion or the like. No, this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science aims to be what modern human beings need most. It aims to be something that can be held on to when searching in a truly modern sense for the mystery of human soul life.

However, the paths that this spiritual science must take are still so unfamiliar to today's thinking that a large part of our contemporaries find the way these things are spoken about difficult, while another part find them paradoxical or fantastical. But this is something that every newly emerging spiritual achievement shares with this anthroposophically oriented view. And so today I would like to speak in particular about the most important questions of the soul and their connection with human physical life from the standpoint of this science. I would like to begin by pointing out that this spiritual science is for the most part not what a large part of our contemporaries imagine it to be, but rather what is urgently demanded by scientific progress. This scientific progress has, I would say, brought about a certain authoritative way of thinking among people. This is the belief that there are certain limits to knowledge, that these limits of knowledge cannot be transcended. People say to themselves: Perhaps there is nothing at all beyond these limits of knowledge. On this side of these limits of knowledge lies only the material world, the world of sensory perception. So either one must renounce the idea of a spiritual life altogether, or one must tell oneself that one cannot transcend the limits that separate us from this spiritual life and must renounce any knowledge of the soul.

It is precisely this point, this essential point, that comes to the fore with great clarity in the minds of those who think deeply about such matters, but which also unsettles, in an indefinite, subconscious, and instinctive way, all people today who want to think at all. It is from this point of view that the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here begins its search for the soul. For this science of the soul proceeds from two inner experiences, two experiences that are precisely connected with the emergence of the limits of knowledge in the search for the soul. It is not that this science of the soul wants to contradict natural science in a frivolous, dilettantish way when natural science finds itself at the limits of knowledge; no, this science of the soul seeks to deal with the experience of the limits of natural scientific knowledge in the right way. Only this spiritual science does not theorize, but seeks to advance on the path of knowledge with the help of scientific methods and the scientific way of thinking. It seeks with complete inner clarity to arrive at the point where one can feel: Here you stand at the limits of scientific knowledge. — And then it seeks to experience what can be experienced at these limits of knowledge.

And lo and behold, this science of the soul must first admit these limits of knowledge. Precisely because it does not proceed in blind or dilettantish opposition to natural science, but thoroughly familiarizes itself with the way natural science conducts research, it arrives at an experience at the limits of knowledge, which I will now characterize.

It says to itself: One can follow natural processes with scientific thinking, but one will always come to certain cornerstones of knowledge that cannot be crossed, and in the face of which scientific thinking must falter. I could cite many such cornerstones, but since there is not enough time, I would like to mention only what is usually summarized by the terms “force and matter,” which are very often summarized in this way in the atomistic world of ideas. I would like to start from there. When people study natural science, they can see how they can progress in the analysis of natural processes, but how they are then forced to simply accept certain concepts, certain ideas, namely force and matter. And how they then have to say to themselves: Faced with these concepts, which do indeed represent realities in the sensory world, you cannot go any further, you cannot enter into them with natural science alone, you have to stop at the point of natural knowledge. If one does not start from Kantian views in a one-sided way, but examines this inner experience at the limits of knowledge in an unbiased manner, one asks oneself: Yes, why is it that this scientific method confronts us with such a limit, with certain cornerstones of thought, why is that actually? — People usually do not come to this conclusion because they do not organize their thinking in the way I will characterize this evening, and thus do not really come to observe their inner life. They do not notice that human beings themselves, as they are organized — if I may use that expression — are to blame for having to approach such cornerstones.

People cannot ask themselves: Why is it that I encounter such cornerstones? They cannot move from one such experience, namely natural science, to another natural scientific experience, namely soul experience. But if one can do so, if one acquires a certain ability in this, the following results: on the one hand, if one has trained oneself in natural science, one has the experience of the limits of knowledge of this natural science. On the other hand, one then tries to gain clarity about the inner experience that one simply has when one is faced with another human being. And then, when one has trained one's inner soul life, one will notice that it is something completely different to face a natural process in a scientific, analytical way than to face a human being and try to understand that person, to come close to that person spiritually. And once you have learned to compare in this area, you will notice that the soul force that enables you to approach people with understanding, that this same soul force that builds a bridge between people and thus makes human life possible in the first place, that this same soul force, because it is always between us, because it must always be there, because human beings are a whole, because it cannot be eliminated when we conduct scientific research, that it is this soul power that leads us to the cornerstones of the limits of knowledge.

We simply could not feel love from person to person, feel sympathy from person to person, feel affection, if we did not have this soul force, which, if you will, stands in the way of scientific knowledge. Because human beings are whole beings, because they must also have the power of love, and because this power of love is constantly active and cannot remain silent when scientific knowledge is acquired, the limits of science become apparent. The same power that makes us love and feel affection for other human beings also sets the limits of science. This is what emerges for the spiritual researcher: if natural science were not limited, human beings would be incapable of love!

You see, this is an important experience which, I would say, must set the inner driving forces of the soul in motion in order to arrive at what I call anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. One must not be an opponent of natural science; one must be able to engage with it, one must be trained in it if one wants to be scientifically active in spiritual knowledge. But one must experience what the natural scientist usually only pursues as theory, and from this experience it then becomes clear that it is as I have just explained, with the peculiar interaction between the scientific faculty of knowledge and the human capacity for love.

Some people recognize this consciously, others unconsciously. They feel it instinctively. They then turn in another direction in order to go beyond the limits of scientific knowledge and arrive at a knowledge of the soul. There, more or less clearly or unclearly, they arrive at mystical paths, seeking what science cannot offer them, on the path of so-called self-knowledge, more or less clear or unclear mysticism.

You can see from what I have said that the path of natural science — as the experience I have just described teaches us — cannot lead to spiritual research. But it is also unfair to the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here to confuse it with what is commonly called mysticism today. For just as in the one experience the spiritual researcher sees the impossibility of scientific knowledge in the realm of the soul, just as he must have gone through this experience that shows him this impossibility, he must also have gone through the other experience that shows him the impossibility of ordinary mysticism in entering the life of the soul, in order to have the right starting point.

The anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here is neither an imitation of natural science, although it is by no means amateurish in relation to natural science, as I have shown; nor is it what is somehow called mysticism or the like. But it must have gone through the mystical experience, just as it must have gone through the experience with natural science. Just as it must have reached the limits of scientific knowledge, so too must it have come to realize the impossibility of penetrating the inner life of human beings by mystical means and thereby finding the core of human soul life, the connection with the infinite, the eternal. The spiritual researcher must also be well acquainted with the limits of mysticism. It must have become clear to him that when he seeks along the paths so often described as mystical, he enters into something indefinite that ultimately tells him nothing. Of course, this is initially expressed only as a mere feeling. If he continues to investigate, he will find that an inner soul force is at work which prevents him from reaching soul research by mystical means, just as, in the sense I have just shown, the capacity for love prevents him from reaching soul research by scientific means.

The following now becomes apparent: no matter how hard a person tries with the ordinary consciousness that we use in everyday life, which we continue to use in science in a somewhat methodically developed form, if a person tries to descend into his inner being with this consciousness — what is called mystical research — they will achieve nothing more than what has crept into their soul life in some way in the course of ordinary life between birth and death, up to the present moment in which mystical research is being undertaken. On this point, natural scientists who are naturally inclined toward mysticism are caught up in a great deal of confusion. They often believe that through inner soul contemplation they can bring forth this or that which can shed light on the mysteries of this soul life. But today we have already progressed so far in clear research, including research into the natural processes of the human being itself, that we can no longer go astray if we proceed thoroughly, beyond such inner contemplation. I would like to cite an example from philosophy as proof, although I could multiply it a hundredfold from my own experience. However, so that it can be verified, I will cite it from literature. You will find it in the treatises on the borderline questions of nervous and sensory life, which are published in Wiesbaden. One of these writings deals with “The subconscious self, its relationship to health and education.” It recounts an interesting case. Louis Waldstein, who wrote the treatise, speaks of his own experience. He says that he was once walking down the street and stopped in front of a bookstore because he noticed a science book about mollusks. He wanted to remember the title of this book about mollusks. He looked at it with the eye of a naturalist. And lo and behold, he had to smile. Well, imagine, a naturalist standing in front of a bookstore, seeing a book about mollusks — and having to smile, without knowing why! Then it occurs to him: I'll close my eyes, maybe then I'll understand why I had to smile. He closed his eyes, and lo and behold: what he hadn't noticed while he was paying attention to everything else, while he hadn't closed his eyes yet, was that he could hear the sounds of a barrel organ in the distance. They were the same sounds that had accompanied him when he had taken dance lessons decades ago. Even back then, he had noticed these sounds; they were interesting to him as he learned the steps, or perhaps they reminded him of his dance partner. So it was the sounds that corresponded to this particular melody that had stuck in his mind. He had forgotten them. But now, decades later, something deep within his soul compels him to smile as he hears these notes again, to smile while looking at a book about mollusks. They sound vague and subconscious to him. But he has to smile while looking at a book about mollusks.

You can see how this inner life of the human soul actually works, how little one is inclined in ordinary life — as you can see from this — to pay attention to this inner life of the soul and its structure.

But those who are familiar with this inner life of the soul know, first of all, that much of what people believe they have certainly not experienced, but rather draw from their soul, is nothing more than a reminiscence from childhood or youth or the like. For example, as a mystic, one is often inclined to believe that one can draw something from one's own soul; and in doing so, one only draws out memories from one's youth or the like. But those who are familiar with this inner life know even more. They know that not only do these impressions, which often enter the soul in a rather vague form, come back up again just as they entered, but that they can transform themselves over time, that they become something completely different, that they symbolically transform themselves and are no longer similar in their course to the original when they come back up again. And yet one is dealing with nothing other than what one has just brought up. There are some mystics who bring up perceptions from their subconscious about the divine, about the eternity of the soul, great truths, as they believe, and lo and behold: these great truths are nothing more than — figuratively speaking — the transformed sounds of a barrel organ that have remained as reminiscences. I only want to say how necessary it is, when talking about mysticism, to look at these things.

Truly, the anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here is not a scientific game, it is not something that does not take into account the changes that are taking place, as I have just characterized them. It is fully scientifically substantiated. And because it is scientifically well-founded, it clearly looks at what inner soul life is. And then it comes to the conclusion that, based on the methods, on the methodology that I am about to characterize, there is an inner soul force that prevents us from descending into what is the eternal soul core of the human being.

Just as the capacity for love prevents us from penetrating into the inner nature of things, setting limits on our knowledge of nature, so there is a soul force that prevents us from descending into our own inner being. And this inner soul force is a very ordinary one, one without which our ordinary life, our ordinary consciousness, is not healthy. It is simply the ability to remember, which holds us together as human beings in consciousness between birth and death. This ability to remember prevents us from looking inward into our eternal self, because with the ordinary consciousness that we develop in ordinary life and in ordinary science, we can only see as far as the surface on which the experiences we have absorbed are reflected. And so, through our ability to remember, we set ourselves inner limits that the mystic experiences.

That is the second experience. One is that science cannot enter the realm of the soul; the other, which must first inspire one to research, which one must start from, is that mysticism cannot really penetrate into the inner self because it is opposed by the power of memory.

By truly intensively experiencing anthroposophically oriented spiritual research inwardly, by going through these things through inner experiences, one gains, I would say, from the disappointments of these inner experiences, from the inner ‘tragedy’ of these experiences, the strength to continue. And what does this further consist of? This further consists in the decision, on the one hand, to renounce the desire to penetrate the mysteries of things with the ordinary consciousness that one applies in ordinary life and in ordinary science; but at the same time, in the other decision to now seek a different consciousness, to seek a different soul force. What he has gained from these two experiences ignites in the spiritual researcher the ability to find another consciousness in addition to the ordinary consciousness.

This will be what the new spiritual teaching has to add to the old, now obsolete, that insight into the life of the soul in the sense of modern consciousness and thinking cannot be gained at all, neither by scientific nor by mystical means with ordinary consciousness, but that this consciousness itself must develop into another, that another consciousness must spring forth from ordinary, everyday consciousness. That is why the anthroposophically oriented spiritual scientific research referred to here develops methods through which a science is sought that not only researches according to the rules of ordinary consciousness, but first prepares the human soul for a different consciousness, for a different state of consciousness in which one then researches the life of the soul. This gives this newer teaching about the soul the opportunity not just to speak in words, as I indicated earlier, as the official teaching about the soul does today, but to approach realities, spiritual realities.

I will now only indicate in principle what you will find clearly presented in my books, for example in “How to Know Higher Worlds” or in my “Occult Science,” about methods of training a consciousness that can lead into the real mysteries of soul life. This involves first developing in the soul something that can become a certain inner soul force, but which, I would say, transforms the power of memory. It is the power of memory that, as I have explained, prevents us from penetrating into the core of the human soul itself.

Now, among the inner soul development methods in the writings I have cited, you will find points of view on how to cultivate such inner soul activities that do not appeal to the power of memory, to the memory itself.

On this point, perhaps, not out of silly personal vanity, but because the subjective and the objective are intimately connected here, I may mention how, decades ago, I was led to see the difficulties involved in transforming the inner soul force in order to arrive at soul research. It is, of course, a highly insignificant personal experience that I want to mention, but it was really decisive for me decades ago. When I had to do a math test at school, I always found it difficult to complete the assignment, even though I was actually — I say this not out of vanity, but simply as a fact — a very good student in mathematics. I had no interest, I would say, in calculating mathematical, algebraic, or geometric formulas. It's true, someone else would have calculated what needed to be calculated using the formulas. I felt an inner need to first derive the formula in the margin, to do everything necessary to arrive at the formula; I had no interest in memorizing the formulas, but I was more interested in practicing those mental processes that take place in the immediate present and are not remnants of memory. I wanted to have these things in the immediate present. I came to the conclusion that this non-reflection on memory may indeed be an inner disposition of the soul. And that was the starting point for me to continue searching for the methods that you will find described in the books mentioned, which consist of using meditation, if we want to call it that, to develop the imagination to such an extent that this imagination becomes as alive in the human being as only the inner soul life is in perception.

Isn't it true that when we perceive externally, our senses accompany perception with thinking? There is a certain liveliness in our soul life when we perceive sensually and accompany our perceptions with our ideas. But we only accompany external perceptions with our thinking. In meditation, we do things differently. In meditation, we use images that we have formed ourselves, that we can clearly see, that we know precisely are not perceptions, not reminiscences, not something borrowed from our memories, not something extracted from appearances, but rather something we have created ourselves, something we can clearly see.

Such ideas are placed in the inner consciousness, one surrenders to them, gradually strengthening the inner power, the inner soul, in such a way—without coming to an idea through external perceptions—that it becomes as alive as the soul's dwelling in sensory perception, accompanied by ideas. But one notices something else by really living a meditative life—even if it often takes a very long time and must be practiced intensively—by developing this spiritual research. What is peculiar is that the ideas one then grasps, precisely the most essential, important, and fundamental ones, must always be recreated, that they do not pass into memory. These are then ideas that live in the soul without appealing to the memory.

What I am telling you now is simply experience, it is something that can only be described; of course, anyone can say that it must first be proven. It is proven through inner experience. Not through spiritualistic events, not through any external mechanistic things, but solely through evoking this completely different consciousness that does not appeal to memory, one comes to the path of looking into real spiritual life. For only such ideas that do not appeal to memory are suitable for leading people into spiritual life.

However, they initially provide him — and this is another experience — only with images of this spiritual life. Whereas when a person perceives something with his senses, he immediately has the feeling — no matter how much epistemologists may object to this, I could justify all of that — whereas when he perceives something with his senses, he immediately has the feeling they are facing reality, they also know that when they advance to such ideas that do not appeal to memories, as I have described, they can experience something with these ideas that they cannot experience in any other way, but only in images. He is now clear, through the stage of this inner soul life that he has traversed in this way, that just as man in his body relates to his sensory environment, so too does his soul – which he cannot imagine, cannot know through ordinary consciousness – relate to a spiritual world that initially appears to him only in images. This is the great experience without which a science of the soul of the present and the future is not possible, for the old one is no longer useful, precisely because of the scientific conception.

What is significant is that something else can truly spring forth from ordinary consciousness and that this something else provides clarity about the following: Human beings are not only surrounded by a sensory world, but also by a spiritual world. And just as every human being is in the sensory world with their body, so too are they in a spiritual world with their soul, in a world of spiritual macrocosmic beings. When they have the experience I have just described, human beings cease to speak in vague pantheism about: There is spirit and spirit and spirit ... [gap in the transcript]. Pantheism is nothing but an unclear, illusory, blurred view of the world. What emerges, albeit initially only in images, is a concrete spiritual world that appears before the soul in details, in spiritual beings, just as the sensory world appears before the soul in concrete details. But these are images.

That is the only reason why, in my writings, I refer to the level of consciousness to which human beings ascend in such a meditative manner as imaginative consciousness, imaginative image consciousness, at first. The spiritual world approaches the human being just as, when he uses his eyes, the sensory world approaches him in colors, in light and darkness. But if he develops his life of imagination, he also has the awareness that he is dealing with images. You see, it is a development of the life of imagination that leads the human being to be able to look into the spiritual world in this way. If human beings want to go beyond images to spiritual realities, to the reality of spiritual beings, in the sense of spiritual science as understood here, they must develop not only their life of imagination in this way, but also their life of will. Just as in ordinary consciousness we actually only I would say, incidentally — we perceive, and through perception we develop imagination, we think about the outer world, but in ordinary consciousness this is actually more or less a side effect — so for ordinary consciousness, a side effect is that which lives in the will, that which lives in volition.

As a rule, we can only observe the will by directing our actions toward the outside world. But this does not really teach us about the will. I could cite many examples here, particularly from recent scientific psychology. You need only read a book such as Ziehen's Physiological Psychology to find confirmation: When we think about the will, we cannot come to terms with it. We cannot usually see into this area. With ordinary consciousness, we can only see that human beings transition from their inner life to an outer life, to outer relationships with the world, by gradually allowing their will to transition into action, by allowing their outer life to become an imprint of the impulses of their will. However, by observing this will with ordinary consciousness, one cannot progress further; one cannot penetrate into the essence of this will.

And here is the point: just as imagination has been developed in the manner just mentioned into imaginative knowledge by establishing a certain relationship to memory, to the ability to remember, so a certain relationship between human will and the ability to love must be established in a peculiar way. This relationship is established by bringing a kind of inner light into the will, by making the human being much more active inwardly in relation to the will than he or she usually is. This will enable him or her to bring the will into a completely different sphere.

I would like to clarify this again with a very simple example. Many people do not notice such things in life, but they are there nonetheless. Among other things, people can also write; every person has their own handwriting. But there are two kinds of writing ability. There are different kinds of writing ability! One consists of having a certain handwriting that emerges from oneself as if through the physical organization. You have your own handwriting. You cannot help but, I would say, direct the movement of your hand in a certain way, and your handwriting becomes natural in a certain way, just as you hold a spoon in a certain way when you eat, or do something else habitually, actually arising from your physical constitution, you write.

But there is another way of writing that occurs in a number of people that is not usually noticed. This is where you actually draw or paint what you write, where you are present with your perception, where you paint the letters like a draftsman or painter. Such writing is very common among people who, in their youth, loved a teacher or some other authority figure so much that they imitated their writing.

This is only to point out that in ordinary writing, people habitually engage their physical constitution. But they can also incorporate into their writing what otherwise only affects their intellect or cognition; they can incorporate observation and imagination into their writing. But this is connected internally. Just as it is connected with love when a person imitates letters throughout their entire life as if they were a painter or draftsman, so too, strangely enough, love always objectively intrudes into the will when observation accompanies the will, when the ability to accompany the will with observation joins the will. How can this be achieved? Well, it can be achieved through strict self-discipline, in the following way. In this way, one recognizes the independence of the soul. And one now learns to recognize that this awakening of the soul is repeated, as it were, in short, successive rhythms in ordinary human thinking, in ordinary human imagination. These rhythms take place in continuous ordinary consciousness, which you hardly notice, but which has been noted in a very interesting way by individual researchers in recent psychology, and which John Ruskin already describes in great detail. So the real process that takes place is always that there is only a miniature image, a small shadow of awakening. You are constantly awakening as you move from non-imagination to imagination. This is extremely remarkable, it is extremely important.

In life – as everyone knows – we develop. Anyone who can look back even a little on their life knows that ten years ago they had a completely different inner state of mind than they do today. Not only do we change in relation to the new experiences we have gained, but also in the sense that our habits of thinking become different, albeit less strongly than the sum of our inner experiences and the like. But we do this largely unconsciously. Life, education, circumstances—these are what bring us forward.

Anyone who wants to engage in spiritual research must learn to consciously pursue this inner development. In other words, they must develop the power within themselves to truly become something different through their mere imagination, through their mere ideas. This is simply part of the method for spiritual research, part of the preparation for spiritual research. One cannot penetrate into the inner life of the spirit unless one has first gone through the process of becoming capable of incorporating developmental impulses into oneself through imagination.

Just think about how ordinary life works in this respect. People often have the very best intentions when they resolve to give up this or that characteristic or to acquire this or that characteristic. They do acquire other characteristics, but through education, through circumstances, through external life. But the inner life of the soul, in mere imagination, is not strong enough to intervene in the will.

The methods described in the books mentioned above enable the innermost part of the human being to truly take root in the will. Then a special training of the capacity for love takes place. While on the one hand a capacity for spiritual research must be developed that does not appeal to memory, on the other hand a capacity must be developed that infinitely deepens the capacity for love and makes it objective. For what is it that prevents our innermost ideas from changing us? It is nothing other than self-love. And the possibility of changing oneself through mere inner imagination is based on the fact that one can transform self-love into objective love.

But by progressing in this way, one arrives at a point where one can bring forth another state of consciousness from the one one has in ordinary life. And this other state now enables one to say to oneself: You have images from what has been described earlier; you knew that there is a spiritual world around you in which your soul lives, just as your body lives in the sensory world. But now you know: these images correspond to a reality that you encounter by developing an impulse within yourself, which is formed through systematic efforts in the pursuit of your own self-development. Now you will not only encounter the images of spiritual beings, now you will encounter spiritual reality itself.

Now you have reached this stage. You have brought forth another consciousness from the ordinary consciousness. Now you are truly able to see through the human soul life with the abilities I have just described to you. One thing stands out above all else: The spiritual researcher can only describe how he comes to these things. Then, I repeat, it is easy to say: Where is your proof? — The proof lies precisely in the fact that he describes how he arrived at these things, that these things can be verified with common sense, and that anyone can arrive at them if they verify the things.

What can occur, for example, as a first possibility when one has acquired the abilities of this heightened consciousness this supersensible consciousness, is that one can now really gain insight into what one could not before, because of the aforementioned dual thresholds, the mystical and the scientific, that one can now really gain insight into the alternating state, into the rhythmic alternation in human life between waking and sleeping. For one wakes up differently when one has developed this consciousness. One wakes up in such a way that one now knows clearly upon waking: from falling asleep to waking up, you have had an inner soul life; not for a moment were you in any kind of nothingness; you have had an inner soul life that is only very different from the one you spend in the body. Now you realize how the soul processes accompany the bodily processes, how these soul processes are only drowned out from waking up to falling asleep by what the human being experiences in the body; how, in reality, however, from falling asleep to waking up, the human being is in the spiritual world outside his body, and how, at the moment when he then wants to wake up and enter his body, precisely because he is dependent on his instruments to convey knowledge and perception to himself, what has been experienced from falling asleep to waking up is erased. The echo is there for the human being; but one only becomes clearly aware of how one has lived in the spiritual world from falling asleep to waking up when one has learned to live in such ideas that do not appeal to the ability to remember. For this is precisely what is peculiar: we lead a soul life from falling asleep to waking up, but we forget it because we are trained in ordinary consciousness to know only what we can retain today for ordinary consciousness. In order for a healthy spiritual life to exist, we cannot perceive the sleep images in our ordinary consciousness, which are not designed to become memories in the ordinary sense, but rather to be forgotten. We can only perceive them if we have a spiritual life that is not predisposed to forgetting, but to remembering.

So we can say: just as when you move forward in a room, you look back at the space you have passed through — which is something different from memory — so when you wake up, when you have reached a certain point in time, you can look back at what you have experienced. Memory, which is a retrieval from the life of the soul, is transformed into an inner looking, a looking back. By entering into such abilities, however, it is at the same time given that these abilities of supersensible consciousness increase more and more, that one increasingly arrives at being able to truly study the life of the soul.

One of the first things we can study, for example, is the life of feeling. And it is good to start with the life of feeling and to orient ourselves to the experience of waking up and falling asleep with the developed abilities of supersensible consciousness. One can now truly approach the reality of the soul's emotional life. And there something peculiar reveals itself, something that immediately presents itself to the eye when one has developed supersensible consciousness, but which can be verified and interestingly verified in life. If one examines with the consciousness I have just spoken of what feeling is in human beings at any point in their lives — one can only examine this once one has developed the soul forces that lie in supersensible consciousness; then it can be verified, as I will mention shortly — if one examines the moment of feeling, the life of feeling, what is in feeling at a moment, then the remarkable thing emerges that this life of feeling in a moment is a confluence of everything one has experienced before and everything one will experience in the future.

After exploring this matter from a spiritual scientific perspective, I have endeavored to prove it, to verify it with examples that can be used to test it. Take Goethe's spiritual life, the inner emotional processes of Goethe, say in the year 1790. With Goethe, we can really investigate things in detail. Now you can study what Goethe went through until 1790, what weighed on his soul, what sprouted fruitfully in this soul, and also what Goethe experienced after 1790, until 1832, what he thought and felt. And it is really so, you can verify it: if you take the basic character of the experiences after 1790 as effective, and likewise the experiences before 1790, you will find Goethe's emotional state at the time of 1790. At some point in time, a person experiences emotionally the confluence of what has been their immediate past since birth and what will follow until their death.

Once the newer doctrine of the soul has been developed, interesting results will be obtained, for example in the following way: one will seek the soul life of people at some point in time, soon followed by death. Anyone who has an unbiased view will see everywhere: imminent death is expressed precisely in the emotional life; for the emotional life is the confluence of what was there before and what will come afterwards, but which is already there like the lightning flashes of the future, which is not yet expressed in experiences, but which is expressed in the coloring of feelings.

In this way, one learns about the inner life, which is primarily a flow of feelings. And now, after examining feelings in this way, one can move on to examining the life of imagination. But one can no longer explain the life of imagination in the way that some of the common psychologies do today — it would only be empty words if one tried to explain it that way — but one must have made oneself capable, through the development of supersensible consciousness, for example, of really looking at the moment of waking up, of seeing how waking up consists in the experience making its impression on the physical body. One knows this because one knows that from falling asleep to waking up, the soul has lived in a spiritual environment that is completely different, that can only exist because the soul is outside the body. So one knows that waking up is a submerging into the body.

If you learn about the nature of imagining in this way, you can build a bridge between imagining and awakening. If you know that imagining is only a small awakening, you also know how the independent soul swings back and forth into the physical body. And by building the bridge to awakening on the one hand, from imagining to awakening, you can acquire the ability on the other hand to build the bridge from awakening to being born or conceived, to that submerging of the soul into the physical body that occurs when the soul, before it is born or conceived, submerges into the body from a presence in the spiritual world.

Spiritual science psychology can point to this continuous path today. If one learns to know imagination in its reality, then imagination leads directly to awakening, that is, to observing the transition of the independent soul life into the body life, but from there the further bridge to viewing the bodiless spiritual life before birth or, let us say, before conception. And those who can carry what they have developed in supersensible consciousness into ordinary imagination know that they are now not only looking back on their earlier spiritual life, but also know that this earlier spiritual life is also influencing their present life of imagination.

This is the point where, for my sake, people can still laugh or sneer today when spiritual science, anthroposophically oriented as it is meant here, points to a pre-birth spiritual life of the soul, and also points to earlier earthly lives, which one can also really get to know through contemplation. One may laugh, but the path can be shown on which this is scientifically investigated, after first bringing about the possibility of this scientific investigation.

This is the point where attention can be drawn to how one can proceed as rigorously and non-dilettantishly as modern science does today, but through the systematic development of a higher consciousness, and how one can establish a spiritual science that leads us to the eternal core of human beings, that leads us to truly know that human beings, with their souls, belong to a spiritual world, just as they belong to a sensory world with their bodies; and that their eternal essence is in this spiritual world, that they come out of it, just as they come out of it when they wake up, just as they are born and conceived and submerge into their bodily life, submerge into their life of imagination and feeling.

On the other hand, one can examine the life of the will with supersensible consciousness. Here again, a peculiarity becomes apparent.

If one has cultivated the will through thinking, through self-discipline, as I have described, then one notices that the act of willing, the transition from ordinary consciousness to the impulse of the will, bears a great resemblance, is in fact similar, not to waking up, but to falling asleep.

If you really learn about the process of falling asleep in supersensible consciousness, you can compare it with “I will.” Then you learn to recognize that sinking into the will is always a shadowed miniature image of falling asleep. And you can build a bridge between the process of the will and falling asleep. Natural scientists may deny scientific findings that could confirm what I have just said. I said that you can build a bridge from the processes of the will to falling asleep, but also from the process of the will to death, that is, to the soul leaving the physical body and entering the spiritual world through the gate of death.

Those who know the will in its reality can, from this starting point, acquire true insight, scientific insight into the true question of immortality. For it leads from a real insight, not from the kind of insight that today's psychology provides in empty words, but from a real insight that cannot be acquired in any other way than through the aforementioned comparison of the will with falling asleep; from there it leads to the path to death. And just as, through our imaginations, we have an effect on the time before birth or the time before conception, which we spend in spiritual life, just as imagination is an after-effect, a pictorial after-effect of our life before birth or before conception, so the life of the will is an embryonic life, which we then, taken out of the embryonic state, and bring to completion after death and carry into the following life of the spirit.

The inner relationship of the will, of volition, with dying must become apparent to the higher consciousness, to the supersensible consciousness. So that if we were to think of what is still embryonic as the process of will — which is precisely why it is the process of will for us — if we were to think of it intensively heightened, if we were to think intensively heightened what goes on within us when we will: what would come out? Death, always death, because volition is an embryonic dying. Therefore, what happens in dying can also be studied in volition. In dying, the same thing happens as in falling asleep: the soul passes from physical life into the supersensible, into spiritual life.

It is not a matter of coming up with some fantastical hypotheses in the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science I am referring to here, but rather of proceeding conscientiously and with genuine scientific training, starting from the experiences I have described and using these experiences to ignite the power to develop a different consciousness out of ordinary consciousness. Only with this different consciousness is it possible to explore the life of the soul. What is then explored — I have described it in my books — is such that common sense can verify it.

To explore it, supersensible consciousness is necessary. Once it is there, once it has been explored, anyone can verify it, just as anyone can verify any other science. For it is a general human characteristic, not a special divine gift or anything of the sort. The question may now arise: Is the fact that anthroposophy, as it is meant here, is emerging precisely at the present time somehow connected with the peculiar impulses of the present?

Well, at the beginning of this evening's reflection, I said that it is precisely natural science itself, within its limitations, that challenges this spiritual science. On the other hand, however, as I will have the opportunity to discuss the day after tomorrow, demands are arising in our social, moral, and religious life today that human souls are making and that cannot be satisfied by the old traditions.

Just as I was able to show today how this spiritual science arises, how it searches conscientiously in research for the immortal in the human soul and comes to the certainty of the immortality of the human soul through direct observation, only this spiritual science is capable of achieving what I will present the day after tomorrow, which many people today believe can be achieved by completely different means. One cannot explore the life of the soul without penetrating into supersensible consciousness. Nor can one explore the basis of the social structure of human society without penetrating, by means of higher consciousness, into the basis of moral, religious, and socio-political life in the modern sense. It is also historically necessary that human beings, in order to be able to meet the great demands placed upon them by the necessities of world development, penetrate with this supersensible consciousness into what people think, do, and want.

This will be shown the day after tomorrow. Today, however, I only wanted to provide the preparation for this more contemporary lecture, namely the justification of soul science in the sense of anthroposophy. And even if I could only sketch out what comes into consideration here, I believe that those who perhaps look less at my words than at what these words wanted to express, and at their consequences, will be able to say to themselves: Through this science of the soul, humanity, which is searching today, will be able to find what I said at the beginning of today's reflection that it does not have, something to hold on to in its search for the soul and then also in its external search.

Clarity will come about something that a large part of our contemporaries are searching for, and the others who are not yet searching should search for. It will become apparent to them that what has traditionally emerged from old concepts of the soul will become increasingly useless for modern human consciousness, that people will become uncertain about the most essential questions of their soul life if they stick to the old concepts, that new concepts are necessary.

This is what I wanted to show: Either we will have to search for a new science of the soul to satisfy the highest inner needs of human beings along the new paths I have indicated, or we will have no science of the soul at all, which would be immeasurably regrettable. Either we will seek a new science of the soul along anthroposophically oriented spiritual paths, or we will have to do without a science of the soul. But humanity will never do the latter.

Therefore, those who know the spiritual path referred to here have the awareness and hope that this spiritual path does not arise from mere imaginary, subjective arbitrariness, but that it arises from the social progress of the human race in our time and that it will therefore be followed.