Lecture III

Now the intelligence of a student of theosophy would suffice for an understanding of what is brought forward in this way. But he goes somewhat further. It is clear to him that the physical forces of attraction and repulsion were not enough. It is clear that all sorts of other things played a part. Theosophy has still to put up with being proclaimed thoroughly dense and stupid and a dreadful superstition by popular official science—which one could perhaps call “antisophy.” But we are living in an age which in a remarkable way is full of hope for the theosophist. It could he said that the theories, opinions and knowledge that modern popular science forms from its own facts look like tiny, gasping, dwarf-like creatures which run puffing and blowing at a considerable distance behind the facts. The facts of modern science are actually far, far ahead of the “belief” of modern science—only that is not recognized. I should only like to remind you of how we have often spoken here of the activity of the astral body during the night, of how the astral body at night works at upbuilding the physical and etheric bodies and ridding them of the fatigue substances they have acquired during the day. To express the sentence in this form would simply strike modern science as something not fit for polite society. But facts speak a plain language. When, for example, we can read in an American paper today that a researcher has established the theory that the sleep activity in man is an involving, constructive one, whereas on the other hand the waking activity is a destructive one, you have again a proof of how modern science runs after the facts like little dwarfs who cannot keep up. In the world-conception of theosophy you have the great illuminating views that are drawn out of a spiritual conception of the world.