Lecture III

Ordinary thinking is abstract. Man, in thinking, is conscious only of the life of thought (yellow). When, through the methods I have described in “How to Know Higher Worlds,” this thinking condenses into imaginative life, then the images of imaginative life arise. But it is understandable that nothing that takes place in the soul, that is, is experienced, does not also have some kind of physical correlate in ordinary life between birth and death. One perceives something in oneself when one ascends to the imagination. And what one perceives is precisely the process that takes place in thinking in general, because this imaginative cognition is only a further development of thinking. I have already said that the facts about a person do not change when one ascends to higher, supersensible cognition. One only learns to recognize what is always present in a person. What one learns to recognize always happens, but one does not know it with the ordinary consciousness. If one now has the images in the advanced consciousness, then one knows that certain figural deposits, correct material deposits (red), correspond to these images in the human organization. These correct material deposits are always present in man; they are just not noticed. For what one experiences in the imagination are not new deposits, but the imagination only enables one to see the ever-present deposits. One would not be able to have imaginations if one did not see in a certain way - one can hardly call it 'seeing' - if one did not become aware of these deposits, because the imaginations are reflected in these deposits. One then notices that these deposits are present even in ordinary thinking. They are connected with the delicate organization of our nervous system and with that which belongs to the nervous system. They constitute the nervous system. The life of our nervous system depends on these deposits. As I said, they remain unknown to ordinary consciousness. They are recognized by imaginative consciousness.