10. The Experience of the Soul's Will Nature

Spiritual science strives towards a knowledge of all these relationships, inasmuch as intuition is brought about through soul exercises of the will. In ancient times, this intuition was produced according to instructions by those who were then initiates. These instructions directed man to mortify his outer physical organism through asceticism. By mortifying and subduing his physical body, man's independent will, which otherwise only expresses a craving for the physical organism, emerged with all the more intensity. Through asceticism, the physical organism becomes so mortified that it is difficult for the will to enter into the body and there to express itself. The will is driven back, as it were. The more difficult it becomes for the will to submerge and live in the physical organism, the more it finds its way into the spiritual world and develops intuitions. This is what was brought about by asceticism. It is wrong, however, to continue with this old asceticism in modern times. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the human physical body has assumed a form that is no longer able to tolerate a successful practice of asceticism. By means of such asceticism, modern man would at the same time deaden his physical organism to the point where the ego consciousness that must develop could not properly do so. Man would then never attain a consciousness of freedom. He would also be unable to unite himself in a proper, free manner with the Christ Impulse.