7. Some Spiritual-Scientific Observations in Connection with the “Classical Walpurgis-Night” from the Point of View of Spiritual Science

Now in that Goethe kept all this clearly before him, (but as a kind of dim apprehension that became at the same time a torment for him) he was conscious that the abstract, philosophical path to knowledge, the path of science, regarded by many as the only right one, is all the same only one way of knowledge, and he dimly felt that there are many ways,. And whoever believes that Goethe was a rationalistic philistine—as really all upholders of modern science must be, otherwise they would not be genuine scientists, for science in the modern sense is itself pedantic, philistine, and rationalistic—whoever believes that Goethe was this kind of pedantic, rationalistic, philistine, understands nothing of him. He understands nothing at all of Goethe, my dear friends, who believes that he could for a single instant have supposed that, through ordinary scientific reflection any real knowledge could be acquired of the nature of man in his fulness. Goethe knew well that the human soul cannot discover truth merely on the path of thought or even on the path of that activity which takes place on the physical place; he knew that the soul of man has to find its way into reality and truth by several paths. Goethe was well acquainted with that approach to truth which takes a deeper course than the ordinary life of waking consciousness. This conscious, waking life in which our bright ideas run round, this life so highly valued by all the pedants, lies fundamentally very far from all that lives and weaves in the world as the basis of existence. In a certain respect man approaches nearer what lives and weaves below the surface of existence if—but this must not be misunderstood—out of his subconscious he sees and feels the arising, however chaotically, however sporadically, of significant dreams. In former years I have often told you that the content of dreams is of little importance; what is of importance is the inner drama, the connection between dream-life and deep human reality.