Lecture II

Yesterday I indicated another sentence that could be contrasted with, “To know nature means to create nature,” and this sentence would be, “To know the spirit means to destroy the spirit.” This last sentence was probably not expressed by Schelling in such a fundamental way. In modern times, however, a person who once again approaches a spiritual science, developing his own spiritual investigation, sees that both these sentences basically point back to an ancient knowledge from inspiration. Schelling, who certainly was by no means an initiate but simply a man of genius, could arrive at the first sentence out of his instinct. When a person pursues the kind of spiritual investigation that was not being done in Schelling's time, this sentence immediately recalls a resounding from ancient wisdom. Then one is carried over to the other sentence, which resounds in a similar way from ancient wisdom. Neither sentence can be comprehended with the customary modern intellectual knowledge that we apply in our sciences. Considered either in relation to each other or by themselves, these phrases are absurd. They both point, however, to something of the greatest importance in the human organization, something as important for the healthy condition as for the diseased condition.