The Mission of Esoteric Science in Our Time

This brings us to the point where knowledge directly intervenes in life, where what we might call the emotional and heartfelt aspects of secret science open up. How many people in our time are plagued by doubts, by all kinds of torments relating to questions of existence and the mysteries of the world? And then materialistic writings say that a brain cannot arrive at such views as those presented by Spiritual Science without pathological changes. From the psychiatrist's point of view, it is possible to describe quite precisely the mental illness that leads to such statements as those given here. If we wanted to enjoy working as psychiatrists do, we could also classify ourselves in such a way that the scholar who otherwise does so would take great delight in us. There is a small book that you can buy very cheaply, which reports something that is absolutely true. It is as follows: a series of newspaper articles dealt with arteriosclerosis and described the symptoms by which one can observe this disease in oneself. The author of the pamphlet, a doctor, found that a large number of people came to him who imagined they had the symptoms of arteriosclerosis. And what can be deduced from this? That many people, due to the chaotic nature of our culture, even if they imagine themselves to have nerves of steel, are in a state where, when they hear about such a disease, they are immediately overcome by fear and actually become ill, albeit in a psychological form. It is also said that there are many people who only need to hear lectures by Professor So-and-so or the naturopath So-and-so to have the disease that is being discussed. But what is not considered here is that a certain form of mental illness is already involved in thinking this way in the first place! And that is a pathological trait that is still relatively harmless today, but which will become more and more harmful. We will talk about such questions and facts in the lecture on “Delusions of illness and health fever.”