XX. Spiritual Science in Its Relationship to Religious and Social Movements of the Present Day

Spiritual science wants to be a continuation of the scientific way of thinking in the most eminent sense, but since it deals with the spiritual realm, it must overcome this scientific way of thinking. It must, so to speak, develop in a different way what the scientific way of thinking has achieved in its field, because spiritual research deals with the realm of the spirit. Recent spiritual science shows that with the means available to man when he wants to explore the natural world and fathom the great truths of nature, he cannot enter the spiritual world with these powers and soul abilities. It is evident that no insight into the spiritual world is possible if man wishes to make use only of those soul faculties that can be developed when man, from waking to sleeping, is in the resulting state of consciousness, that man makes use of the senses of his body, of thinking, feeling and willing, for which he needs his nervous system and his brain.