V. Can a method of gaining insight into spheres beyond the sense-perceptible world be given a scientific basis?

GA 73/1918-10-08/p009 ·1918-10-08 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: unknown. How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.

Spiritual science with an anthroposophical orientation must start from two things that need to be deeply rooted in the inner life. The first is a living experience that we can have especially in the study of nature, the rightly understood observation of nature. If you enter closely into the living inner experiences which the observation of nature engenders in the human being, and the simple demands it makes, you will find that on the one hand it makes good sense to talk about limits set to all insight into nature, whilst on the other hand it loses itself completely in misunderstandings. If we approach modern scientific thinking in a non-theoretical way, not with a belief in specific dogmas but in a state of soul that is really sound, if we come alive in our scientific thinking as we observe nature, with direct perception of natural phenomena and objects, we will realize that this modern science, and indeed any insight into nature, must come up against particular limits. The question merely is if these limits to scientific insights are also limits to human knowledge and insight altogether. Anyone who does not see things rightly on this point will be able to raise all kinds of objections, especially to spiritual investigation.

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Cite: GA 73/1918-10-08/p009 · edition English