15. Spiritual Science, Natural Science and Technology

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the first step that is taken. It can be clearly felt how the method becomes quite different and how, therefore, something completely new occurs in comparison to the usual scientific method, which can be objectively recognized more than by anyone else, but also by me, in that mere thinking, mere comprehension, passes over into inner experience. And then, through consistent, patient, persistent experience in this direction, something occurs that cannot be called anything other than an experience of spiritual existence. One cannot speak about the experience of the spiritual world in any other way from an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Because this experience of the spiritual world is not something that is innate in man. It is something that must be achieved by man. When one has reached a certain level of this experience, one realizes that our thinking, which we otherwise use to grasp our environment, is in a different relationship to our entire physical being than one is forced to assume from mere knowledge of nature.