1. Knowledge of Nature and Knowledge of the Mind

What has emerged in modern human consciousness is deeply significant: this clinging to the pathological as a principle of progress in development, and then looking at what occurs when there is a deviation from the fixed organization, at the fluttering of the I. The aim of the spiritual-scientific method is to prevent the ego from fluttering, to enable the development of soul and spiritual activity in a healthy and not in an unhealthy way. And this spiritual-scientific method is now being developed in the same strict way as the external scientific method is being developed. It is highly desirable, however, that those who want to do significant research in the spiritual realm have acquired the inner discipline and conscientiousness that I characterized at the beginning of my discussion as the inner discipline and conscientiousness acquired through scientific research. Those who have not undergone the training provided by modern science can basically only produce nebulous ideas in the field of spiritual science. What the anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here aims to achieve should not be confused with the vague and hazy products of mystics or the like, who proceed without this inner discipline, sometimes with downright indiscipline, without this inner conscientiousness, indeed with a lack of conscience, when they present their so-called spiritual experiences to the world, which unfortunately are only too easily believed by the undiscerning. A truly scientific method must be acquired in the same strict sense and on the same presupposition as that on which the training of the natural scientist is based, as is the natural scientific method itself.