Anthroposophy and the Riddle of the Soul

We look at the newly born child. We know, dear listeners, that in this newly born child, the formative forces are at work in the brain, shaping the body. We follow the growth of the child, how it radiates straight from the plastic brain activity, we follow it to a certain point in human life, until the teeth change, until around the age of seven. We will, by feeling this life of strength that pulsates in man, that is vividly active in him, by feeling this first as something indefinite. We will, on the other hand, by powerfully developing our life of imagination through meditation and concentration, be unconsciously led to the same element that worked so vividly in us from our earliest childhood. And this is a significant discovery of the inner human life: that one can strengthen one's imagination in such a way that one can make it so intense inwardly that one then feels oneself in that which is the formative forces of the human being, which formative forces are in one's growth, in one's metabolism. However strange it may still sound to today's research. It is the case that it is possible, by strengthening the soul life, to grow into that which then, in a sense, takes us up as that which plastically shapes our outer physical body as its formative forces. One grows through the life of the imagination into reality, one grows into a formative element. And in this way one gets to know – dear ladies and gentlemen – what lies behind the mere thought process. One learns to recognize how a spiritual, with which one has now connected, works on the human organism from birth to death. The life of the imagination acquires its reality, the life of the imagination is no longer the mere life of the image, the life of the imagination becomes a life of strength that is inherent in existence itself.