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EARTHLY DEATH AND
COSMIC LIFE
RUDOLF STEINER
KESSINGER LEGACY REPRINTS
I |
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RUDOLF STEINER
EARTHLY DEATH
és’ COSMIC LIFE
Seven lectures given in Berlin during
January, February and March 1918
evised trakslationAy SO.
UDOLY SYEINER PRE
LONDON
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THE following lecture-course was given by Rudolf
Steiner to an audience familiar with the general back-
ground and terminology of his anthroposophical teach-
ing. It should be remembered that in his autobiography,
The Course of my Life, he emphasises the distinction
between his written works on the one hand and, on the
other, reports of lectures which were given as oral com-
munications and were not originally intended for print.
For an intelligent appreciation of the lectures it should
be borne in mind that certain premises were taken for
granted when the words were spoken. ‘‘These premises,”’
Rudolf Steiner writes, “include, at the very least, the
anthroposophical knowledge of Man and of the Cosmos
in its spiritual essence; also what may be called ‘anthro-
posophical history,’ told as an outcome of research into
the spiritual world.”’
The following lectures were given at a time during
the first world war when many souls were passing
through the gate of death. The desire for knowledge
that will help to realise true links between the Living
and the Dead is no less intense to-day, nor is the need
of an approach in keeping with that healthy and
vigilant consciousness which is proper to the modern
age any less great.
For the benefit of readers a brief list of publications
relevant to the main theme of the lectures, and a
summarised plan of the Complete Centenary Edition
of Rudolf Steiner’s works in the original German, have
been added at the end of this volume.
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CONTENTS
LEcTuRE I
Introductory. The Present Position of Spiritual
Science 22nd January, 1918
Lecture I]
A Contribution to our Knowledge of the
Human Being 29th January, 1918
Lecture III
The Living and the Dead 5th February, 1918
LECTURE IV
The Cosmic Thoughts and our Dead
5th March, 1918
LECTURE V
Man’s Connection with the Spiritual World
12th March, 1918
LEcTuRE VI
Feelings of Unity and Sentiments of Grati-
tude: a Bridge to the Dead
Igth March, 1918
Lecture VII
Confidence in Life and Rejuvenation of the
Soul: a Bridge to the Dead
26th March, 1918
Page
29
54
73
94
II5
137
*gy dont’ ads dives
a i ee core lt Kady
LEcTURE I
THE PRESENT POSITION OF SPIRITUAL
SCIENCE
INTRODUCTORY
I NEED not tell you what pleasure it gives me to be with
you again at this time of difficulty and trials. As this is
the first occasion for a long while that we have had the
opportunity of discussing subjects connected with
Spiritual Science, let us make a special point of recol-
lecting that Spiritual Science is far from being merely
a theory. Rather should it be a firm and substantial
support, uniting the souls of men: not only the souls of
those living here on the physical plane, but also the
souls of those living in the spiritual world. This lies
very near to our hearts at the present time, when
innumerable souls have left the physical plane under
circumstances to which we have often alluded; a time
when so many are being subjected to the severest trials
perhaps ever inflicted on man in the whole history of
the world. Apart from all the usual ideas which flow
through our souls at the beginning of these lectures,
here and elsewhere, we will to-day try to direct our
9
sentiments and feelings in particular way to those who
are out in the world, as well as to those who, in conse-
quence of these events, have passed through the gate
of death:
Ye who watch o’er souls on earth,
Ye who weave in souls on earth,
Ye Spirit-guardians of the souls of men
Working lovingly in cosmic wisdom,
Hear ye our request,
Look upon our love
Which with your helping, strengthening rays
Would fain unite
In spiritual devotion, sending forth our love.
And to those also who have passed through the gate
of death:
Ye who watch o’er souls now in the spheres,
Ye who weave in the souls now in the spheres,
Ye Spirit-guardians of the souls of men,
Working lovingly in cosmic wisdom,
Hear ye our request,
Look upon our love
Which with your helpful, strengthening rays
Would fain unite
In spiritual devotion, sending forth our love.
May that Spirit whom through the years we have
sought to approach by means of the Spiritual Science
we have striven to acquire, He who willed to pass
through the Mystery of Golgotha for the salvation of
the Earth and for the freedom and progress of human-
ity, may He be with you in your arduous duties.
*
pao)
The severe time of trial through which humanity is
now passing may perhaps be one which will bring home
to us more and more closely the importance of a spiritual
deepening of the human soul. If so, it will not have been
in vain for the present and future of humanity; but
to-day one feels that the time has not yet come, that
mankind has not yet learnt enough from the gravity
of the events of the present time. This is not said by
way of criticism, but to appeal to right and true feeling.
One feels that the Spirit of the Age must speak more
and more distinctly to human hearts and souls. For not
only human voices speak to-day; other voices are
heard too, sounding forth mysteriously from momentous
events and also quite apart from them.
I shall endeavour to put before you to-day what has
particularly struck me during my recent journey
through Switzerland, with respect to the relation of
our spiritual movement to the tasks of the age. Anyone
who has studied attentively the course of lectures I
gave in Vienna before the war, on the experiences of
human beings between death and rebirth,* and what
could be said about human life as a whole, will know
that reference was made—before the war—to the
deeper causes, the deeper-lying foundations, of what
has lately been lived out in the terrible events of the
times. We may say that everything that can now be
read between the lines of life is living proof of the
* The Inner Nature of Man and the Life between Death
and a new Birth. Six lectures given in Vienna, gth to 14th
April, 1914. (Obtainable from the Rudolf Steiner Press.)
II
correctness of what was said at that tune. As you know,
the general disease of the age was then unequivocally
described as a social cancer.
Here and there it can be seen that something has
been learnt from great events that have occurred; but
on the other hand it is clearly evident, particularly
when apparently insignificant things are taken together,
how rigid human thinking on the physical plane has
become during the last few centuries, and how slow
men are to arrive at any of the decisions or actions
that they ought to take. By way of introduction I
should like to tell you some of my experiences during
my Swiss tour, for it seems to me necessary that those
who are interested in our Movement should form some
idea of its connections as a whole. I shall mention only
a few brief points.
We may take it as a particularly satisfactory sign
that during my recent stay in Switzerland a number of
students from the Ziirich High School wished for a
course of lectures referring to and combining the various
branches of academic learning. I therefore gave four
lectures in Ziirich: the first was on the relation of our
Spiritual Science to psychology, the science of the soul;
the second dealt with the relation of Spiritual Science
to history; the third with its relation to natural science,
and the fourth with its relation to social science, to the
great social and juridical problems of our time. Though
far from being all that one might wish, a certain interest
was certainly shown in the drawing together of threads
between these academic studies. It was evident that
I2
these studies were awaiting completion—one might
even say, awaiting the fulfilment that can come only
from Spiritual Science—and that the part-sciences of
the present day will remain half-sciences or even
quarter-sciences if they are deprived of this completion.
Wherever I was allowed to give lectures in Switzerland,
I did not fail to indicate what is lacking in this respect,
and what our age must acquire if these tendencies are
to be guided in the right direction.
Although at first there was in Switzerland a strong
opposition to our endeavours—and certainly this
opposition is not growing less but rather increasing—
yet side by side with this a lively interest is developing ;
and it may well be that karma has placed our Building
in Switzerland because the work may have a special
significance for that land; particularly if our work is
directed, as I hope it will be, in such a way that our
activity will also bear witness to those sources of
spiritual-scientific investigation which, alas, are in
many respects disregarded and unnoticed in the
spiritual life of Germany. This is a feeling which stirs
one to-day with a feeling of sorrow and tragedy, and
yet, on the other hand, fills one with deep satisfaction.
We may say that anyone who takes full account of the
fact that in four-fifths of the world the spiritual life of
which Germany is so proud is to-day calumniated and
really abused, and if he seriously considers the gravity
of this fact, as is not always done, while on the one
hand he may feel sorrowful, yet on the other he may feel
satisfaction in the hope that anthroposophical Spiritual
13
Science may yet render it possible for German spiritual
life to make its voice heard in the outer world—as it
must, if the development of the world is not to be
injured. A way can always be found to speak to all men,
no matter what their nationality, if one speaks to them
in the true sense of the spirit; that is, if one speaks to
them from out of the true sources of spiritual life.
It may strike a sorrowful note, too, that while the
efforts made by Spiritual Science are successful in
winning a little ground in some places, such a country
as Switzerland is finding it increasingly difficult to
stand up against the storm. It is no easy matter, in the
face of the pressure exercised by four-fifths of the
world, to form an impartial opinion; nor indeed is it
easy to find the right words in which to say all that
must be said in a country where, although it is a
neutral, those four-fifths of the world still play an
important part. This has now reached a very acute
crisis.
One great advantage to us in that country is that the
mere words and teaching are supported there by the
forms and creations of our Building at Dornach. They
place before outer vision what it is that our Spiritual
Science desires, and are thus able to show that when
allowed to intervene in practical life and not crudely
rejected, it is capable of mastering and utilising life,
which at the present time makes such great demands
on humanity.
In speaking to-day of the relation between Spiritual
Science and other knowledge and wants of the world, it
14
is really necessary to place quite new and unaccus-
tomed ideas before one’s hearers. In the depths of their
consciousness people are dimly convinced that some-
thing new must come from somewhere or other. They
are, however, extremely rigid as regards thinking,
extremely slow to take in new ideas. Indeed it is a
characteristic feature of our age that while life is lived
at so rapid a pace, people are so dreadfully slow in
thinking. We come across this in the smallest things.
For instance, in Ziirich it was possible to draw the
threads of Spiritual Science into relation with academic
learning. I had spoken publicly in Basel before I did so
in Ziirich. Just before I had to leave Switzerland, a
request came from Basel asking me to speak to an
academic assembly on the relation of Spiritual
Science to the other sciences. It was then, of course, too
late; the matter could not be carried further.
I mention this for two reasons: first because it would
have been of great importance to speak of our Spiritual
Science in a hall dedicated to academic learning and
established by the students of Basel; and secondly
because those people were so slow that they came to
the point only when the door was closing. That is
characteristic, for elasticity of thought, capacity for
quick decision, might have avoided it. It is necessary to
discuss these things among ourselves, so that we may
behave accordingly. To-day I need refer to only one
of the subjects of which I have been speaking lately, so
as to make clear the significance of what has to come
about.
15
In Ziirich I spoke, among other things, of the threads
that can unite Spiritual Science with the science of
history, the historical life of mankind. We have a subject
called “‘history’’ which is taught to children and in
college; but what is this history of ours? It is something
which has not the remotest idea of the forces governing
the historical life of mankind, for the simple reason that
the whole object of intellectual life at the present day
is to set man’s intelligence in motion, to set the ordinary
so-called fully conscious concepts and ideas going, and
with the help of these, to understand all things.
External perceptible nature can certainly be under-
stood by these means; so too can the form of thinking
which has won such great triumphs in the field of
natural science; but if this mode of thought is applied
to history, it amounts to turning history into a natural
science. Endeavours were made in the nineteenth
century to regard history in the same way as natural
science regards the things perceptible to the senses.
This, however, is not possible—for the simple reason
that the facts of history are quite differently related to
life. What is it that we meet in historical life? What are
the impulses at work in history?
Anyone who believes that historical impulses can be
grasped by means of the intellect, which can very well
serve us in natural science, will never discover them,
for their influence on human evolution is like that of
dreams. They do not enter the ordinary consciousness
that we use in everyday life or in natural science; they
are like the impulses which play only into our dream-
16
life. We can say: Historical becoming is a great dream
of mankind; but the transient pictures which play into
our dreams become clear and distinct in the Imagina-
tions of Spiritual Science. Therefore there is no history
which is not a spiritual science, and the history taught
to-day is not history at all.
Hermann Grimm was struck with the fact that the
historian, Gibbon, in dealing with the early part of the
Christian era, describes the fall of the Roman Empire
but not the gradual rise of Christianity, its growth and
flourishing. Of course he did not know why a good
historian can always describe a decline, but not a
growth and a becoming. The reason is that the present-
day method of learning history can lead to an under-
standing only of what is declining, not of what is
growing and becoming. This ‘“‘becoming”’ enters into the
development of mankind as dreams enter into the lite
of man; it can therefore be described only by a person
able to have imaginations. If a man does not possess this
power, even though he be a Ranke or a Lamprecht, he
can depict only the corpse of history, not the reality of
its growth. The impulses of historical becoming are as
dreams; if the ordinary consciousness tries to grasp the
historical, it can do so only when the historical has
already passed into the subconscious.
Modern times present interesting examples of this.
If we follow these up, we see how in the last few decades
interest in the great questions of the world as one
coherent whole has practically died out—or has become
mere pedantry, which is almost the same thing. There
17
2—EDACL
is a deep connection between the pedantry of the age
and the fact that a schoolmaster, now at the head of
the greatest Republic, wants to lay down the law to
mankind.
If we ask ourselves: Where, during the last few
decades, has there been a feeling for a great drawing
together of mankind, for ideas having almost a religious
character although of a crude kind, when everything
else was more or less moribund? The answer, if we look
the circumstances in the face, must be: in Socialism.
The ideas were there, but they never tended to a
spiritual life, only to a crude material life, and, alas,
these ideas encountered no other world of ideas to
stand against them. If we really understood the ideas
which have come to the surface in Socialism, we should
find that they are in a sense historical ideas, dreams of
humanity—but what kind of dreams? One must have a
feeling for the way in which human historical events
emerge as dreams. I tried to make this clear to the
people in Switzerland by saying: If you choose as
leading and guiding personalities only those who are
very clever, but are without any understanding for
what I call dream-impulses, you will see how far you
get. In this respect one should try to answer practically
the question: How quickly (I said this in a public
lecture) can a commonwealth be systematically ruined?
Contrive to set over it a parliament composed solely of
scholars and professors. They need not hold academic
posts; they might even be socialistic leaders—in that
movement there are professors enough. With a percep-
18
tion forsuch things, one willask oneself: Howhasthe whole
comprehensive theory of Socialism come about? If it
could really be put into practice, it could bring only
ruin (and perhaps a sorrowful proof of this may yet
occur in the East, if things there go on as they are
going now.) How has it come about that these social-
istic ideas have taken root in men’s minds? What
exactly are these theories?
To know this, one must be acquainted with the
history of the last four centuries, especially the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth. One must know that real history
is very different from that found in history books;
one must know that the history of the last four centuries
and especially of the last two, is really a picture of
conflict between classes and ranks. Karl Marx, for
instance, has simply set up as theories what humanity
had been dreaming during those centuries, something
which did actually exist but is now “dreamed out,” and
in this new epoch has to reappear in the form of
theories.
The Socialism which arose in the theories of Karl
Marx, at the moment when the reality had been
already dreamed away, shows that the intellect needs
to use what has already perished, what has already
become a corpse, when in this field it utilises means of
knowledge which may be quite valid in, e.g., natural
science. By knowing this one is led to see that the world
now really stands at a turning-point in time, where
historical development (the present has also become
historical development) must be understood in the
19
sense of Spiritual Science. A true picture of even the
most recent historical events is not obtained if Spiritual
Science is left out of account. I will mention an example
I have often used lately.
An important event that can be read between the
lines of European history during the Middle Ages is
that at that time knowledge of the Western part of the
world was lost to Europe. (Among ourselves these
matters can be discussed, although people outside often
laugh at anything of the kind; but they will not always
laugh.) There were indeed certain connections, especi-
ally between England and Ireland on the one hand,
and the territory now called America. These were
always kept up, and it was only in the century which
saw the so-called “‘discovery of America” that inter-
course with that continent was forbidden by a papal
document. (Of course, it was not then called
““America.”’) In fact the connection with America
ceased only with the so-called “discovery” of America
by a Spaniard; but outer history is so inaccurate that
people are under the impression that in Europe America
was not known at all before the year 1492. Almost
everyone believes this. Many similar facts can be
brought forward which Spiritual Science has to make
valid from its own sources. We are standing at a turning-
point in time when historical life must be considered
from the aspect of Spiritual Science.
Someone might ask: If Spiritual Science as we under-
stand it can arise only in our time, how then was it in
earlier times?
20
When we look back into earlier times, we find some-
thing different, something comparable with what in
Spiritual Science are called Imaginations; we find
myths and legends, and from the power of these
pictures impulses could be derived—even political
impulses, which were more real, more in accordance
with facts, than the abstract teaching of modern history,
social economy, and so forth. Abstract concepts are not
what we need for understanding the bonds which hold
people together and create the conditions for communal
life. In earlier times this was brought to expression in
myths. We to-day can no longer produce myths; we
must come to Imaginations. With their aid we must
comprehend historical life, and from that we must draw
political impulses which will be truly different from the
fantastic impulses of which so many dream to-day—
schoolmasterly impulses, I would rather call them.
It is certainly very difficult to tell people that
historical life is something which—quite contrary to
ordinary ideas—runs its course in the subconscious;
and yet this hidden life of mankind knocks at the door
of events, at the door indeed of all human impulses. It
may be said—as the Ziirich lectures showed—that
everywhere to-day one would like to make contact with
those strivings after knowledge which aim at the spirit,
though with wholly inadequate means. In Zirich,
particularly, one encounters psycho-analysis, which has
already risen there to academic rank. In direct connec-
tion with my lectures the most remarkable discussions
took place on psycho-analysis in relation to Spiritual
2i
Science. The psycho-analyst, however, comes spiritually
blindfold to the world of Spiritual Science and can find
nothing in it. Yet this world raps on the door which
should now be opened to man.
In Ziirich there is a Professor Jung, who has quite
recently written another pamphlet on psycho-analysis
and the many problems connected with it. He has
written extensively on the subject: he shows, however,
that he can lay hold of it only with inadequate means.
One fact will show what is meant. Jung brings forward
an example often cited by psycho-analysts.
The following happened to a woman. She was invited
to an evening party. As soon as supper was over, her
hostess, not being in good health, was to leave for one
of the Spas. Supper came to an end and the hostess set
off, the guests leaving with her. They walked, as people
sometimes do on leaving an evening party, not on the
pavement, but in the middle of the road. Presently a cab
came round the corner. The guests all beat a retreat to the
pavement, except the lady of the story, who ran into the
middle of the road right in front of the horse; the driver
shouted at her, but she ran on until she came to a bridge
across a river. Then, in order to escape from this unpleas-
ant situation, she resolved to throw herself from the
bridge into the river. This she did, and was rescued by
the guests, who ran after her, andas the house where the
party had been held was the nearest, she was taken
back there. There she met her hostess’s husband and
spent a few hours with him.
Let us reflect what a man with insufficient data can
22
make of such an occurrence. If he approaches the matter
with the methods of the psycho-analyst, he discovers
those mysterious provinces in the soul which tell us that
this woman, in the seventh year of her life, had an
experience with horses, so that the sight of the cab-
horse called up an earlier experience from her sub-
conscious and so bewildered the lady that she did not
spring to the side but ran on in front of the cab. For
the psycho-analyst, accordingly, the whole series of
events is the result of connecting a present experience
with “unsolved riddles of the soul,’’ derived from her
upbringing, and so forth.
This is a pursuit of the subject with inadequate means
because the psycho-analyst does not know that the
subconscious that rules in man has a more real existence
than is supposed; it is also much more subtle and much
cleverer than anything man gets from his conscious
intellect. It is often also much bolder and more deter-
mined. The psycho-analyst does not know that a
“daimon”’ dwelt in the soul of this lady, who started out,
from the first, with the subconscious intention of being
alone with the husband after his wife had started on her
journey. This was all arranged in the most subtle
manner by the subconscious, for one does everything
with far greater certainty if the consciousness has
nothing to do with it. The lady ran before the horse
simply in order to be intercepted when matters had
reached a certain point; and she conducted herself to
that end.
Into these things the psycho-analyst does not
23
penetrate, because he does not suppose that there is a
spiritual-psychic world everywhere, to which the
human soul stands in relation. Jung, however, has some
inkling of this. From innumerable things that appear
before him, he divines that the human soul stands in
relation to numberless other souls. Still, he must remain
a materialist, or cease to be one of the clever men of the
day. What, then, does he do? He says that the human
soul stands everywhere in connection with spiritual
facts outside itself: this is shown, he says, by the things
which take their course within. But for him there are no
such facts, so how does he get round it? The soul, he
says, has a body, derived from other bodies which are
again derived from others. Thus heredity comes in, and
Jung builds up the theory that in accordance with
heredity the soul relives all that has been experienced
in relation, for example, to the pagan gods. Through
heredity these experiences remain in the soul, becoming
an “isolated province of the soul,’ which must be
brought to light by questioning if the soul wishes to get
free from it. Jung even considers that the human soul
needs to make connection with this isolated province,
and that if this latter is not drawn up into consciousness,
it will have a ruinous effect on the nervous system.
Therefore he enunciates the proposition—which is quite
justifiable according to the modern philosophy of life—
that unless the soul is in relation to a divine being, it
must inwardly perish. He is just as sure of this as he is
that there is no divine being at all. The question of
the relation of the human soul to God has not the least
24
connection with the question of the actual existence of
God.
So it is written in his book. Let us think what is really
under consideration. It is scientifically proved that the
human soul must construct a relation to God, but it is
equally certain that it would be foolish to assume the
existence of a God. Thus the soul for its own health is
condemned to invent a God for itself. Pretend that there
is a God, or thou wilt be ill! That is actually stated in the
book.
We see from this what great enigmatic problems
knock at the door, and how the present time opposes
these things. If men were courageous enough, this truth
would gradually come to be perceived to-day, but they
are not so courageous. | do not say all this in hostility to
Jung, for I believe he is more courageous in his thinking
than all the others. He says what he has to say according
to the assumptions of the present. Others do not say it;
they have less courage.
We must reflect on all these things in order to under-
stand what it really means when Spiritual Science brings
forward a truth such as the following. What takes place
in the historical life of man, and consequently in the life
of political impulses, has nothing to do with the ordinary
consciousness and can have nothing to do with it. It
can be understood and applied only through Imag-
inative consciousness. As regards the most typical
representatives of the anti-social way of interpreting
political history, we might even say that Wilsonism
must be replaced by an imaginative knowledge of the
25
truth. And Wilson’s ideas are very widespread; many
people are Wilsonists without knowing it. Names are
of no moment; all that matters are the facts which
dominate men’s lives.
I may be allowed to be somewhat outspoken about
Wilson, for in the course of lectures given at Helsing-
fors.* I gave my judgment of him even before the war
and did not need to wait for the war to learn of what
spirit he is who sits on the throne of America. At that
time fulsome praise of Woodrow Wilson could be heard
everywhere; it has not long ceased. The world is now
much wiser, and knows that the man who now occupies
the throne of America drafted his most powerful
Republican document from one issued by the late
Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro, in 1864. Wilson copied
this exactly, except that the passage, ‘‘I must intervene
in the interests of South America’’ is altered to “‘I must
intervene in the interests of the United States of
America,” etc., with the necessary re-casting.
When in their time Wilson’s two books, The New
Freedom and Mere Literature appeared in our own
country, there was no less fulsome praise. This was only
about five or six years ago. In this realm of Wilsonism
people have certainly learned a few things; but there
are many other things that need to be learnt again from
out of the deeply incisive events of the present time.
* See lecture 5 of the Course entitled: The Occult F ounda-
tions of the Bhagavad Gita. (Helsingfors, 28th May to 5th
June, 1913.)
26
Hence it is necessary that many things which can
flourish only on the ground of spiritual-scientific
knowledge should be taken very earnestly. People
lightly reproach Spiritual Science with being ‘‘theoret-
ical’ and accuse it of not leading directly to action, as
other movements do. These other movements, it is said,
do not insist on the troublesome task of understanding
cosmic evolution ; they talk to people of “love,” of how
human beings should love and what they should love.
Now, for thousands of years love has been talked about
in this way, the way that many people still crave for;
yet how all this love comes to actual expression can be
seen in the world to-day. Let Spiritual Science only take
hold of human souls for quite a short time, and you will
see it come to flower as love in human hearts. Love
cannot be preached; it can grow only when it is rightly
cultivated; but then it does grow. And it is a child of
the spirit. Among men it is also a child of true knowledge
—knowledge which reaches to the spirit, not to matter
only.
In this introductory lecture I have wished to do no
more than indicate a few perceptions which will perhaps
be important for us just at this time. I shall have to
speak of everything that can awaken strength, courage
and hope in the human soul, and I should like to speak
of all the gifts mankind can receive from Spiritual Science,
different from those given during past centuries. I should
like to speak of Spiritual Science as something living, as
something which isno theory, but which brings to birthin
us a second man, aspiritual man who bears and maintains
27
the other man in the world. I believe the present time
needs this above all. There was a time in the Middle
Ages, as you all know, when many had a fantastic
longing to make gold. Why did they wish to make gold?
They wanted something which cannot be achieved under
ordinary earthly conditions. Why? Because the alche-
mists perceived that ordinary earthly conditions,
unless spiritualised and permeated by spiritual impulses,
cannot give man any true satisfaction. In the end that
is the content of the teaching of the Gospels also, only
people usually overlook the most important points.
They criticise the view of the Gospels that the Kingdom
of God has come; but is it not present? It is, indeed, but
not to outward appearance. It must be understood
inwardly. It must not be denied, as is done in our time.
We shall speak of this descent of the Kingdom of the
Spirit in our next lecture.
To-day I wished only to strike a keynote. Our epoch
is directed to build the bridge to the kingdom in which
the dead are living. The number of those who have
lately passed through the gate of death can be reckoned
in millions. They live among us and we can find them.
How we can find them is something I want to speak
about in new terms.
28
Lecture II
A CONTRIBUTION TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
THE HUMAN BEING
IN our studies we have often called attention to the
aphorism inscribed on the Greek Temple of Apollo, an
aphorism which comes down to us through the ages—
“Know thyself!’’ A tremendous challenge to strive after
human wisdom, and thereby after cosmic wisdom, lies
in this sentence. It receives a pregnant renewal, a
deepening, through the impulse given by the Mystery of
Golgotha. If time admits, we will perhaps speak further
of these matters in the course of this winter. We will try
to find the path to those goals which the aphorism
indicates.
To-day we will start from an apparently external
consideration of man, and therefore from an apparently
external approach to human selt-knowledge. But it is
only apparently external, for it becomes particularly
powerful when it is made use of to penetrate the inner
nature of the human being. I would like to start—
apparently only—from the external bodily form of man.
We find a consideration of this outer human form in
29
what is approved to-day as science, but in a sense
somewhat unsatisfactory from a higher, spiritual point
of view. We might say: Anyone who wishes to know
man as man finds little stimulus in science, especially as
practised at the present time. What science has to offer
in this field can be gathered from the various indications
in my book, Riddles of the Soul. This book gives an
essential and important foundation for a far-ranging
knowledge of the human being, but such a foundation
is not sought for at the present time. Anatomy, physi-
ology, etc., to-day contribute very little to enquirers
who wish to penetrate seriously into the nature of man
from a knowledge of his outer form. At the present time
an artistic approach really gives far more. Science, one
might say, leaves many questions unanswered. If
someone will only resolve to seek, in the Goethean sense,
for actual truth in art, in an artistic approach to the
world, he will perhaps find more truth than he can get
from recognised science. In future times there will be a
world-outlook which will gain from Spiritual Science
much that man cannot fathom to-day; anoutlook which,
in accordance with a certain human need for knowledge,
will unite the scientific and artistic perceptions of the
world in a higher synthesis and harmony. There will be
much more clairvoyance in that than in the clairvoyance
of which many people dream to-day—but only dream.
On approaching the human form we at once perceive
something of the utmost importance when we direct
our attention—as we have doubtless all done more or
less—to its mainstay of support, the skeleton. We have
30
all seen a skeleton, and observed the difference between
the head and the rest. We have observed that the head,
the chief part, is in a sense an enclosed and isolated
whole, as though mounted on a column above the limb
system and the rest of the human organism. We can
very easily contrast the head, resting on the skeleton,
with the remainder of the human form. If we turn our
attention to the most superficial difference, it may
strike us that the formation of the head is more or less
spherical—not a perfect sphere, but spherically con-
structed. Now an investigator in the field of Spiritual]
Science must warn students not to take external
superficial analogies as a key to knowledge; but the
concept of the human head as approaching a spherical
form is no superficial observation, for man really is a
kind of duality, and the spherical formation of his head
is in no wise accidental. We must bear in mind what we
actually have before us in the human head. The first
indications of what is intended here were given in The
Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind,* where I
showed how the human head displays an image of the
whole universe, which surrounds us externally as a
spatial globe, a hollow sphere.
In reviewing these things we must pay attention to
something which for modern man lies far from the most
important kind of observation. He always invokes it in
one particular connection, but not where it is of the
utmost significance. It would not occur to anyone who
* Obtainable from the Rudolf Steiner Press.
31
takes a compass, a magnetic needle, in his hand, to look
in the needle itself for the cause of its pointing with one
end to the North and with the other to the South. The
physicist is compelled to regard the magnetic needle,
and the directing magnetic force coming from the North
Pole of the earth, as a whole. The cause of what happens
in the small space of the needle is sought in the great
universe. Yet this is not done in other cases where it
should be done, and where much would come from
doing it.
If anyone observes—especially as a scientist—that
one living being is formed within another living being,
as, for instance, the egg is formed in the body of the hen,
he sees there how something happens in the smallest
space; but what does not usually strike him is to apply
what he knows of the magnetic needle and to say that
the reason why the germ of the egg develops in the body
of the hen lies in the entire cosmos, not in the hen.
Exactly as the great universe has a part in the magnetic
needle, so too the whole cosmos in its spherical form
plays a part in the hen’s body—no matter what other
processes also are involved. The processes that can be
traced back through the line of heredity do no more than
co-operate when the germ of the egg is formed in the
maternal organism. That, of course, is heresv in the eyes
of official science, but it is a truth. The forces of the
cosmos exert their influence in the most varied ways.
Just as it is true that in the case of man (empirical
embryology supports what I am saying) the head in its
germinal rudiments is formed from the whole universe,
32
so is the human head formed first in the maternal
organism. So also is it true that the original causative
forces for this formation work in from the whole cosmos,
and man’s head is an image of it.
If we now observe carefully that part of the body
which hangs down from the head—the skeleton, one
can say—it is seen to be more closely connected in its
configuration, its form, with the line of heredity, with
tather and mother, grandfather and grandmother, than
with the cosmos outside. Thus even in relation to his
origin, his development, man is primarily a dual being.
On the one hand his form is fashioned from the cosmos,
and this comes to light in the spherical form of his
head; on the other, he is formed from the whole stream
of heredity, and this comes out in the rest of the
organism attached to the head. The whole of man’s
outer formation shows him to be of a hybrid nature;
it shows that he has a twofold origin.
A consideration of this kind is significant not only
because through it we come to learn something, but
also for quite another reason. Anyone studying man
under the guidance of ordinary official science—exam-
ining, for example, the development of the embryo
through a microscope and looking only at the embryo
itself (as though one wished to see from the magnetic
needle itself why it is capable of pointing North and
South)—lives in a solid block of thoughts which makes
him inflexible and unserviceable for outer life, especi-
ally if he takes external science as his guide. If a man
applies such thoughts to social science, they do not
33
3—EDACL
suffice; or they lead him to world schoolmastering,
which in other words may be called Wilsonism. It is a
question of what sort of thinking is called up in us, what
forms of thought arise when we devote ourselves to
certain thoughts. To “know” about things is of less
significance ; the important points are what a given kind
of knowledge does to us, and of what service it is. If one
is teady to see man in connection with the whole
universe, thoughts will arise which lead one to consider
the world in the light of ethics and justice. This should
be the highest point of view, though to-day it is regarded
as decidedly strange. Thus we see that to seek such
knowledge as is here meant calls for certain impulses
other than—I will not say inquisitiveness—but other
than a mere desire to know things.
Thus man stands before us as a compound being, a
hybrid. This has a much deeper significance still. To-day
I want only to strike the keynote which will call forth
in us a feeling of the reality of what we are studying.
Let us keep to the fact that in the further course of
our life, the head—which we have just encountered as
an image of the whole cosmos—is really an intermediary
for knowledge (I will not say an instrument; that
would not be quite correct). The head, however, is not
the only intermediary. Let us keep to knowledge or
perception of the world. The head acts as an inter-
mediary for this, but so does the rest of a man. As
regards its origin, the rest of a man differs very much
from the head; it is something quite other. In so far as
man is a being of perception, he consists of a head-man
34
and a heart-man; because in the heart all the rest is
concentrated. We are, in fact, two men: a head-man,
who stands as a perceiver in his relation to the world,
and a heart-man. The difference is that, however often
a man may inveigh against the world, he uses his head
solely in order to know. What is really at the root of
this? —To draw comparisons between head-knowledge
and heart-knowledge would not lead to much. A man
who could understand with his heart what the head
knows would be “warmer” in his knowledge than
another. There would be a difference between the two
men, but the difference would not be very great. If,
however, the facts are approached with the practical
knowledge of Spiritual Science, they appear in a very
different light. We acquire knowledge and perceptions;
they come to us gradually. Then the following happens.
How we relate ourselves to the world through our head,
how by this means we come to perceive and know the
world, takes place in a certain respect quickly; and
how we come to know the world with the rest of our
organism takes place slowly. Our head hurries on with
its knowledge; the rest of the organism does not.
This has a very deep significance. In scholastic
education we see only the training of the head; nowa-
days people receive education only for the head, and
that can be done at school. For if the head has spent a
long time on acquiring knowledge, it can stay open
until the twentieth year (though with most people it
closes sooner). The head is then ready with its know-
ledge, its assimilation of the world. The rest of the
35
organism needs the whole time up to death for this
assimilation. We might say that in this respect the
tempo of the head is approximately three times as
quick as that of the rest of the organism. The latter has
more time and moves three times as slowly; the tempo
is quite different. Hence anyone who has the gift of
clearly observing such things with knowledge is aware
that, having grasped something through the head, he
must wait until he has united it with the whole man. If
it takes him about a day to get hold of something
through his head, then, if it is to enter into him filled
with life, he must wait three or four days before he will
have absorbed it completely. The spiritual-scientific
investigator will never recount what he has received
with the head alone, but only what he has grasped with
the whole man. This has an uncommonly wide and deep
significance. Under existing arrangements we can give
our children only a kind of head-knowledge; a know-
ledge so prepared that it may be quickly accepted by
the head and remembered later. In education, however,
one does not always remember later. One is thankful
if the knowledge holds out till the final examination. A
knowledge which the whole of the rest of the organism
can work upon would invariably develop love, jov, and
appreciation for it when one remembered it later. How
to shape education so that throughout his life a man
can look back on his schooldays with warmth and joy,
and withacertain longing forthem—thisisconnected with
36
one of the deepest secrets of the mysteries of humanity.*
In this domain there is a tremendous amount to be
done. Anyone acquainted with such things knows that
everything now presented to children, in particular, is
prepared in such a way that the rest of the organism
does not assimilate it, and it yields no joy later on.
This is connected with the fact that in our time the soul
ages comparatively early. One of the mysteries of man
is that when the head is twenty-eight years old, the
rest of his organism is only a third or fourth of that age.
It keeps a tempo three or four times as slow (other
connections we have yet to learn). If we were to
approach these mysteries as educators, a child might
receive something so fruitful, so flourishing, that this
would last until its death. Thus if he had received such
things up to the age of twenty-five and needed to work
on them for thrice that time, the rest of his organism
could be working on them up to the age of seventy-five.
Knowledge acquired by the head alone has no signi-
ficance for the whole nature of man; he needs the inner,
conscious experience which his whole being gradually
acquires. Public life, however, is averse to this to-day;
it will accept only head-wisdom. You can easily reckon
the significance of what 1 mean. Up to fifteen years of
age a man might absorb through his head a certain
number of ideas which, if he worked on them with his
*See (among many other lecture-courses given by
Rudolf Steiner on new principles in education): The
Kingdom of Childhood, TheSpiritual Ground of Education, Es-
sentials of Education.
37
whole nature and they were brought to bear on public
affairs, would render him fit at forty-five years of age
to be elected to a city council or a parliament. The
views of the ancients, who possessed a living wisdom
from the Mysteries, were based on such facts. To-day,
on the contrary, the endeavour is to set the age-limit
as low as possible, for everyone is held to be as mature
at twenty as a man used to be at eighty. Impatient
demands, however, cannot decide these things, but true
knowledge only.
All this has a pregnant application to life. The whole
of modern public life is organised to take account only
of what people are by reason of their heads. But
although it is a fact that to-day people meet socially
only with their heads, this kind of social intercourse
(just think what it means to have only head-relations
with other people!) is quite unsuited to form a truly
social life.
For whence comes the head? The human head is not
of this earth; it is brought forth from the cosmos. One
cannot attend to earthly affairs with the head. One
cannot be a nationalist with the head, or belong to any
one part of the earth. With the head we should decide
only what belongs to the whole world. To be able to
decide what belongs to the earth, we must grow
together throughout life with what belongs to the
earth, and with that which makes us citizens of the
earth and not of the heavens. These things must be so.
A proper basis for public decisions must be drawn from
deeper knowledge, beyond that of man himself. Moreover
38
—to-day I am only sketching a few threads; they will be
amplified later on—we must bear in mind what Goethe
expressed as ‘‘The thought of metamorphosis’; this
has a deep significance, and a far wider application than
Goethe himself could make in his time.
Our head is formed from the cosmos. Consider the
matter in the light of Spiritual Science: we must say
that throughout the time between death and rebirth
we are working in advance (out in the cosmos itself)
on the head. In a sense the head is the grave of the soul,
with regard to what the soul was before birth or con-
ception. The activity we exercised in the spiritual life
between death and rebirth comes to rest in the head;
and to that which is in a sense formed out of the
spiritual world, there is then added that which belongs
to the line of heredity. What then is this? It is still
something connected with the head. As we have said
before, everything in man except the head is the germ
of the head in the next incarnation. All the rest of the
organism can pass over to the head in the next incarna-
tion. When we go through the gate of death, the forces
developed throughout life wrest themselves free from
the rest of the organism, but they retain the forms borne
by the rest of the organism during life; man carries these
during the time between death and rebirth, and trans-
forms them into his future head. Thus in our head we
have always something which is a heritage from our
previous incarnation, and in the rest of our organism
something which works specifically for the formation
39
of our head in the coming incarnation. In this respect
also we are of a twofold nature.
If we consider man in his cosmic relations, we find
that in reality he does not only arise and develop in
the divisions of time and space which we have before
us in outer physical view, but he is in the midst of a
tremendous pattern of relationships. It is especially
fascinating not only to look, as Goethe did, at a bone
of the vertebral column and then at the bones of the
head, remarking that the bones of the head are only
transformed vertebrae, but to see that everything
about the head can be found also in the rest of the
organism. It needs, however, an exceptionally unbiased
observation to recognise not only the nose, for instance,
and everything belonging to the head as having been
thus remodelled, but also that everything belonging to
the rest of the organism is only at a younger stage of
metamorphosis; in an earlier metamorphosis it was
all changed to what now meets us in the head.
The consequences of such a view are extremely
important for education; and if people’s thinking once
turns to the knowledge of Spiritua] Science, momentous
demands for a practical form of education will arise.
One thing especially is significant. In life we grow
old, but in reality we can say only that our physical
body grows old; for, strange as it may seem, the etheric
body, the nearest spiritual part of our being, grows
younger. The older we grow, the younger becomes our
etheric body; and as we become wrinkled and bald as
regards the physical body, the etheric body becomes
40
chubby and blooming. Nature provides that our
physical body shall grow old, but we must certainly take
care that our etheric body is provided with youthful
forces. We can do this only if through the head we
introduce such nourishment of spiritual ideas that they
suffice for working into the whole of life.
Anyone looking at these matters with the aid of Spiri-
tual Science can have some idea of how children ought
to be taught in earliest childhood that man is an image
ofthe whole universe, animage of thedivinely wise cosmic
ordering ; and this should be grasped directly and simply,
not by reciting Bible words imperfectly understood.
All this must be drawn from Spiritual Science;
then there will be a richer head-wisdom than
there is to-day. That will be a source of rejuvenation
throughout a man’s life, whereas our present system of
education does quite the contrary. If to-day, in spite of
early education, we are in the fortunate position of not
being terribly bad-tempered, it is because the present
method of providing for the head (a method which was
introduced approximately fourhundred yearsagoand has
now reached its zenith) has not yet been able to ruin so
much of what still remains as culture from older times. If,
however, we continue to instruct the head only, we
are going the right way to become really bad-tempered.
In the last years before the war there was a great
leaning towards ‘‘sanatoria’’; extensive measures were
taken to do away with ‘‘nervous conditions.” This is
all connected with the fact that the head is not given
what the whole man needs. I have mentioned before
41
how seldom one finds the right thing done for these
conditions, for I always remember an occasion a few
years ago when I went to visit someone in a sanatorium.
We arrived at mid-day. All the patients walked past us.
Some of them were remarkable figures; their neurotic
condition was written partly on their faces and partly
on their fidgeting hands and feet. Then I made the
acquaintance of the most fidgety and neurotic of them
all—the medical superintendent. It must be said that
a medical director cannot find a cure for his patients
if he is himself the one who needs it most. In other
respects the superintendent was an extremely love-
able man; but he was an example of those who, in their
youth at any rate, have not had the nourishment that
could keep them young throughout their lives. Such
things cannot be changed by any kind of isolated reform
or by a change of circumstances; they can be improved
only when the whole social organism is improved.
Therefore attention must be directed to nothing less. The
great cosmic laws have seen to it that man as a solitary
individual cannot appease his egoism in such spheres,
but can find salvation, as it were, only when he seeks it
in community with others.
Thus it appears to me, as it must to everyone who
does not live absorbed in material things (as is custom-
ary to-day) but is able to look beyond to the super-
sensible from which must come the forces to reform the
world in the near future—it appears to me that in this
sphere, as well as in others, Spiritual Science can be
introduced into life so that men will be able to work out
42
in an upright, honourable way and in a concrete form,
something for which Spiritual Science can give the
impulse. As I have often said, there is no need to press
towards visionary clairvoyance, but we must learn to
understand man as a likeness of the cosmic, spiritual
nature; then spirituality will come. It is impossible to
understand man in his entirety without investigating
the spiritual underlying his nature and keeping that in
view. But one thing is necessary, as I have often
emphasised: the renunciation of intellectual indolence,
a fault so terribly persistent in relation to all questions
of the philosophy of life. Our whole study of Spiritual
Science shows us that man must move forward step by
step, that he must be disposed to go into details and
thence build up a whole, so that starting, as it were
from the nearest sense-perceptible forms, he can rise
to the supersensible. In these forms the supersensible
can be almost palpably real.
Anyone who regards the human head in the right way
sees in it something modelled from the whole universe,
and in the rest of the organism something also organised
cosmically in order to come back from the cosmos in
the next incarnation. By rightly observing what is
apparent to the senses, one can arrive at the super-
sensible in the right way. One must, however, be willing
to admit that if one wishes to understand the construc-
tion of man, the same trouble must be taken as would
be necessary if one wished, for example, to understand
the mechanical action of a watch; one would have to
bear in mind the connection of the wheels, etc. Yet
43
anyone will hold forth on the nature of man without
taking any such trouble, and will even believe that he
can talk about the highest part of man’s being. He will
often contend that truth must be quite “simple,” and
Spiritual Science is accused of being much too com-
plicated. People want to acquire in five minutes—or
perhaps in no time at all—what is necessary for the
knowledge of man’s highest being; whereas he is by
nature a complicated being and his greatness in the
universe is due to that very fact. We must overcome the
tendency to indolence in respect of knowledge if we
really wish to penetrate into the being of man. In our
time there is no understanding of what is needful for
anyone who wishes to penetrate even dimly the whole
complexity of human nature; for because we cultivate
only head-wisdom, because we do not wish the whole
man to elaborate what the head learns, nothing is
given to the head which can be worked upon by the
rest of the man, and we thereby place man in the social
order in such a way that we actually do not want
earthly life to become a reflection of a supersensible
spiritual life. We suffer in this respect from a remarkable
cleavage, one not like the others already mentioned,
but an injurious cleavage which must be overcome.
Human life has changed in the course of evolution.
To observe this we need go back only four centuries;
indeed, not so far. Anyone acquainted with the spiritual
history of life—not the ordinary historical literature—
knows how tremendously the life and thought of the
eighteenth century differed from that of the nineteenth.
44
We need go only a little way back to see how the whole
of human life has changed in four centuries. Human
thinking has changed so far that by the twentieth
century it has gradually reached the point of forming
ever more abstract ideas, ideas formed in the head. If
we take the richly fruitful ideas of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries and look at the natural science of
those times, we find an enormous difference between
those ideas and the abstract, dryly legalistic character
of natural science to-day. There is a well-known book
by Basilius Valentinus ;* you will find some very inter-
esting things there. Not long ago a Swedish scholar
* Dr. Steiner was probably referring to The Triumphal
Chariot of Antimony. It is the most important work of
“Basilius Valentinus’’—the pseudonym under which the
writer was known—and one of the very few treatises said
by researchers to be undoubtedly by his own hand. It has
been translated into German, French and English. In 1893,
an English edition, translated from the Latin version
published in Amsterdam in 1685, was printed in London
by James Elliot & Co., with a biographical introduction by
A. E. Waite. Scholars are unanimous that no exact dates
can be given but there is evidence to the effect that
Valentinus lived in the early decades of the fifteenth century
and was a monk in the Benedictine Priory of St. Peter at
Erfurt. Mr. Waite writes: ‘““‘He had probably passed the
prime of life when he entered upon his labours in literature,
and a whole century was destined to elapse before any of
his works found their way into the hands of the printer.”’
(See also the chapter on the above-named work in The
Secret Tradition in Alchemy, by A. E. Waite (published in
1926 by Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., London),
45
wrote a book on ‘‘Matter,’ quoting various excerpts
from Valentinus, and his judgment was: “Let he who
can, understand it; in fact it is incomprehensible.”’ We
can readily believe that he could make nothing of
this book by Valentinus, for if Valentinus is read with
concepts drawn from modern physics and chemistry,
he ts quite incomprehensible! This is bound up with
such things as the fact that the wise old proverb, “‘The
morning hour brings God and gold,’”’ has changed in
the course of time into another proverb, ‘“‘The morning
hours brings gold.”’ The good European saying has been
Americanised.
With regard to the description and comprehension
of Nature, those older times were permeated with an
outlook coming from the whole man. To-day it is head-
knowledge. Therefore on the one hand it is abstract,
Dr. Steiner refers to Basilius Valentinus in Vol. II of
Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies (p. 68), as follows:
“., . in the early Middle Ages we find Basilius Valentinus,
a Benedictine monk, engaged in the pursuit of medicine and
alchemy in his cellars in the monastery and making a
number of important investigations. There are others with
him who are his pupils and they write down what Basilius
Valentinus has said to them. Consequently there are hardly
any original writings by Basilius Valentinus himself; but
there are writings of pupils which contain a great deal that
is genuinely his wisdom, his alchemical wisdom... .” In
the volume Sfiritual Sctence and Medicine, lecture XIX,
p. 245 onwards, Dr. Steiner speaks of ‘‘the legendary
Basilius Valentinus” in connection with the remarkable attri-
butes and qualities of antimony and its use asa medicament.
46
dry, and does not fill a man’s whole life to the end, yet
on the other hand it is very spiritual. This dual nature
is really present, so that we actually do engender what
is most spiritual; for these abstract ideas are as spiritual
as they could be, yet they are incapable of grasping the
Spirit. It is very easy to perceive the cleavage in which
man is involved through the spiritual ideas he has
developed. It is precisely in them that he has become
so remarkably materialistic. When ideas come in the
right way, however, materialism never arises from them.
The simple existence of abstract ideas is the first refuta-
tion of materialism. In this duality we live. In an intel-
lectual sense we have been tremendously spiritualised
for four centuries, and in this spiritual element, which
we possess only in the abstract, we must find again the
living spiritual. We have risen to objective concepts;
we must get back to Imagination, Inspiration and
Intuition. We have cast aside what has been handed
down to us of old primeval wisdom in Imagination,
Inspiration and Intuition. We must now recover it,
after having so completely discarded the richly fruitful
knowledge of man’s whole being. Thisis a truth which will
fill us with a sense of the seriousness of Spiritual Science.
The object of these two somewhat introductory
lectures has been to show how, from the most external
observation of man, an impulse may arise to apply
one’s intelligence to that which spiritually underlies the
world. In the pursuit of these impulses and ideas some-
thing will come to humanity which to-day is so terribly
lacking—inner sincerity. Man cannot really strive
47
fruit fully after the Spirit if he does not do so with inner
sincerity, and he will never go astray if he acquires
through life-experience the knowledge that true har-
mony between head-wisdom and _ heart-wisdom is
possible only when one enters into a right relationship
with life. People to-day do not wish to lead head-
wisdom over to heart-wisdom, because heart-wisdom
not only takes longer, but even reacts against the
former and thrusts it back when it is untrue. In this
way the rest of the man then makes itself felt as a kind
of conscience. Present-day humanity, with a bias
towards head-wisdom only, shrinks from this.
In conclusion, a few directly practical remarks—
since when we are thus gathered together, we must
contemplate the endeavours of our Spiritual Science in
the world at large.
Spiritual Science can flourish only if people take it in
sincerity, with earnestness; for it must go to meet the
deepest needs of men to-day. It must dispel those
qualms of conscience which easily arise when the heart
says “‘no” to the head—as it always does when the
spiritual is not sought, or when knowledge is sought
only from mere egoism, greed, ambition, etc. lor this
reason there must be no compromise in any quarter
where Spiritual Science ts concerned. Spiritual Science
must be followed positively, for its own sake; no
compromise can be made with half-and-half attitudes;
the matter is too serious. I may perhaps here introduce
a few personal remarks, though they are not intended
personally. A great proportion of the opposition to
48
Spiritual Science can be understood only when we keep
in view its origin and development. Here or there
someone appears who turns furiously against Spiritual
Science. There are cases other than those I now have in
mind, but opposition often arises in the way of which I
will now give you an example.
Once, when I was in Frankfurt-on-Main to give
lectures, someone telephoned that a gentleman wished
to speak to me. I had no objection and said I could see
him then and there. He came, and said, “I have been
travelling about after you for a long time, hoping to
speak with you.” I had nothing either for or against
that, and he then talked round and about all sorts of
other things. Spiritual Science, however, can only be
taken seriously, and much that “‘shows off’’ and wishes
to appear learned, must be rejected. No compromise
can be made. I was not discourteous to this man, but
I sent him away letting him sce that [ would take no
further notice of him. I was convinced that he talked
much nonsense, for which he hoped to find support in
me. (This really does happen in countless cases.) I had
to send the man away. He said much that was extremely
flattering, but the only question was whether his aspira-
tions for Spiritual Science were at all genuine. Soon
afterwards advertisements appeared in Switzerland
announcing that this man was to speak on the “‘demon-
iacal,’’ ‘devilish’ character of Steiner’s Spiritual
Science. I might relate the subsequent history of this
matter, but I shall not do so. This is one of the ways in
which opposition shows itself. Often people come
49
4—EDACL
forward who really seek some kind of connection with
Spiritual Science, but whose quest must, for certain
reasons, be disregarded. There is much that has to be
set aside if Spiritual Science is to be kept pure. That is
a necessary obligation.
In this connection I may mention that our friend Dr.
Rittelmeyer recently wrote in a periodical, The Christian
World, on the relation of our Spiritual Science to
religious questions, endeavouring by this means to
counter many other prejudices against Spiritual Science,
in a way deserving quite unusual appreciation and
thanks. Now Dr. Johannes Miiller, who is well known,
has felt constrained to write a series of three articles in
the same paper against Dr. Rittelmeyer’s contribution.
It is really not my task to go into what Dr. Johannes
Miiller has written. For many years I have always tried
not to talk of him, with the motive of keeping Spiritual
Science free from dilettante pursuits and from any
entanglement in compromise. I believe this is best
achieved by not worrying—at least not verbally—
about something which must work through its own
alleged merit, if it can. I have never mentioned Dr.
Johannes Miiller in any particular connection.
In our time there is not much feeling for truth or
untruth in these domains. [f you go through Johannes
Miiller’s articles you will see that they contain much
that is called forth either by carelessness or by what
must be called objective untruth. They are full of it.
These things must be kept well in mind. In my book,
Riddles of the Soul, I have described one such case: the
50
false statement by Dessoir. I am now very curious, for
something must surely follow from what a Berlin
University Professor is proved to have written. Let
people but read the second chapter in Riddles of the Soul
on Professor Dessoir’s method of working. Of course,
anyone who now writes on Dessoir without taking into
account this published chapter is accessory to all this;
but to-day people will not take these things seriously ;
they excuse themselves by saying “I have not read it,”’
as if someone who made a statement had not properly
given his attention to the matter. Now, as to such
trivialities as the charge that my posters are charla-
tanish and so on, I will leave this to the judgment of
those who are familiar with Johannes Miiller’s lectures
and posters; and the charge that my lectures trade on
people’s craving for sensation I will leave also to the
judgment of others. Recently a most estimable old
gentleman, who really wants to reach an informed
opinion on these things, told me he was surprised that so
many peoplecame to my lectures, forI certainly did noth-
ing to make them easy. It can very easily be proved that
Johannes Miiller’s accusations are false. For when my
lectures are announced in a town where Spiritual Science
has as yet no footing, not many people generally come to
them. Where many come, it is because in such places
Spiritual Science has been made known and worked for.
I will not go further into this, except to mention the
last part of Johannes Miiller’s article, where he launches
out into saying that I speak of a “Divine Drama’
through which man is to be saved, and the like. He fills
51
a column and a half by quoting a few sentences from
Christianity as Mystical Fact, which he tears out of
their context as they strike him. The effect of his
omissions is to turn everything he says into absolute
nonsense. In my book on Christianity I said the very
opposite about the ‘Divine Drama’’ and its magic.
Johannes Miiller excuses himself by saying that he was
not able tu understand my writings. On that point I
believe him entirely! Without understanding this book
in the very least, he has undertaken to criticise it! I
have often called attention to the fact that this book
places the Mystery of Golgotha in contradistinction to
all other Mysteries, as the central point of evolution.
Of this Johannes Miiller has no perception. I should
never expect him to understand my book; I do not
think he could; yet he criticises it.
It is noteworthy that this book was published in
1902, so that by 1906 it had been under discussion for
four years. It was known that in the first edition I had
set forth my relation to natural science on the one hand
and to philosophy on the other. Christianity as Mystical
Fact has since become known. Now if it was not known
to Johannes Miiller, that is his affair; but I mention
that it was known in 1906, and was just as much con-
nected with my general philosophy of life as The
Philosophy of Freedom* for instance. Anyone who
* The title of the latest English edition (1964). Certain
earlier editions were published as ‘The Philosophy of
Spiritual Activity.”
52
formed an opinion of me in 1906 ought to do so in
relation to my outlook as a whole, and should really
not select fragments.
In the year 1906, Christianity as Mystical Fact was
four years old. In that year, Johannes Miiller’s book on
The Sermon on the Mount was sent to mie. It carries the
dedication: “To Dr. Steiner, in grateful remembrance
of The Philosophy of Freedom, Mainberg, 17.VIII.1906.”’
This belongs to those situations where I have been
compelled to ignore an approach, for it was not possible
to compromise in the directions of which 1 have spoken,
and I considered it within my duty, when approached
in this way, not to say, “I see your meaning on this or
that point,’ but to be silent. Sometimes, however,
silence annoys people more than anything else.
I said that one should look for the opposition to
Spiritual Science in its real origins. I could tell of even
more unpleasant things; but anyone who now reads
Dr. Johannes Miiller’s articles about our friend Dr.
Rittelmeyer will perhaps do well to look for the
opposition not only in them, but in other things too,
such as the few just cited. One must seek everywhere
for much more genuine reasons than those lying on the
surface. It is vexing when a man approaches another
with “‘in grateful remembrance of The Philosophy of Free-
dom,” and the other turns away and gives no answer.
I did not wish to keep from you this slight contribution
to the psychology of Johannes Miiller, so that you might
see matters more clearly than through his articles alone.
33
LecTurRE III
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
WE have often remarked from various points of view
that the aJternation of waking and sleeping has a
deeper significance than is apparent to ordinary
observation. This fact needs to be kept well in mind
when we are considering the world at large and—in an
ideal but quite practical sense—where we as human
beings stand in it. The apparent fact is simply that
human consciousness is either awake or asleep, but we
know this is only an appearance. As we have often said,
the so-called sleep-condition does not last only from
falling asleep until waking; in a certain part of our
being it continues during the waking hours. We must
realise that we are never completely, thoroughly, awake
with our whole being; with part of ourselves we are
always asleep. Hence we may ask: With what part of
our being are we genuinely awake in the time between
waking up and going to sleep?
We are awake as regards our perceptions—as regards
all that we perceive through our senses. The mark of
ordinary perception is precisely that on waking a state
of detachment from the external sense-world gives way
54
to one of association with it. The activity of our senses
soon wrests us from the dull condition that in ordinary
life we know as “‘sleep.’’ With regard to our life of ideas
we are less awake, as anyone can learn from accurate
self-observation (you will find this treated more exactly
in my book, Riddles of the Soul); but we can still call it
being awake. Thus we must distinguish the life of
perception from the life of thoughts and ideas. When—
withdrawn from sense-perception and therefore not out-
wardly active—we meditate, we are then awake both
in the ordinary sense of the word and in the higher.
Even this state of being awake purely in the realm of
ideas always has a shade of dreaming about it—more
so with some people, less with others. Nevertheless,
although with many people a dreamlike element plays
quite strongly into the life of ideas, we can broadly say
that when we are forming concepts, we are awake.
In the realm of feeling we are not awake. Certainly,
feelings well up from an undefined, undifferentiated
soul-life, and because we are conscious of them, and
because a waking activity of ideas is mingled with
them, we suppose that we are awake in our feelings;
yet this is not really so. In fact, the activity of the soul
in feeling is exactly the same as in ordinary dreaming.
There is a profound relation between the dream-
condition and the actual condition of feeling. If we were
always able to illumine with ideas what we dream (the
greater part of our dream-life is lost to us), we should
be as well acquainted with the dream-life as with the
life of feeling; for the feelings present in the soul are no
55
different from dreams. No one can tell from his waking
life what actually takes place when he feels, or in that
which he feels. Feeling surges up, as I said, from the
undefined, undifferentiated life of the soul and is
illumined by the light of concepts, but it is a dream-life.
This relationship of emotion and feeling to dreaming
is well known even to those who are not occultists; for
example, the distinguished aesthetician, Frederick
Theodor Vischer, has often emphasised the profound
relationship between dreaming and feeling in the sou)-
life of man.
Still “deeper down” in the soul-life is the real lite of
will. What does man know of all that takes place in his
inner being when he says, “‘I will pick up a book,” and
his arm stretches out and picks up the book? Of all that
takes place between muscle and nerve, of what goes on
in the organism and even in the soul, through which an
impulse of will passes into movement, into action, a
man is no more conscious than he is of events in deep,
dreamless sleep. It is true that our life of will is,
in its turn, illumined by the life of ideas, and
thus it appears to us as though we were conscious of it;
but the real nature of the will remains, even from
waking to falling asleep, in a condition of protound
slumber.
Thus we see that, in the true sense of the word, we
are really ‘‘awake’’ only in our sense-perceptions and
our life of ideas; in the life of feeling we are so near to
sleeping as to be dreaming; and in the life of will we
are always fast asleep. Thus the sleep-condition extends
56
into that of waking. Let us picture to ourselves how we
pass through the world. What we experience with our
waking consciousness is only the sense-world and our
world of ideas. Embedded in this experience is a world
where our impulses of feeling and of will Hoat; a world
which surrounds us like the air, but does not enter
ordinary consciousness. Anyone who thus approaches
the matter will in truth not be very far from recognising
a so-called supersensible world around him.
Now all this has still more pregnant consequences.
Behind what I have told you there are significant facts
of life as a whole. Anyone who has come to know the
life of the human soul between death and rebirth
(described in a more abstract form in the lectures on
“The Inner Nature of Man, and Life between Death
and Rebirth’’ given in Vienna in the spring of 1914)
will see that in this world through which we wander in
a sleeping condition, we are living together with the
so-called dead. The dead are always present. They move
and have their being in a supersensible world. We are
not separated from them by our real being but only
by our condition of consciousness. We are separated
from them only as in sleep we are separated from the
things around us; we sleep in a room and do not see the
chairs and other objects. Although we do not describe it
thus, yet as regards our feeling and our will we “‘sleep”’
among the dead even while we are awake, just as we do
not perceive the physical objects around us when we
sleep. Thus we do not live separated from the world
where the forces of the dead prevail; we are together
oA
with the dead in one common world. We are separated
from them only by our ordinary state of consciousness.
This knowledge of our common life with the dead will
be one of the most important elements which Spiritual
Science has to implant in the general outlook and
civilisation of humanity in the future; for those who
believe that what takes place around them occurs only
through the forces perceived by the senses know nothing
of the reality; they do not know that the forces of the
dead are always at work, always present. If you
remember what I said in the first lecture—that in this
material age man has a quite false view of historical life
because the real impulses of history are dreamt or slept
away, you will be able to conceive the idea that the
forces of the dead may live in what we dream or sleep
away of historical life. In a future time history will be
studied in a way which takes account of the forces of
those who have passed through the gate of death, whose
souls live in the world between death and rebirth. A
consciousness of the unity of all mankind, including the
so-called ‘‘dead,” will have to give human civilisation
a quite new colouring.
The method of observation employed by the spiritual
investigator, who can make practical application of
what has been said, discloses many concrete details of
this joint life of the living and the so-called dead. If by
his thoughts a man could throw light upon the nature
of his feeling and impulses of will, he would have a con-
tinuously living awareness of the existence of the dead.
This he does not have at present. His ordinary con-
58
sciousness does not possess it because these things are
remarkably distributed within our conscious life. We
might say that for conceiving a higher, cosmic relation-
ship there is a third consciousness, much more import-
ant than the waking condition or the sleep condition.
What is this?
It is something lying between these other two, and
for a man of to-day it is only momentary and passes
him by. It occurs at the moments of waking and falling
asleep. To-day people do not pay attention to waking
and falling asleep, yet they are extremely important.
How important they are is disclosed when the uncon-
scious experiences underlying ordinary consciousness
are illumined by the experiences of clairvoyant con-
sciousness. When we have prepared ourselves for such
studies through many years, we can quite impartially
illumine these things with supersensible facts.
It is quite possible for clairvoyant consciousness not
only to become acquainted with general facts about the
supersensible world where we dwell between death and
a new birth, but also—though this is more difficult—
to enter into contact, into communication, with
individual souls among the dead. This we know. I will
add only that the latter task is more difficult because
there are many more obstacles to overcome. Although
few persons to-day succeed in obtaining general
scientific results concerning the supersensible world,
this is not extraordinarily difficult; it is not very far
beyond the ordinary capacities of the human soul. It is
more difficult to enter into individual relations with the
59
souls of the dead for the simple reason that anyone who
strives for it and finds it within reach can to a certain
degree live in the purely spiritual without realising that
in this realm the lower impulses of man can very easily
be stimulated.
I have often explained why this is so. The higher
faculties of supersensible beings are connected with the
lower human impulses (not with the higher impulses of
incarnate beings), while the lower impulses of super-
sensible beings are related to the higher spiritual
qualities of man. This I have called an important
secret in the intercourse with the spiritual world; a
secret of such a nature that a man may easily be ship-
wrecked by it, but if he can steer safely past this rock,
if he is able to have intercourse with the supersensible
without being diverted from the realm of spiritual
experiences, such intercourse is quite possible. It
proves, however, to be very, very different from what
is usually regarded as “‘intercourse’’ here in the world
of sense.
I will put this in a quite concrete way: if we talk to
one another here in the world of sense, we speak and the
other person answers. We produce the words through
our vocal organs; the words come from our thoughts.
We feel that we are the creators of our words; we know
that we hear ourselves speaking, and when someone
answers we hear him; we listen and we hear him. We
are profoundly accustomed to this because we are
conscious only of having intercourse in the physical
world with other human beings. Intercourse with dis-
60
carnate souls is not like that. Strange as it may sound,
intercourse with discarnate souls is exactly reversed. If
we impart our own thoughts to a discarnate soul, we
do not speak, but he speaks. It is exactly as though you
were going to talk to someone, but you do not yourself
say what you want to communicate; the other person
says it. The reply of the so-called dead does not come to
us from outside, but arises from our inner being; we
experience it as inner life. Clairvoyant consciousness
has to get used to the idea that we ourselves are in the
other as questioner, and the one who replies is in us.
This complete reversal of entities is necessary.
Anyone acquainted with such things knows that this
reversal is not easy; it contradicts everything to which
habit has accustomed us in the course of life. Not only
that—it contradicts all our inborn tendencies, for it is
inborn in us to believe that we ourselves speak when we
ask a question, and that the other is silent when we
answer him. Yet what I have said is true of intercourse
with supersensible beings. From this reversal we can
gather that one main reason why the dead are not
perceived is because they have intercourse with the
living in a way which appears to the living as not only
quite unfamiliar, but actually impossible. The living
simply do not hear what the dead say to them from the
depths of their own beings; and they do not pay atten-
tion when another being says what they themselves are
thinking, or what they want to ask.
Now it is a fact that of the two conditions of con-
sciousness which slip so quickly past people to-day—
61
those of waking and falling asleep—one is adapted for
questions and the other for replies. The moment of
falling asleep is specially favourable for putting a
question to a dead person—that is, for hearing from
him the question we put to him. We are specially dis-
posed for this while we are falling asleep. Immediately
afterwards we fall asleep, as far as our ordinary
consciousness is concerned; the consequence is that we
ask the dead hundreds of questions and talk with them
about hundreds of things, but we know nothing of it,
because we have already fallen asleep. This fleeting
moment of falling asleep is of tremendous consequence
for our intercourse with the dead. So, too, the moment
of waking especially disposes us to receive the answers
of the dead. If we did not immediately pass over to
sense-perception, but were able to linger through the
moment of waking, we should be very well adapted to
receive their messages. These would appear as though
arising from our own inner being.
You see, there are two reasons why the ordinary
consciousness does not pay attention to intercourse
with the dead. The first is that immediately on waking
or falling asleep we meet a condition which is calculated
to obliterate what we have experienced; the second is
that when we fal] asleep, unusual, really “impossible”’
things occur. The hundred questions we can put to the
dead—and do put—vanish in sleep-life because we are
quite unaccustomed to “hear’’ what we ask instead of
“uttering” it. Again, we do not judge what the dead say
to us on waking as coming from them, because we do
62
not recognise it; we take it as something arising within
ourselves. That is the second reason why intercourse
with the dead is so unfamiliar.
These general phenomena, however, are sometimes
broken through in the following way. What a man
experiences on falling asleep as putting a question to
the dead from himself, continues in a certain sense
during sleep. During sleep we look back unconsciously
to the moment of falling asleep, and this can be
reflected in our dreams. Such dreams can really be a
reproduction of the questions we put to the dead. Far
closer than we suppose do we approach the dead in
our dreams, although what is experienced in the dream
was said at the moment of falling asleep. The dream
draws it up from the undifferentiated depths of the
soul. A man may, however, easily misconstrue this; he
does not take the dreams—if later he recollects them as
dreams—for what they really are. Dreams are really
always a previous companionship with the dead that
rises up from our life of feeling. We have moved
towards the dead and the dream often gives us the
questions we have put to them. True, it gives us our
subjective experience, but as though coming from out-
side. The dead speak to us, but we have really said it
ourselves. It only appears as though they spoke. As a
tule, it is not messages from the dead that come to us in
our dreams, but the expression of our need to be with
them, of our need to come near them at the moment
of falling asleep.
The moment of waking conveys to us messages from
63
the dead. This moment is quickly extinguished by a
surge of sense-impressions; but it is a fact that in
waking we have something rising up, as it were, from
the inner depth of the soul and we could be well aware
of it if our self-observation were more accurate. It does
not come from our ordinary ego and often it is a
message from the dead.
You will gain a proper understanding of-these ideas
if you can grasp deeply a relationship I will now
mention. You will say: The moment ot falling asleep is
adapted for putting questions, that of waking for
receiving answers from the dead—yet these moments
lie far apart! We can judge this rightly only if we
keep in view the relations of time in the supersensible
world. There the saying is true, spoken with remarkable
intuition by Richard Wagner: ‘‘Time becomes space.”’
In the supersensible world, time really does become
space—one point of space here, another there. Time is
not past, but only a point of space, near or far; time
actually becomes supersensible space. The dead person
gives his answers only when he stands somewhat further
from us. That again is an unaccustomed thought; but
the past is not ‘“‘past”’ in the supersensible world. It is
there; it remains, and to encounter it one needs only to
relate oneself to another place. In the supersensible
world the past is just as little done away with as the
house we have left to come here to-night. The house is
in its place; so, too, in the supersensible world, the past
is not gone but is in its place. It depends upon our-
selves and upon how far we have gone from them, how
64
near or far we are from the dead. We can be very far,
or very near.
Thus, because we not only sleep and wake, but wake
up and fall asleep, we are in continuous correspondence
and contact with the dead. They are always among us,
and we do not act under the influence only of those
living around us as physical men, but under the
influence also of those connected with us who have passed
through the gate of death. To-day I should like to bring
forward some facts which will lead us more and more
deeply, from a certain point of view, into the spiritual
world.
We can distinguish between various souls who have
passed through the gate of death, once we have grasped
that there is continuous contact with them. Since we
always pass through the field of the dead, either on
falling asleep, when we ask them questions, or on
waking, when we receive answers from them, our
connection with them must also be affected by whether
they died in youth or oldage. (The facts underlying the
following are evident only to clairvoyant consciousness.
That, however, is only the ‘knowledge’ of it; the
reality always takes place.) When the young—children
or young people—pass through the gate of death, it is
seen that a particular connection exists between the
dead and the living; a connection of a different kind
from that which arises in the case of older people who
have gone through the gate of death in the evening of
their days. There is a decisive difference. When we lose
children, when the young are apparently taken from us,
65
5—EDACL
they do not really leave us at all; they remain with us.
To clairvoyant consciousness this is evident from the
fact that the messages we receive from them on awaken-
ing are so lively and vivid. The connection of the dead
with those remaining behind is then such that we can
describe it only by saying that a child or young person
are not lost at all; they are still there. This is above all
because after death they feel a strong need to influence
our waking-up time and to send us messages. It is very
remarkable, but true, that those who die young have a
great deal to do with this waking-up time. For clair-
voyant consciousness it is specially interesting to find
that we have to thank the youthful dead when living
people feel a certain impulse towards religious devotion.
A very great deal in respect of this devotional feeling is
brought about by those who have died young.
It is different—clairvoyant consciousness shows us—
with the souls of the old. We may say that they do not
lose us; our souls remain with them. Observe the con-
trast. The souls of the young we do not lose, they remain
with us; the souls of the old do not lose us, they take
something of our souls with them, as it were—if I may
use such a comparison. The souls of the old draw us
more to themselves, whereas the souls of the young
draw near to us. Therefore at the moment of falling
asleep we have much to say to the souls of those who
died old, and we can weave a bond with the spiritual
world especially by adapting ourselves to address the
souls of the old. We can really accomplish something in
this way.
66
Thus we see that we stand in continuous relation to
the dead; we have a sort of ‘‘question and answer,” a
two-way intercourse with them. To qualify ourselves
for questioning and approaching the dead, the following
is the right course. Ordinary abstract thoughts, those
taken from materialistic life, do little to bring us into
relation with the dead. If the dead belong to us in any
way, they even suffer through our preoccupation with
purely material life. If we stand firm against this and
cultivate ways of life which will bring us into relation
with the dead through our feeling and our will, we are
preparing ourselves very well to enter into relation with
them at the time of going to sleep and to put
appropriate questions to them.
This is more readily accomplished, of course, if the
dead were closely related to us in life. The relationship
in life forms and establishes the relationship after death.
Naturallyit makes a difference whether I talk to someone
apathetically or with sympathy, whether I speak as one
who feels affection for another, or as one who does not
care. It makes a great difference whether I talk with
someone as at a five o'clock tea, or whether I am
quite specially interested in what I can come to know of
him. Whenintimaterelationsare formed betweensoul and
soul, founded on impulses of feeling and will, and if, after
one soul has passed through the gate of death, theoneleft
behind can retain his interest in the other person and is
eager to receive answers from him, or if he has the
impulse to be something to him and can live in his
memories of him—not conceptual memories but those
67
bound up with the relationship of soul to soul—then he
will be particularly well adapted to put questions to
him at the moment of falling asleep.
On the other hand, we are specially adapted for the
reception of answers, messages, at the moment of
waking if we were able and inclined to enter consciously
into the being of the dead person during his life. Let us
reflect how, especially at the present time, one man
passes another by without really learning to know him.
What do people really know of one another? There are
striking examples of marriages lasting for ten years,
without either person knowing the other. This does
happen. Yet it is possible (depending not on talent but
on love) to enter into the being of another with under-
standing, and then to carry within one a real world
of ideas drawn from the other. This is a specially good
preparation for receiving answers from the dead at the
moment of waking. That is why we are sooner able to
receive answers from a child or young person, because
we come to know a young person sooner than those who
have deepened and grown old.
Thus we can do something towards establishing a
tight relation between the living and the dead. Our
whole life is, in reality, permeated with this relation.
We, as souls, are embedded in the same sphere where
the dead are. The degree to which we are religious is
very strongly connected, as I have said, with the
influence of those who have died young; and were it not
for this influence, there would probably be, in general,
no religious feeling. The best way of relating ourselves
68
to the souls of those who die young is to think of them in
a collective way. Funeral services for children or young
people should have a ritual, universal character. The
Roman Catholic Church, which tones everything down
to a child-like level and would really like to have to do
only with children, with the guidance of child-souls,
seldom gives an individual address when a child has
died. That is particularly good. Our mourning for
children is different from our mourning for older people.
Our grief for a child I should prefer to call a sympathetic
sorrow, for the sorrow we feel is in many respects a
reflection of the attitude of our own soul towards the
being of the child, who remains near us. We share in the
life of the child and the child shares in our sorrow. It is
a sympathetic mourning.
Our grief for an older person cannot be called a
sympathetic mourning. It is “‘egoistic,’’ and is best
borne by the reflection that an older dead person really
“takes us with him’’; he does not lose us if we try to
prepare ourselves to come near him. Hence we can
form more ‘individualised’ memories of our older
dead; we carry them in our thoughts and can remain
united with them in the thoughts we shared with them,
if we try not to behave as an uncomfortable companion.
When we have thoughts which a dead friend cannot
accept, he holds to us, but in a peculiar way. We remain
with him, but we can be a burden tohimifhe has to drag
us along while we fail to entertain any thoughts in
which he can be united with us, or can perceive
spiritually.
69
Let us reflect how concrete our relations to the dead
appear, if we are able to see them in the light of
Spiritual Science and to grasp the whole relationship
of the living to the dead. This will become very import-
ant for the humanity of the future. Trivial as it may
sound—for one can say that every epoch is a “‘time of
transition’ —yet our own time really is a time of
transition. It must pass into a more spiritual age. It
must come to know what comes from the kingdom of
the dead; it must learn that we are surrounded by the
dead as by the air. In times to come there will be a real
perception that when an older person dies we must not
become an incubus to him, as we shall be if we have
thoughts which he cannot entertain. Just think how
much richer life can become if we accept this living-
together with the dead as something real.
I have often said that Spiritual Science does not wish
to found a new religion, or to introduce anything sec-
tarian into the world; that would be to misconstrue it
completely. On the other hand, I have often em-
phasised that religious life can be deepened by it,
because for this it provides real foundations. Certainly,
remembrance of the dead, services for the dead, have a
religious side. Here a foundation for religious life will
be created, if this is illuminated by Spiritual Science. If
rightly done, these things will be lifted out of the
abstract. For instance, it is not a matter of indifference
for human living whether a funeral service held is the
right one for a young person, or is more suited to an old
one. Whether right or wrong funeral services are held {s
70
of far greater importance for social life than all the
regulations of town councils or parliaments—strange as
that may sound. For the impulses working into life will
come from the human individuals themselves when
they are in a right relation to the dead.
‘ To-day, people want to have everything regulated by
the abstract structure of a social order. They are
pleased when they do not need to think much about
what they ought to do. Many are even glad if they are
not obliged to reflect upon what they ought to think. It
is quite different when one has a living consciousness,
not merely of a vaguely pantheistic connection, but of
a quite definite one, with the spiritual world. One
can foresee a permeation of religious life with
concrete ideas when it is deepened by Spiritual
Science.
As I have often related, ‘‘Spirit’’ was eliminated from
Western humanity in the year 869 at the Eighth
Ecumenical Council in Constantinople. The dogma was
then drawn up that Christians must not regard man as
consisting of body, soul and spirit, but of body and soul
only, though certain spiritual qualities were to be
ascribed to the soul. This abolition of the spirit is of
tremendous significance. In the year 869, in Con-
stantinople, it was decided that man must not be
regarded as endowed with “‘anima”’ and “‘spiritus,’”’ but
as possessing only “unam animam rationalem et
intellectualem.”’ The dogma that ‘“‘the soul has spiritual
qualities” was spread over the spiritual life of the West
in the twilight of the ninth century.
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This must be overcome. Spirit must again be recog-
nised. A trichotomy of body, soul and spirit—regarded
as heresy in the Middle Ages—must again be recognised
as the true and exact view of man’s nature. Several
things will be required of those who to-day naturally
challenge all ‘‘authority,” yet swear that man consists
of body and soul alone. They are to be found not only
in particular religious persuasions, but also among the
ranks of those who listen to professors, philosophers,
and so on. Philosophers, as you can read everywhere,
distinguish only body and soul, omitting the spirit.
That is their ‘‘unprejudiced” philosophy of life; but it
rests upon that fact that in the year 869 a Church
Council decided not to recognise spirit. That, however,
is overlooked. A well-known philosopher, William
Wundt—a great philosopher by favour of his publisher,
but at the same time renowned—of course divides man
into body and soul, because he regards it as “‘unpre-
judiced” science to do so; he does not know that he is
simply following the decision of the Council of 869. We
must look into the actual facts if we wish to see what is
really going on in the world. If a man looks at the
actual facts in the realm that has particularly con-
cerned us to-day, his consciousness will be opened
concerning a connection with that world which in
history is only dreamt and slept away. History, histori-
cal life, will be seen in the right light only when a true
consciousness can be developed of the connection of the
so-called living with the so-called dead.
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LECTURE IV
THE COSMIC THOUGHTS AND OUR DEAD
In the last lecture I spoke of the relations between
incarnate and discarnate human souls, the so-called
dead—trelations which are not only possible but in fact
always exist. To-day I shall add a few remarks to this.
From various facts presented to us by Spiritual
Science, we know that in the course of the earth’s
evolution the spirit of man passes through an evolution
of its own. We know also that man can understand
himself only by giving fruitful consideration to the
question: What is his attitude in any one incarnation,
in his present incarnation, to the spiritual world, to
the spiritual realms? To what stage of evolution has
mankind in general attained at the time when we
ourselves live in a particular incarnation?
We know that sufficiently exact observation of this
general evolution of mankind brings us to the view that
in earlier times, earlier epochs, a certain “atavistic
clairvoyance” was poured over mankind; and that the
human soul was then, as it were, nearer to the spiritual
worlds. But it was also further from its own freedom,
its own free will, while we in our age are nearer to
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freedom but more shut off from the spiritual worlds.
Anyone who knows the real nature of man at the
present time must say: In the unconscious self, in the
really spiritual part of man, the old relation to the
whole spiritual world of course persists; but men to-day
are generally unable to be consciously aware of it (there
are exceptions) in the way that was possible in earlier
epochs. If we ask why men can no longer bring this
relation into consciousness—naturally it is in itself as
strong as ever, though in a different mode—we find the
reason is that we have passed the mid-point of the
earth’s evolution and are now in a descending current.
Our physical organisation (of course this is not per-
ceptible to external anatomy and physiology) has
become more “physical” than it was, so that during the
time we spend between birth, or conception, and
death, we are no longer organised to bring fully to
consciousness our connection with the spiritual world.
We must clearly understand that no matter how
materialistic we are, we experience in the subconscious
regions of the soul very much more than we can
generally be conscious of.
This goes even further, and here we come to a very
important point in the evolution of present-day
humanity. In general, manis not able to think, perceive
or feel all that could really be thought, perceived and
felt within him. At the present time he is gifted for far
more intensive thoughts and perceptions than the
coarse materiality of his organism allows him to achieve.
The consequence is that we are not in a position to
74
bring our capacities to complete development during
earthly life. Whether we die young or old has very
little influence on that. For both young and old it is the
tule that, on account of the coarse substance of his
organism, a man cannot fully accomplish all that would
be possible for him if his body were more finely organ-
ised. Thus, whether we pass through the gate of death
old or young, we all leave certain thoughts, feelings and
perceptions unexercised. These are there, and when
we pass through the gate of death, whether young or
old, we feel an impulse to return to earthly life for
further thinking, feeling and perceiving.
Let us reflect upon the bearing of this. After death
we become free to form certain thoughts, feelings and
perceptions for the first time. We could have done
much more for the earth if we had been able to bring
all this to fruition during our physical life; but we could
not. In earlier epochs of evolution it was different, for
when the organism was finer there was a certain con-
scious looking into the spiritual world, and men could
work from out of the spirit. Then a man could, as a
tule, accomplish everything for which his gifts fitted
him. Although to-day we are so proud of our talents,
the facts are as I have said.
Hence we can see how necessary it is that what is
carried through the gate of death unused should not be
lost to earth-life. The only way to prevent the loss is by
cultivating a true relationship with the dead, under the
guidance of Spiritual Science, and by endeavouring to
make conscious, fully conscious, our relationship with
75
those among the dead to whom we are linked by karmic
ties. Then these unfulfilled thoughts of the dead pass
through our souls into the world, and in this way we
can allow these stronger thoughts—which are possible
for the dead because they are free from the body—to
work in our souls. Our own thoughts we cannot bring
to full development, but these thoughts can work
within us.
We see from this that the course of events which has
brought us materialism should make us realise how
absolutely necessary it is for us at the present time and
in the near future to seek a true relationship with the
spirits of the dead. The only question is: How can we
draw these thoughts, perceptions and feelings from the
realm of the dead into our own souls?
I have already spoken of this from certain points of
view, and in the last lecture I mentioned the important
moments which should be well observed: the moment of
going to sleep and that of waking. I will now describe in
more detail a few things connected with this.
The dead cannot enter directly the world of ordinary
waking life—the world of our perceptions, actions and
desires. It is out of their reach, once they have passed
through the gate of death; yet we can have a world in
common with them if, spurred on by Spiritual Science,
we make the effort—which is difficult in our present
materialistic age—to discipline the realm of our think-
ing as well as our outer life, and not to allow our
thoughts the customary free course. We can develop
certain faculties which give us a ground in common
76
with the spirits who have passed through the gate of
death. There are, of course, at the present time a great
many hindrances to finding this common ground. The
first hindrance is that we are, as a rule, too prodigal
with our thoughts; we might even say that we are
dissipated in our thought-life. What exactly is meant
by this?
The man of to-day lives almost always under the
influence of the saying, “Thoughts pay no toll.” Just
remember that speaking reflects our thought-life and
consider what sort of thought-life is running away
when people chatter and wander from subject to sub-
ject, allowing thoughts to flash up at will. This means
that we are spendthrifts of the force with which our
thinking is endowed! And we are doing this all the
time. People follow a fancy that comes into their mind
and then drop it for something else; in short, they are
unwilling to keep their thoughts under control. How
annoying it is when someone begins to talk and we
listen for a minute or two—and then he is off at once on
another track. But we want to keep to the original
topic—it may be important. So we have to remind
ourselves: what was it we were first talking about?
Such things happen every day, when the talk ought to
be serious and we have constantly to remember how it
began. This dissipation of thought-force prevents us
from receiving those thoughts which come from the
depths of soul-life and are not our own, but are rather
thoughts we have in common with the realm of spirit,
with the universal ruling Spirit. The impulse to fly as
iil
we like from thought to thought does not permit us to
wait receptively for thoughts to arise from the depths
of the soul—to wait for “Inspiration,” if I may so
express it. This attitude, however, is something we
need to cultivate—especially in our time, for reasons
given—so that we really form in our souls the disposi-
tion to wait watchfully, until from far down in the
soul thoughts arise which clearly distinguish them-
selves as “given,” and not of our own making.
We must not suppose that the formation of such a
mood can occur all at once. That is impossible. It has
to be cultivated; but when it is cultivated, when we
really take the trouble simply to be watchful and,
having driven out arbitrary thoughts, to wait for
inspiration, the mood gradually develops. Then it
becomes possible to receive thoughts from the depths
of the soul, from a world wider than our Ego-hood. If
we really develop this, we shall soon perceive that in
the world there is not only what we see, hear and
perceive with our outer senses, and the combinations
we build up through our intellect, but there is also an
objective web of thoughts. Very few people to-day know
of this as an experience of their own. Yet this experi-
ence of a universal web of thought, in which the soul is
actually immersed, is not some kind of special occult
experience ; it is something that any man can have if he
develops the mood I have described. Then from out of
this experience he can say: In my everyday life I stand
in the world which I perceive with my senses and have
put together with the intellect ; but then I reach a point
78
when it is as though, after standing on the shore, I
plunge into the sea and swim in the surging water. So
can I, standing on the shore of sense-existence, plunge
into the surging sea of thought; then I am really as
though in a surging sea. We can have the feeling—or at
least an inkling—of a life which is stronger and more
intensive than the life of dreams, and yet the boundary
that separates it from the sense-world is similar in
kind to the boundary between the sense-world and the
life of dreams.
We can, if we like, speak of such experiences as
“dreams,” but they are no dreams! For the world into
which we plunge, this world of surging thoughts which
are not our thoughts but thoughts in which we are
submerged, is the world out of which our physical
sense-world arises, out of which it condenses, so to
speak. Our physical sense-world is like blocks of ice
floating in water: the water is there, the ice congeals
and floats in it. As the ice consists of the same sub-
Stance as the water, only brought into a different
physical condition, so our physical world of sense arises
from this surging, undulating sea of thought. That is its
true origin. Physics speaks only of “ether,” of whirling
atoms, because it does not know of this primordial
substance. Shakespeare is nearer to it when he makes
oneof his characters say, in effect : “The worldofrealityis
but thefabricofa dream.” Men lend themselves too easily
to all kinds of deceptions in this respect. They want to
find a crude atomic world behind physical reality; but
if we are to speak of anything at all behind physical
79
reality, we must speak of the objective thought-web,
the objective thought-world. We arrive at this only
when we stop letting our thoughts run to waste and
develop the mood which comes when we can wait for
what is popularly called “inspiration.”
For those who study Spiritual Science it is not so
difficult to develop this mood, for the method of thought
necessary for the study of Spiritual Science leads the
soul on towards it. When a man seriously studies
Spiritual Science, he feels the need to develop this
intimate web of thought within himself. And this web
of thought provides us with the common realm in which
we ourselves and the so-called dead are both present.
That is the common ground where we can “meet with”
them. They cannot come into the world which we
perceive with our senses and build up with our intellect,
but they can enter the world I have just described.
There is a second way in which we can find common
ground with the dead. I spoke of this last vear: it
depends on noticing the finer, more intimate connec-
tions that arise in our lives. I gave an example (you may
remember it) that can be found in psychological
literature. Schubert calls attention to it; it is taken
from old literature, but such examples can still often be
found in life. A man was accustomed to take a certain
daily walk. One day, when he reached a certain spot,
he had an impulse to go to the side and stand still, and
the thought came to him whether it was right to waste
time over this walk. At that moment a boulder which
had split from the rock fell on the road and would
80
certainly have struck him if he had not turned aside
because of his thought.
This is one of the crude experiences we may en-
counter, but those of a more subtle kind press into our
ordinary life every day. As a rule we do not notice
them; we reckon only with what actually happens, not
with what might have happened had it not been
averted. We reckon with what happens when we are
detained at home and go out for a walk a quarter of an
hour later than we intended. Often and often, in such
cases, something very noteworthy would come to light
if we were only ready to reflect how different it would all
have been if we had not been detained and had left the
house a quarter of an hour earlier.
Try to observe systematically in your own life what
might have happened had you not been delayed a few
minutes by somebody coming in, though at the time,
perhaps, you were very angry at being detained.
Things are constantly striking into one’s life which
might have turned out differently according to their
original plan. We seek a ‘“‘causal connection” between
events in life. We do not reflect upon life with that
subtle discernment which would reveal the breaking of
a probable chain of events, so that an atmosphere of
possibilities continually surrounds us.
If we pay attention to this, then, if we have been
delayed by ten minutes in doing something we have
been accustomed to do at mid-day, we shall have a feel-
ing that what we do at that time is often—not always
—under the influence not of preceding occurrences
81
6—EDACL
only, but also of countless things which have not
happened, from which we have been held back. By
thinking of what is possible in life—not only in the
outer world of sense—we are led to the impression that
to seek for the connection of what follows with what
has gone before is a very one-sided way of looking at
life. If we truly ask ourselves such questions, we rouse
something which would otherwise lie dormant in our
mind. We come, as it were, to “read between the lines”
of life; we come to know life in its many-sidedness. We
come to see ourselves, so to speak, in the midst of our
environment, and we see how it forms us and leads us
forward little by little. This is something we usually
observe far too little. At most we consider only the
inner driving forces that lead us from stage to stage.
Let us take some simple ordinary instance from which
we may gather how we bring the outer world into
connection with our inner being in only a very frag-
mentary way.
Let us tum our attention to the way in which we
usually become aware of our waking in the morning.
We mostly have a very vague notion of how we make
ourselves get up; perhaps even the concept of it is quite
nebulous. Try, however, to reflect for a few days in
succession on the thought that drives you out of bed;
try to grasp this thought in full clarity. For example,
yesterday 1 got up because I heard the coffee being
made ready in the next room; this gave me the impulse
to get up; to-day it was something else. What was the
external cause? That is the point to be quite clear about.
82
Usually a man forgets to look for himself in the outer
world; hence he finds so little of himself there. Anyone
who gives even a little attention to such a thought as
this will easily develop that mood of which people
to-day have a holy—nay, an unholy—terror, the mood
which compels one to realise that there is an under-
current of thought which does not enter ordinary life.
A man enters a room, for instance, or goes to some
place, but he seldom asks himself how the place changes
when he enters it. Other people may have an idea of
this at times, but even that is not very widespread
to-day. I do not know how many people have any per-
ception of the fact that when a company is in a room,
one man is often twice as strongly present as another;
one man is strongly present, another is weak. That
depends on imponderables. We may easily have the
following experience: A man is at a gathering; he
comes quietly in, and glides out again; and one has the
feeling that an angel has flitted in and out. Another’s
presence is so powerful that he is not present only with
his two physical feet but, as it were, with all sorts of
invisible feet. The others do not, as a rule, notice it,
although it is quite perceptible; and the man himself
does not notice it at all. A man does not generally hear
that ‘“‘undertone”’ which arises from the change called
forth by his presence; he keeps to himself and does not
enquire of his surroundings what change his presence
produces. Yet an inkling of the echo of his presence in
his surroundings is something he can come to feel. Just
think how our outer lives would gain in intimacy if a
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man not only peopled a place with his presence but
learnt to feel how the place was changed by his being
there.
That is only one example. Similar examples could be
drawn from all situations in life. In other words, it is
quite possible for a man—not by constantly treading
on his own toes but in a quite healthy way—to become
aware of his environment in such a concrete sense that
he feels the incision he himself makes in it. In this way
he learns to acquire the beginning of a sensitivity to
karma. For if he were fully to perceive what comes
about through his deeds or presence, if he always saw
in his surroundings the reflection of his own deeds and
existence, he would have a feeling of his karma; for
karma is woven of this joint experience. Here I will
point only to the enrichment of life that comes from
cultivating such intimacies, when by learning to read
between the lines of life we become fully, conscien-
tiously, aware that we are present in it. Through this
awareness we do something also to create a realm that
we can have in common with the dead. And when we
develop this inner mood, which looks up to the two
pillars I have described—a conscientious mode of life
and an economical (not a spendthrift) habit of thought
—then we shall achieve the necessary success, now and
in the future, for drawing near to the dead.
If we then form thoughts and connect them with a
dead person, aiming not merely at a union of thoughts,
but at a union of feeling and interest; if we carry our
thoughts further into life-situations we shared with
84
him, so that a tone of feeling plays between us; if we
relate our thoughts to occasions when we were con-
cerned with how he thought, lived and acted and with
the interest we aroused in him—then we can use such
occasions to carry this conversation further, as it were.
If we can then allow these thoughts to rest quietly, so
that we pass into a kind of meditation, and the thoughts
are, as it were, brought to the altar of the inner spiritual
life, a moment comes when we receive an answer from
the dead, when he can again reach an understanding
with us. We need only build a bridge between the
thoughts we unfold towards the dead person and those
by which he can return to us. For this returning it will
be specially useful to build up in the deepest part of
our souls a picture of his essential being. This is some-
thing quite foreign to the present time, for (as I said
just now) people pass one another by, often coming
together in the most intimate spheres of life and parting
again without knowing one another. This coming to
know another person does not depend on analysis.
Anyone who feels himself being analysed by someone
living with him feels, if he is sensitive, as though he had
received a blow. It is of no moment to analyse one
another. The best knowledge of another is gained
through harmony of heart; there is no need for analysis.
I started by saying that the cultivation of relations
with the so-called dead is specially needed to-day,
because not from choice, but simply through the
evolution of humanity, we live in an epoch of material-
ism. Because we are not able to cultivate fully all our
85
capacities for thought, feeling and perception before we
die, because something remains over when we pass
through the gate of death, it is necessary for the living
to maintain the right intercourse with the dead, so that
ordinary life may be enriched. If we could but bring to
the hearts of men to-day the fact that life is impover-
ished if the dead are forgotten! And the right way of
thinking about the dead can be developed only by those
who are in some way connected with them by karma.
When we strive for direct intercourse with a dead
person, similar to intercourse with the living—if we
cultivate intercourse with the dead in this way—the
dead are really present, and their thoughts, not com-
pleted in their own life-time, will work into this life.
All this certainly makes a very exacting demand on our
age. But it has to be said if one is convinced by spiritual
facts that our social life, our ethical and religious life,
would be endlessly enriched if the living allowed them-
selves to be ‘“‘advised” by the dead. To-day people are
disinclined to consult even those who have come to a
mature age. Nowadays it is thought to be quite right
for a member of a Town or State Council to be as
young as possible, for at that age he is already mature
enough for anything—in his own opinion. In the days
when there was a better knowledge of the being of man,
he would have had to reach a certain age before serving
on any council. Now people have to wait until others
are dead in order to receive advice from them! Never-
theless, our epoch in particular ought to be willing to
heed the counsel of the dead, for improvement will
86
come only when people are willing to listen to their
advice.
Spiritual Science demands energy: that must be
clearly understood. Spiritual Science demands of a man
that he follow a certain course; he must really strive for
consistency and clearness. We are faced with the
necessity of searching for clear insight into the present
disasters; this is of the utmost importance. Such things
as we have been discussing are connected, more closely
than is supposed, with the great demands of our time. I
have tried this winter, and—many years before this
world-catastrophe—in my lectures on the European
Folk-Souls, to point out much which is to be found
to-day in the general situation of humanity. A certain
understanding of the influences that are playing into
the events of to-day can be derived from reading the
course of lectures I gave in Christiania on ‘“The Mission
of the Folk-Souls.”’ It is not too late: these lectures
can still help you to understand a great deal that will
happen during the years immediately ahead.
How the peoples of the earth are related to one another
to-day is really comprehensible only to someone who
can perceive the spiritual impulses. The time is fast
approaching when it will be necessary to ask: How are
the perception and thought of the East related to those
of Europe, especially of Mid-Europe? Again, how are
they related to those of the West, of America? These
questions in all their possible variations ought to arise
before the souls of men. Even now we should ask: How
does the Oriental regard the Europe of to-day? The
87
Oriental who scrutinises Europe carefully has the feeling
that European civilisation is leading to a deadlock, and
has already led to an abyss. He feels that he dare not
lose the spirituality he has brought over from ancient
times when he receives what Europe can give him. He
does not disdain European machines, but he says—
and these are the actual words of a renowned Oriental:
“We will accept the European’s tools and machines,
but we will keep them in the workshops, not in our
temples and homes, as he does.’’ He says that the
European has lost the faculty to perceive the spirit in
Nature, to see the beauty in Nature. When the Oriental
looks upon what he alone can see—that the European
wants to confine himself to outer mechanism, to the
externally perceptible, in his actions and his thoughts
—he believes that he is called upon to reawaken the
old spirituality, to rescue the old spirituality of earthly
humanity. The Oriental who speaks in a concrete way
of spiritual realities says (as Rabindranath Tagore did a
short while ago): Europeans have drawn into their
civilisation those impulses which could be invoked only
by harnessing Satan to their car of civilisation; they
make use of the forces of Satan for their progress. The
Oriental is called upon—so Rabindranath Tagore
believes—to cast out Satan and bring back spirituality
to Europe.
Here we have a phenomenon which, unfortunately, is
too easily overlooked. We have experienced many
things, but in our evolution we have left out of account
much that might have been brought in if our
88
civilisation had nurtured a spiritual element such as
that which comes from Goethe (I will mention only
this one name). Someone might say: The Oriental can
look towards Europe and know that Goethe was part
of European life. He can know this—but does he
see it? It might be said: The Germans have founded a
Society, the ‘Goethe Society.”” Let us suppose the
Oriental wished to be well-informed about it and to
understand what it really is. (The big question of East
and West comes in here; it depends ultimately on
spiritual impulses.) He would say to himself: Goethe’s
influence worked on so strongly that in 1879 an oppor-
tunity came to make Goethe fruitful for German
civilisation in an unusual way, under favourable
circumstances. In that year a Princess, the Grand
Duchess Sophia of Weimar, with her entourage, took
over the whole body of Goethe’s writings in order to
care for them as had never been done for any other
writer before. That is so. Let us, however, consider the
Goethe Society as an outer instrument. It, too, exists.
A few years ago the post of President fell vacant. In the
whole realm of intellectual life only one person, a
former Minister of Finance, was found suitable to be
elected as President of the Society! That is what is to be
seen outwardly. Such things are more important than is
usually supposed. What is more necessary is that the
Oriental, ardent for spirituality and wise in it, should
come to know that there is in European civilisation an
anthroposophical Spiritual Science; but that is some-
thing he cannot know. It cannot reach him, because it
89
cannot get through the existing state of things—
because the President of the Goethe Society is a retired
Minister of Finance. Of course that is only one symptom
of the times—I could give many more examples of the
same kind.
Now there is a third demand made by Spiritual
Science. It calls for an incisive form of thinking in line
with reality; a form of thinking which leaves no room
for vague compromises. During my last tour I was
handed something with a bearing on a fact already
known to me. I will read you only a short extract from
a periodical:
To anyone who has ever sat on a school bench, the
hours when he “enjoyed” the conversations between
Socrates and his friends in “‘Plato’’ will ever be memor-
able on account of the prodigious tediousness of these
dialogues. He remembers, perhaps, that he found them
absolutely idiotic, but, of course, he did not dare to
express this opinion, for the man in question was after all
Socrates, the Greek philosopher. Alexander Moszkowski’s
book, Socrates the Idiot, duly does away with this quite
unjustified overvaluation of the worthy Athenian. The
universal historian, Moszkowski, undertakes in this small,
entertaining book nothing less than to divest Socrates of
almost all his dignity as a philosopher. The title ‘‘Socrates
the Idiot” is meant literally. One will not go wrong in
assuming that this book will give rise to a great deal of
learned discussion.
Anyone hearing this will first of all be inclined to say:
How does so extraordinary a thing come about that a
man such as Alexander Moszkowski should wish to
go
furnish proof that Socrates was an idiot? That is the
first impression; but it is really a compromise. It does
not arise from clear, incisive thinking, a confronting of
actual reality.
I should like to compare this with something else.
There are books written on the life of Jesus from the
standpoint of psychiatry. They examine all that Jesus
did from the standpoint of modern psychiatry and
compare it with various abnormal actions, and the
modern psychiatrist then proves from the Gospels that
Jesus must have been an abnormal man, an epileptic,
and that the Gospels can be understood only from the
Pauline point of view, and so on. All this has been
discussed in great detail.
It is very simple to pass lightly over these things;
but the truth lies somewhat deeper. If we take the
standpoint of modern psychiatry, in its officially recog-
nised form, then, if we reflect on the life of Jesus, we
must come to the same conclusion as the authors of
these books. We could not think differently or we should
be dishonest, not in the true sense a modern psychia-
trist. Nor should we be true modern psychiatrists, in
the sense of Alexander Moszkowski, if we did not regard
Socrates as an idiot. Moszkowski differs from those
modern psychiatrists who do not regard Socrates as
an idiot only in that they are dishonest. He is honest;
he makes no compromise. It is not possible to be
honest and to adopt the standpoint of Alexander
Moszkowski without regarding Socrates as an idiot. If a
man wishes to be both an adherent of the modern
g1I
scientific outlook and yet to esteem Socrates without
regarding him as an idiot, he is dishonest. So, too, is a
modern psychiatrist who takes as valid the life of
Jesus. Modern man, however, does not wish to go as
far as this clear standpoint, or he would have to put the
question quite differently. He would have to say to
himself: I do not regard Socrates as an idiot; I have
learned to know him better; but that requires me to
reject Moszkowski’s philosophy. In Jesus, too, I see the
greatest bearer of ideas who has ever come into touch
with earthly life; but this requires me to reject modern
psychiatry!
What we are concerned with is the necessity for clear
thinking, a thinking in accord with reality, which does
not slip into the usual lazy compromises that are
common enough in life and can be excluded only if one
sees them in their true light. It is easy to be filled with
indignation if one is asked to swallow Moszkowski’s
proof that Socrates was an idiot. But if one follows out
the implications of the modern philosophy of life, then
from this standpoint it is quite correct to regard
Socrates as an idiot. People to-day, however, do not
wish to draw these logical conclusions; they are
reluctant to relinquish anything lke the modern
philosophy of life, or they might find themselves in an
even more troublesome position. They would then have
to make compromises, and perhaps admit that Socrates
was no idiot; but suppose it then appeared that—
Moszkowski is an idiot? Well, he is not a great man; but
Q2
if the same kind of test were applied to much greater
men, all sorts of worse things might happen!
Yes, in order to penetrate into the spiritual world, a
thinking that corresponds to reality is essential. And
this requires, on the other hand, that we see clearly how
things stand. Thoughts are real entities, and untrue
thoughts are bad, obstructive, destructive entities. It
is no use concealing the fact that a man is untruthful
if he allows the outlook of Moszkowski to rank on an
equal footing with the outlook of Socrates. To place
them side by side in one’s soul, as the modern man does,
is an untrue act of thought. A man is truthful only if he
clearly recognises the alternatives: either he takes the
standpoint of pure mechanism, as Moszkowski does, and
therefore regards Socrates as an idiot—then he is being
truthful. Or else he knows that Socrates was no idiot,
and then he will be in duty bound to see clearly how
firmly the other alternative must be rejected. Truthful-
ness is an ideal that people to-day should set up in
their souls; for thoughts are realities. Untrue thoughts,
however well they may be wrapped in a veil of indul-
gence towards their true character, are realities which
set back the world and humanity.
93
LECTURE V
MAN’S CONNECTION WITH THE SPIRITUAL
WORLD
In the course of time, if humanity is to fulfil its
necessary mission, people will have to approach the
spiritual world perceptively. They will soon have to
come to know with conviction that a true creative
knowledge of the world and its connections with man
extends far beyond what can be fathomed by physical
science and the intellectual processes bound up with it.
Man knows only a small part of the real world—the
active part in which he himself is active—if he applies
himself only to what is perceptible through the senses
and can be verified by the sense-bound intellect.
We have seen how a man can, as it were, refine his
observation and extend it to various things which
remain unnoticed in life, because he pays attention
only to what happens in waking life from morning to
evening and leaves out of account what might have
happened if it had not been prevented. We need only
reflect upon how a man might, for instance, be pre-
vented by a visitor from starting out at the time he
intended; having intended to start at eleven o'clock,
a4
he was delayed for half-an-hour. We realise that under
certain circumstances—obviously not always—the
course of the day would have been quite different if he
had gone out at the hour intended; how something
quite different would have happened to him in that
half-hour had he not been detained. If we reflect how
many events of a similar kind meet us in the course of a
day, we shall gain an idea of all that might have
happened. If we feel this—rather than think it—we
shall be able to compare the concept of what might
have happened between morning and night with what
really did occur, according to the sequence of cause and
effect.
To obtain a really clear idea of these things, it is well
to compare them with similar things in Nature; for
certain things occur in Nature which must be judged in
the same way. I have often pointed, for example, to the
continual loss of vast numbers of seeds. Just think
how little of the herring spawn becomes herring, and
how much of it is lost in the course of a year. If we
extend this idea to life as a whole, we should try to
realise how many fertile seeds never come to fruition,
how many fail to attain to fully-developed, thriving life.
But we must not suppose that they are not part of
reality. They belong just as much to reality as does
everything that comes to full development. They
simply stop short at a certain point and take a different
course, just as do the events in our own lives when we
are prevented from doing something. On the one hand
we have these events in life; on the other, events in
95
Nature which are obstructed and therefore take a
different course.
This conception can be extended yet further. We may
ask ourselves whether something else, which arises as a
puzzling question in human life, does not resemble
these two examples. We know that the normal duration
of life is seventy to ninety years, but that the majority
of people die much earlier; in them the full compass of
life is not attained. As in Nature some seeds are held
back at a certain stage and do not come to full maturity,
so is it with the life-processes of man; and again we have
seen that our daily actions may not come to full
maturity for the reasons mentioned above. All this can
make us aware that between the lines of life there is a
great deal that goes unnoticed and, instead of becoming
physically perceptible, remains in spiritual realms.
If we do not regard such things as merely fanciful,
but really reflect fruitfully upon them, we find the
bridge leading, if not to conclusive proof, yet to some
very significant ideas. Thus for the ordinary trans-
actions of life we consider what we ought to do and then
carry out what we have decided upon. The course of
life, however, does not run so simply that we have only
to decide what we are going to do and then do it; on
the contrary, many things may intervene which often
look like a series of ‘‘accidents,” or those irregular
“chance” happenings which we call “our fate.” For
those who think in a materialistic way, fate is simply
made up of events which they encounter day by day.
True, many have an inkling that a certain “plan”
96
underlies this fate; but to develop further this perception
of a ‘‘plan,’”’ by continuing to notice in what way it is
_ gradually worked out, is not as a rule considered
particularly important. To-day the so-called analytical
| psychology, psycho-analysis, comes upon many things
which are making themselves felt at the threshold of
consciousness; but the representatives of analytical
psychology approach these things with inadequate
means of knowledge. Let us repeat a paradoxical
example often used by psycho-analysts, for at this
early stage in the history of psycho-analysis it has
_ served to show that there are various ‘‘spiritual’’
| things in life of which the ordinary man has no notion.
A lady was invited to an evening party; the party was
given because the hostess was about to start on a
journey that evening. She was leaving for a health
resort. The entertainment went off perfectly. The
_ hostess started for her destination, the guests leaving
at the same time. One group walked in the road, and
as they went along a cab came round the corner—I say
advisedly a cab, not a motor-car. The cab tore down the
street. One of the ladies separated from the others. The
rest all got out of the way of the cab, but this lady had
the peculiar idea of running along in front of the horse.
As she ran on—with the horse behind her—the thought
came to her that she must do something to save herself
from this situation. She came to a bridge over the
river, and she thought that if she threw herself into the
water, she would be safe from the horse. But the other
guests, as you may imagine, ran after her and finally
97
7J—EDACL
seized hold of her. The result was that she was taken
back to the house they had just left and was thus able
to continue a flirtation with the host, which she had
begun at the party.
The psycho-analyst here seeks for ‘“hidden provinces
of the soul.” He finds that when this lady was a child,
she had had certain adventures with horses, and these
now rose from subconscious depths. Anyone who
knows the soul-life of man, however, will not be able to
accept all this nonsense; for if these hidden provinces
of the soul exist (which is not to be denied), it is only
in order to prepare an experience for which the soul is
seeking; they are themselves not involved in this
experience. The real point is that every human being
—including the lady here in question—has an instinc-
tive, a “‘sub-conscious’”’ consciousness which, under
certain circumstances, is much more cunning and subtle
than the surface consciousness. In this instance the
consciousness of the lady acted in a somewhat clumsy
way, but her lower instinctive consciousness worked
far more subtly. From it arose the thought: “‘To-day
the lady of the house has gone away; I must see how I
can manage to meet the husband. I must think of
something, and take ‘the first opportunity that occurs.”
The lower consciousness was even a little prophetic; it
divined in advance what would happen if she ran
before the horse. All this could be arranged with great
cunning by the lower consciousness. The surface con-
sciousness was not so clever; but the lower had this
cunning, which is greatly enhanced when a certain
98
prophetic gift steps in. This example is cited as a
particular case of something which exists universally.
Everyone bears within him something which works
much more widely and intensively in many directions
than does his ordinary consciousness. If a man were
conscious of al] that he actually knows in his lower
consciousness, he would be exceedingly clever and able
to plan with great subtlety.
We might now ask: Is that which lives in the lower
consciousness of man quite inactive? For those who
understand how to observe the world spiritually, it is
not inactive. On the contrary, it is continually active.
In the case of this lady—and in similar cases—it comes
to light only in an abnormal way under the influence of
certain special events, desires and inclinations, but it is
always present in man in a certain region and it accom-
panies him through his whole waking life. How is this?
The reason why, for the lady, it manifested in this way
is because this subconscious knowledge sometimes
exceeds its bounds. It even happens with ordinary
consciousness that a man does something which is
really unusual, really exceptional: so too with the
subconscious. In these cases, however, it is only a
special outcome of something which is always active in
man. How is it active?
What we call our destiny is really a very complicated
matter. It appears to approach us in such a way that
events “befall” us. Let us take a striking example from
familiar experience. Suppose someone gets to know
another person who later becomes friend, husband, or
ee)
wife. The surface consciousness would explain this as
“befalling’”’ us, and would declare that we have done
nothing ourselves to bring the other person into our
life. The truth is however, quite otherwise.
With that power which rests in subconscious depths
we lay out our life from the moment we are born—and
even more when we begin to say “‘I’’—so directing our
life’s course that at a definite moment it crosses the
path of another. People are not aware of the remark-
able discoveries they would make if they were to trace
out the course of someone’s life up to a particular
point—the point, let us say, when a man becomes
engaged. If the man himself were to observe how he
developed through his childhood and youth, passing
from place to place, until he met the person to whom
he was to be betrothed, he would find that things did
not merely happen to him, but that he had moved with
purpose towards his meeting with the other. His whole
life was pervaded by the quest; his whole destiny was
such a quest. We must, of course, realise that this
quest follows a different course from that of actions
undertaken as a result of ordinary reflection. These
latter go straightforwardly ahead; the actions which
arise from the subconscious take a strongly personal
course—but a subconscious purpose is then at work.
It is not correct to speak of the ‘“‘unconscious’’; we
should say “‘subconsciousness”’ or lower consciousness,
for it is “unconscious” only for our ordinary con-
sciousness. In the case of the lady who so cunningly
contrived to return to the house of her host, the lower
I00
consciousness was much more conscious in itself than
was the lady herself in her upper consciousness. So it is
also with the direction of our life; our destiny is a
specially woven pattern which guides us and is very,
very conscious. This does not prevent a man from
finding constant fault with his destiny; but if he could
survey all the factors, he would find that he could
agree to everything. The upper consciousness, not being
so alert as the lower, judges the facts of the latter
falsely, and says to itself: ‘“Something I do not like has
befallen me,”
with deep deliberation the very thing that with his
upper consciousness he regards as “unsympathetic.” A
knowledge of the deeper connections would show that a
more intelligent thinker within him had sought the
things which became his destiny. What does all this
depend on?
It depends on the fact that our ordinary head-
consciousness, of which many are so vain, is, so to
speak, a sieve. (When we discuss things for which
ordinary language has no suitable words, we can, of
course, speak only by comparisons, but the ““compari-
sons’ correspond to realities). This is a comparison, but
an adequate one, and it points to a reality. When one
pours water into a sieve, it runs through; it does not
fill the sieve. Things that are thought and pondered
over, and later come to expression in the web of
destiny, pass through our head-consciousness as though
through a sieve. Hence in our upper consciousness we
whereas, in reality, the man has sought
Io.Lt
know nothing of them. But the subconsciousness does
not let them go; down there they live on.
Some day, when Natural Science is studied logically,
people will ask themselves: What is the difference
between man and the animal in this respect? In the
case of the animal these experiences go right through it;
the whole animal is a sieve. In the case of man they are
certainly not retained in the head, yet they are retained
by the whole man. Since in ordinary life only the head
thinks, not the whole man, these experiences are
generally not taken into our thinking. Only in hysteria,
which is due to the other part of man beginning to
think—a form of illness which should normally not
occur—do we find exceptional cases when someone
makes his destiny, so to speak, as this lady did. So the
originating experience is retained, and from this
emerges a very remarkable point. Why do such experi-
ences pass right through the animal, but are retained in
man?
Because the animal has no hands; that is, its limbs,
whether legs or wings, are always united with the
earth. Because man has remodelled the limbs which in
animals are either legs or wings, his arms and hands
are so inserted in his organism that he retains his
thoughts within him, in his destiny. But he cannot
think with his hands; he can only keep hold of his
destiny with them; hence he overlooks his destiny. The
hands are just as much “‘organs of thought”’ as is the
etheric part of the head. As regards thought, the
etheric head does something very similar to what man
102
does in life with his hands; with his hands he arrests
within himself the stream of actions which flow through
his destiny. Man is so organised that only the coarser
reasoning activity of hands and arms comes to expres-
sion. Everyone knows that in the hands, above all in
the finger-tips, he has a special sense of perception;
but there it displays only its coarsest aspect. Here
we have to do with something very delicate. The
thinking which man develops in his hands, and can
bring to expression through artistic activity, is very
faint, scarcely a glimmer; nevertheless the hands are so
inserted into man’s whole organism that they are the
organs of thought for his destiny. In the present cycle
of evolution, man has not yet learnt to think with his
hands. Were he to do so, were he to know their secrets,
they would lead him to a knowledge of the funda-
mental laws that govern the interconnections of
destiny.
This may seem very strange, but it is true. We have
here a point where Spiritual Science says: In the hands,
which develop a subconscious thinking, destiny is an
object of thought. Natural Science, at present, pays no
attention to this. Since it observes the human organism
only very crudely, it naturally comes to the con-
clusion that man is only a more perfect animal. This
he is indeed; but in what is not observed lies the
essential difference between man and animal. Let us
reflect: What is the position of the head in the animal?
Its head rests directly over the earth. The head is so
placed in man that he carries it himself, whereas in the
103
animal it is the earth which carries it. In man the
central line of gravity of the head falls, so to speak,
into the organism before meeting the earth; it passes
through the diaphragm. Man stands in the same
relation to himself as the animal stands to the earth.
If we take the central line of gravity of the animal’s
head, it falls directly to the earth, without passing
through the diaphragm. The orientation of the human
organism to the whole cosmos is the essential point in
man; and with this is connected the fact that his arms
and hands are organised differently from the corres-
ponding limbs of the animal.
In the future, Natural Science will begin to ask: How
is man related dynamically to the forces of the universe?
The fact that man is not a quadruped but a two-handed
being is due to the cosmos. And he holds himself in such
a way, when thus organised from the cosmos, that the
central line of gravity of his head falls within himself,
and he becomes his own earth. Because in a particular
way he has separate control of his hands and arms, his
hands on their part can grasp destiny—just as the
organisation of the head is connected with his upright
position. Man has his superior brain because the central
line of gravity of his head passes through him, instead
of falling directly to the earth.
In the universe there are forces everywhere, and
when something is differently orientated, the propor-
tions of the whole are changed. This is admitted as
regards inorganic Nature, but is not yet observed with
regard to man. How the material works over against
104
thespiritualin manisnot at present considered, nor howin
him the spiritual everywhere works through the material.
That is one side of the subject. Now we can say: We
fix our attention on man, and observe how he rests on
his own diaphragm; and when with our subconscious
being we think right down to the diaphragm, we come
to understand our destiny, whereas in our surface
consciousness we live only in the understanding of our
considered acts. But man stands within life in yet
another way. For as we have seen—if we do not
consider only his head but his whole organism—man
does in reality ponder his destiny; subconsciously he
ponders it and so he determines it and knows it.
There is yet another thing in human life. We perform
actions. These actions call forth in us a certain satis-
faction—or dissatisfaction. Suppose we have done
someone a good turn which has given us satisfaction,
or suppose we have to guard against something un-
pleasant. Thus there are various things that a man
brings about by his actions, but we do not only carry
through actions and in so doing experience conscious
satisfaction or otherwise. We can see this best if with
Spiritual Science we investigate actions that enter less
deeply into our lives, actions that need not even have
moral significance, e.g. the act of chopping wood. The
action of chopping wood causes fatigue. Now people
have various ideas about fatigue. We know from the
public lecture on ‘“‘Nature and her Riddles in the light
of spiritual Research’* that people imagine they fall
* 7th March, 1918.
105
asleep from fatigue; that the cause of falling asleep is
fatigue. Everyone knows that fatigue accompanies
actions such as chopping wood; but this fatigue has a
far deeper significance when examined in the light of
Spiritual Science. We experience it as what we call
fatigue, but it is really something quite different. We
can easily realise that the fatigue aroused by such
actions is a twofold process. (Actions that enter more
into our moral or intellectual life are only more subtle
in this respect ; the point is not so obvious as it is with
an elementary act such as wood-cutting.) First we use
the upsurging forces of life connected with growth;
when these are exhausted a process of destruction takes
place in our organism. This process is experienced as
fatigue, which is really a stunning of consciousness, the
deeper significance of which we experience as something
quite other than a mere consequence—-in this case—of
wood-cutting. Fatigue, for our ordinary life, is only a
stunning of consciousness. What do we really experi-
ence?
This, of course, we can answer only with the aid of
Spiritual Science. When we are fatigued from wood-
cutting, then in those parts of man’s spiritual organism
which are also called lotus-flowers*, a certain radiation,
a real radiation, can be seen coming from one of the
lotus-flowers. That is one effect; but it does not enter
into our ordinary consciousness. What does come to our
* See Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment,
pp. 84-112; also Occult Science—an Outline, pp. 256-61.
106
consciousness is being sent to sleep; hence we are not
aware of the raying-out, which is something truly
spiritual. We can understand this even better if, in
order to keep in mind the spirituality of this radiation,
we observe an action that is exposed to moral judg-
ments. Suppose that instead of cutting wood we have
done something to which a moral judgment is appli-
cable. Moral judgments are generally regarded as
relevant only to a very limited sphere, but in reality
they have a much wider significance. Everything a
man does—even a single action—has a value for the
whole course of human evolution. This judgment as to
how much an action is worth in the course of human
evolution is usually just as little understood by the head
as are the acts of destiny; but instead of allowing this
judgment to pass through his being as through a sieve,
a man rays it forth through the lotus-flowers. Every
human being continually exercises a subconscious
judgment, a valuation, of each one of his actions. He
may be an “‘angelic’”’ being and do good to all men. The
value of such modes of action as regards the whole
evolution of humanity is judged in his subconsciousness
—very objectively—and this judgment is often quite
different from what the surface consciousness might
suppose. Again, a man may be a thief; while he com-
mits the theft he judges his action quite objectively in
its effects on the whole process of human evolution; and
this he rays out from him unhesitatingly through the
lotus-flowers. In the same way as the judgments of our
own destiny, which pass through our head as through a
107
sieve, are retained by our arms and hands, so the
judgments which we pass on our actions, and even on
the actions of our thoughts, are guided with the help
of our astral lotus-flower organisation; they ray out
through our lotus-flower organisation as a light going
from us—and this light extends very far. It passes over
into time; it does not remain in space. That is why the
lotus-flowers are so difficult to imagine, for they are in
continual movement; they are continually making the
transition to time. Space there actually becomes time.
Man casts a light before him in such a way that it
passes into time, a continuous light which extends far
beyond death. Throughout life there is in our sub-
consciousness a part of us who judges. As there is a
part of us who thinks our destiny, so there is a part of
us who passes judgment on all our actions; and we ray
out this judgment as a light.
This again, being an “‘imaginative”’ action, is express-
ed in a picture, but the picture corresponds to a
reality. A man’s life is such that a light streams far out
from it, as though from a searchlight. This must not be
imagined spatially, but in time. A man of forty performs
some act; his life passes on through the fifties and the
sixties, then through death, and on into the existence
between death and rebirth; and as he passes through
that existence, he experiences, stage by stage, all that
during his earthly life continually streamed out from
his lotus-flowers. He encounters everything he rayed
out into the future. This again, expressed pictorially,
is as though he were roused by a searchlight which
108
shines far out, and he follows its course, saying to
himself: ‘All my deeds shine out there; I shall meet
them all again.”” Only it is the judgment of his deeds
which he meets in the life between death and rebirth.
Thus again we find that there exists in the human
being a permanent critic of his own actions, and of
what they project into his own future. Here, too, if we
wish, we can approach Natural Science. Because man
is built to stand upright, and because the physical basis
of his ordinary consciousness rests upon himself as
upon its own earth, therefore at the places of the
lotus-flowers the effects of the course of his life are
retained. They are retained there, broken at right
angles and sent out into life.
Thus we see how that which is otherwise described
only in general terms as ‘‘the unconscious”’ enters into
human life in a complicated but thoroughly discernible
way. Precisely because man is shut off below by his
diaphragm, he is connected through his subconscious
to his destiny. In the animal, this radiation through
the lotus-flowers does not come into consideration.
Why? This depends on the orientation of the animal
in the universe. Because man’s spine is vertical, at
right angles to that of the animal, he develops all that
the animal cannot develop. For the animal’s spine is
horizontal and not vertical, and the two things neu-
tralise one another. Hence the animal can set no
“critic’ by its side, nor send any judgment of its
actions during life into the future. Much will emerge
when Natural Science realises that it is required to do
109
more than merely cling to the trivial view that the
limbs of the animal can be compared in structure and
form with those of man, or the head of the animal with
that of man. Man has indeed a more perfect brain, but
otherwise the human head does not differ so much from
that of the animal; therefore a materialistic theory can
easily attach man to the animal kingdom. What does
distinguish man from the animal kingdom is his
orientation in the universe. If people would only study
this, they would arrive quite scientifically at a very
different point of view. Here Spiritual Science will
point the way, as in other fields, by calling attention to
definite life-processes which can be seen with under-
standing only when the right guidance from Spiritual
Science has been received.
Man is thus so organised that within him there is
“another man” who is far more intelligent and subtle
in the judgment of destiny than he is himself, and also
“another man’’ who is a much more objective critic
than he himself can be in his ordinary consciousness.
As a rule, a man does not closely watch his own actions.
The critic within him remains subconscious, and
becomes conscious only between death and rebirth,
when that “‘light’”’ already mentioned is encountered
stage by stage. By means, however, of a logical, incisive
consideration of life, we can arrive at seeing the various
ways in which this critic behaves in different
individuals.
Let us compare two types of men in life. One type is
often called a “‘busybody.” There are people who
IIo
never have time for anything; they must be continually
on the move; their hands—one might even say their
noses—must poke into everything. People do not think
much about this, they regard it as a mere habit, prob-
ably reflecting various subconscious factors. A fact
connected with this, however, is that during the
incarnation in which a man is a busybody, the critic
within him is playing a special part. These subconscious
critics have individual characteristics of their own,
and this comes to light after death. In such a case (it
is very good to be able to speak of these things with
humour, for if a man does not let humour dry up when
he enters Spiritual Science, he can overcome the mood
which is so prejudicial to Spiritual Science)—in the
case of a busybody, this critic is a sort of “‘actor,”’
liking very much to be seen, not only by men but by
all sorts of spiritual beings; his pleasure is to be always
on view as he runs about in the midst of the teeming
activities of the spiritual world. And from this desire
to be seen, which turns into an unconscious driving
force, arises a busybody.
Let us now take the opposite type of character: the
man who fulfils the tasks laid upon him by life, the
tasks to which life urges him. He is not to be seen
everywhere; he acts where he is not seen, where life
requires him to be. In this case, too, the critic plays a
special part, derived from an unconscious belief that
whatever a man does—even if it is not seen by the
swarming spirits, as a busybody would like it to be—
is not unavailing; that no force is unavailing in the
Tit
world but has its significance there. This beautiful
belief, that ‘“Whatsoever I do, even if the result should
not appear for a thousand years, will in some way have
its significance for the general life of the world,” is a
basic characteristic of the opposite type to the busy-
body. A certain tranquillity in the world, a quiet
assurance, arises from this belief.
We can see from this how life is elucidated when we
realise that a man’s connections in life are not only those
externally apparent, but include connections based on
his relation to the spiritual world.
I have spoken of these things to-day chiefly in order
to bring out two elements in the human being: first,
the element so connected with the physical organisation
of man between birth and death that it reveals itself
as a lower consciousness, of which the arms and hands
are the organs of thought—organs of thought in this
remarkable way, that they give distinctive methods of
expression to what passes through the head as through
a sieve. In this respect man is a remarkable vessel: as
regards his knowledge of destiny his head is a sieve;
but when the thoughts which make destiny have passed
through the sieve, they are retained by the hands and
arms.
The other element in man is that which rays out
through the lotus-flowers and passes into the life
between death and rebirth. Much of importance
depends upon the relations which are set up between
these two streams. If we consider the whole man in this
way, thinking particularly of the plane of the dia-
LEZ
phragm, we see him as a dual being. In his upper being,
something, an experience, entering into him, stops short
at the plane of the diaphragm, arrested by the force of
the arms and hands, and this happens because man is a
vertical being, not horizontal like the animal. The other
being—strange as it may sound, but the world is full
of riddles—reveals himself in such a way that the legs
and feet are related to him as the arms are to the first
being. This second being is connected with the earth.
For one really sees the rays coming up through the
earth and penetrating man, where they are guided by
the lotus-flowers and sent out into the future. Thus we
have these two streams, showing man as a dual being.
In ordinary life the two streams are separated, and on
this fact life rests. Were they united, life would not be
as it actually is. For if they flowed together, man could
not develop an ego-consciousness, since this depends
upon their being kept apart. Yet they are only partly
separated, for in one sense they do still flow together.
It is so indeed. It is possible, through man’s own
endeavour, for the stream which rays out from him,
raying out into the life between death and rebirth, to
be united, outside the human organism, with those
other, incoming rays which are held back by the arms
before they can pass through the sieve. Thus there are
these two streams, which generally pass through the
body without coming together; but if they are held
back in this way, they can be united. And this union
makes it possible for man to meet with the dead—
with those who have passed through the gate of death.
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8—EDACL
To-day I have given you this description of the two
streams in order that it may serve as an introduction to
a further consideration, from another side, of the
relationship that can be formed between the living and
the dead.
114
LECTURE VI
FEELINGS OF UNITY AND SENTIMENTS
OF GRATITUDE: A BRIDGE TO THE DEAD
WE have spoken of intimate questions concerning the
life of the human soul, questions suited to prepare us
for concepts which extend to the relations between the
so-called living—those inhabiting physical bodies—
and disembodied souls, living between death and
rebirth. In dealing with such a theme the main point is
to make ourselves acquainted with certain fundamental
concepts which will indicate how we should and can
think in such connections; for the reality of these
relations does not depend upon whether people living
here on earth are conscious of any relations with the
dead, or with any being in the spiritual world at all.
This is obvious to anyone who reflects on these things;
but precisely in the realm of Spiritual Science it is often
necessary to make the “‘obvious”’ clear.
A man always stands in relation to the spiritual
world; he is always in a certain connection with those
of the dead who are united with him by karma. It is
most emphatically one thing to speak of the “‘reality”’
of this relationship, and another to speak of the
II5
stronger or weaker awareness we may have of it. It is
important for everyone—even for people who feel that
such awareness is utterly remote from them—to
Jearn what it has to tell, for it speaks of realities which
are always around them. Precisely in regard to the
relations of the so-called living with the so-called
dead, we must be clear that this relation is in some ways
more difficult to bring to consciousness than our rela-
tion to other beings of the spiritual world. To attain,
through seeing and perceiving, a consciousness of the
Beings of the higher Hierarchies, even to receive a
distinct revelation of them, is relatively easier than to
become conscious of a quite definite relation to the
dead—that is, to become aware of them in a true and
rightful way. This is for the following reasons.
During the time between death and rebirth, man
passes through conditions very different from the life-
relations of the physical world. You need only look at
the course of lectures on the life between death and
rebirth to see that in speaking of this we have to use
thoughts and concepts quite different from those we
apply to the physical world.* Why do they have to be
so different? It is because between death and rebirth
man anticipates, in a sense, certain conditions which
will become life-conditions only during the next—the
Jupiter—Earth-embodiment. Man lives in such a way
that what he now experiences between death and
rebirth anticipates—although in a subtler, more
* The Inner Nature of Man and the Life between Death and
Rebirth.
116
spiritual form—the life-conditions of the Jupiter-
evolution. Because in his Earthly-life man has, in a
sense, retained something from the earlier embodiments
of the Earth—the Moon, Sun and Saturn stages—so
during his life between death and rebirth he receives
something that belongs to the future. On the other
hand, the Beings of the higher Hierarchies, in so far
as man can examine them with human perception, are
all united--united in an immediate, present way—
with the whole spiritual world, of course, but with the
spiritual world in so far as it is passing through a
certain form at the present time. In the future, they
will reveal that future. Paradoxical as this may sound,
it is true.
It sounds paradoxical, because the question may
arise as to how the Beings of the higher Hierarchies
bring their activity to bear on the dead, if the dead
already carry something of the future within them.
Of course the Beings of the higher Hierarchies also
carry something of the future within them and are
able to shape it; but they do not do so without also
shaping something which is directly characteristic of
the present. For this reason a perception of what the
higher Hierarchies accomplish forms, as it were, a
preparation for becoming conscious of intercourse with
the dead. Not until a man has brought about a more or
less conscious perception of the Beings of the higher
Hierarchies in his soul will it be possible for him
gradually to become conscious, through his faculties
of perception and feeling, of anything concerning
117
intercourse with the dead. I do not mean that he must
become aware of the higher Hierarchies clairvoyantly;
but in so far as Spiritual Science offers the possibility
of it, he must understand what flows into existence
from the higher Hierarchies. In all these things the
understanding is the chief thing. If a man takes the
trouble to understand them by means of Spiritual
Science, those conditions of existence can certainly
arise which call up something of a union of the so-called
living with the so-called dead. For the understanding
of this it is necessary to bear in mind the following.
The spiritual world in which man dwells between
death and rebirth has its own special conditions of
existence, conditions we can scarcely reckon with in
our ordinary life on earth. They sound strange and
paradoxical when they are given to us as part of a
general picture. Above all it must be borne in mind
that a man who wishes to experience such things
consciously must acquire what might be called a feeling
of unity in common with all existent things. One of the
necessary demands for the continuation of man’s
spiritual evolution from the present time, from this
disastrous present time, is that he should gradually
develop this feeling. [In the human subconscious a
lower variety of this feeling is thoroughly well estab-
lished. But we must not become pantheistic, prattling
of a “Universal Spirit’’; we must not speak in general
of this feeling of unity, but must be clear in concrete
detail as to how we can speak of it, how it is gradually
118
built up in the soul, for it is a life-experience. Then the
following comes into consideration.
We have often heard that when criminals, in whom
instinctive subconsciousness works very strongly, have
committed some particular crime, they have a peculiar
urge; they are drawn back to the place where they did
it; an indefinable feeling drives them back. But such
things only bring to expression a general human trait.
When we have done something, accomplished some-
thing, however seemingly unimportant, something of
it remains in us, something of what we have grasped
in the doing of it; from the forces with which we have
done it something remains connected with the ego.
This cannot be put otherwise, although of course it is
expressed as a kind of imagination. A man cannot avoid
torming certain connections with all the beings he meets
and the things he lays hold of (not, of course, physical
things only); the things with which he has something
to do in life. We leave our own distinctive marks on all
things, and a feeling of being bound up with the things
with which we have come into touch through our deeds
remains in our subconscious. In the case of criminals
this comes to expression in an abnormal way, because
there the subconscious flashes up very instinctively
into the ordinary consciousness; but in his subcon-
scious every man has the feeling that he must return
to the place with which he has come into touch through
his deeds.
This too is the basis of our karma; our karma arises
from it. From this subconscious feeling, which at first
119
emerges in a nebulous way, we have the general feeling
of unity with the world. Because everywhere we leave
our mark, we have this feeling. We can lay hold of it,
sense it, perceive it. For this, however, we must pay
attention to certain intimacies of life. We must try, for
instance, really to enter into the idea, “I am now
crossing a street’’; we then walk across, and afterwards
we still imagine ourselves crossing. By continued
exercises of this kind we call forth from the depths of
our soul a general feeling of unity with the world. And
for anyone who grows conscious of this feeling of unity,
in the more concrete sense, it so develops that he
ultimately says to himself: There is after all a connec-
tion, though an invisible one, between all things, as
between the members of a single organism. As each
finger, each lobe of the ear, all belonging to our organ-
ism, stand in connection with one another, so there is
a connection between all things and all that happens,
in so far as the occurrences take place in our world.
The Earth-men of to-day have as yet no fully valid
consciousness of this feeling of unity with all things,
this organic penetration into things; it remains in the
unconscious. In the Jupiter-evolution this feeling will
be the fundamental one, and as we gradually pass from
the fifth to the sixth post-Atlantean epoch we are
preparing for this. But the cultivation of this feeling
is necessary also for the present and the immediate
future; it must come to provide morals and ethics with
a definite foundation, much more actively related to
daily life than is anything of the kind to-day.
I20
I mean, for example, that many people to-day think
nothing of enriching themselves at the expense of
others. Not only do they live in this way without any
moral self-criticism; they simply do not think about it
at all. Were they to reflect upon it, they would find that
a man lives far more at the cost of others than they
had ever realised. Indeed, every man lives at the
expense of others. Now there will develop a conscious-
ness that a life lived at the expense of others signifies
the same for the community as when a particular organ
develops at the expense of another organ in an illegiti-
mate way, and that the welfare of the individual is
not really possible apart from that of the community.
To-day, of course, there is no inkling of this, but it must
gradually become the fundamental principle of true
human ethics. To-day everyone strives for his own
welfare, not thinking that individual welfare is funda-
mentally possible only in common with that of all the
rest. Thus there is a connection between the feeling of
community I have mentioned and the feeling that the
life of the whole community is an organism.
This latter feeling can be very greatly enhanced; it
can lead to an intimate experience of the feeling of
unity with all things around. If a man enhances this
intimate feeling, he gradually becomes able to receive
a perception of what I described as the “‘light”’ which
is thrown out beyond death into our evolution between
death and rebirth; a light we perceive and from which
we build our karma. I want only just to hint at this.
When a man develops this feeling of unity, he is able
I2I
to do something else also—to live with the idiosyn-
cracies, situations, thoughts and actions of another
person as though they were his own. This is connected
with a certain difficulty in the soul-life—the difficulty
of attuning ourselves in thought so closely to another
person that what he does, thinks and feels is felt as
our own. But it is only when a man thinks back fruit-
fully to what he had in common with someone who has
died, to whom he was karmically united, that he is
ready to reach the discarnate person; only when he is
able to re-experience what he experienced in common
with him—down to the slightest detail—and to think
of it as one thinks when one has this feeling of unity.
We can picture it to ourselves in this way. We think
of something which took place between ourselves and
one who is dead; how we sat at table with him, or
anything else, however small. But the possibility of
entering into this experience in the right way, so as to
get through to reality, comes to the soul only if the
soul is truly suffused with the feeling of unity; other-
wise the soul will lack the necessary strength. We must
understand that only from a place (speaking meta-
phorically) over which we can throw this “‘feeling of
unity” can the dead bring himself to our consciousness.
We can imagine it quite “‘spatially”’; we must of course
remain aware that we are only forming a picture of it;
but it is a picture of a true reality. We come back to
what I said before: we visualise a situation with the
dead, how we sat at table with him, walked with him,
and then we turn our whole soul-life in the direction
I22
of this thought. If we can but develop in the thought a
communion of soul with the dead that is in accordance
with the “‘feeling of unity,” then his gaze from the
spiritual world can find its way from these thoughts
to the reality, just as our thoughts can find the reality
to which they are directed. If you allow these loving
thoughts of the dead person to permeate your soul,
then your inward gaze can encounter his. In this way
he can speak to you. He can speak to you only from the
place towards which your feeling of unity with him is
directed. So are these things connected. We learn, as it
were, to feel our karma when we gain an idea of how
we leave behind everywhere the stamp of our thoughts;
we learn to identify ourselves with these things and
thus we develop the feeling that brings us into increas-
ingly conscious union with the dead. In this way it
first becomes possible for them to speak to us.
The other necessary thing is that we should be able
to hear this speaking—really perceive it at the time of
happening. For this we must above all pay heed to
what lies as “‘air,” so to speak, between us and the
dead person, so that he can speak to us across it. To
take a physical analogy, if there were an airless space
between us, you would not be able to hear what I am
saying; air must act as an intermediary. So, too, there
must be something between us and the dead if they are
to approach us. There must be, as it were, a ‘‘spiritual
air’; and we can now speak of the nature of this
spiritual air in which we live together with the dead.
Of what does it consist?
123
To understand this we must remember what I have
said in other connections as to how human memory
comes about, for these things are all connected.
Ordinary psychology says of human memory: “I now
have an impression from the outer world; it calls forth
a concept within me; this concept goes somehow into
my subconscious and is forgotten, but when any
special occasion arises, it comes back from the subcon-
scious—and then I remember.” Almost all psychologists,
as far as the memory is concerned, are of opinion that
the reason why a concept arises in man is because he
receives an impression—quickly forgotten—which sinks
down into the subconscious, until some incident brings
it back. A man “remembers,” and thinks he has the
same concept that he first formed. This is complete
nonsense—a piece of nonsense taught in almost all
psychology, but nonsense none the less, for what is
thus described does not take place at all. When through
an outer experience we receive an impression which
later we remember, it is not at all the same concept
we first formed that rises within us, for while we are
in the act of forming the concept, a second subconscious
process is going on. It does not come into consciousness
during the outer experience, but it takes place none
the less. And through a course of events of which we
will not speak just now, that which takes place in our
organism to-day, but remains unconscious, takes place
again to-morrow; and as to-day the outer impressions
called forth the concept, so the process that has gone
on working down below calls forth a new concept
124
to-morrow. A concept I have to-day passes away and
is gone; it no longer stirs my subconscious; but if
to-morrow the same concept rises from my memory,
this is because there is something within me which
calls forth the same concept; only now it is subcon-
sciously generated. Anyone who imagines that concepts
are taken into the subconscious, move about therein,
and finally emerge again from the soul should recollect
what happens when he writes down something he wants
to remember in three days’ time—let him suppose that
the man for whom this reminder is intended is there
in the notebook, and emerges from it again after
three days. Just as in the notebook there are only
“signs,’”’ so too in the memory there are only “‘signs”’
which call forth a repetition of something we have ex-
perienced, though certainly in a weaker form.*
Anyone who memorises, or in any way tries to instil
into his mind something he wants to retain, anyone
who crams—as we say when young—knows quite well
that perception alone is not sufficient; sometimes he
will have recourse to very external aids in order to
incorporate something into his memory. Let us observe
someone who wishes to ‘‘cram’’; let us see what efforts
he makes to help the unconscious activity which comes
into it; he wants somehow to assist the subconscious.
Here we have two quite different processes: incor-
porating something in the memory and forming an
immediate concept of it. If we study men and observe
* On the nature of memory, see Occult Science—an Outline,
pp. 46-8 and pp. 326-7.
125
their characters, we soon find that even here
we have to do with two different kinds of people.
There are those who grasp things quickly, but have a
terribly bad memory; and others whose comprehension
is slow but who have a good memory and are strong
especially in their imaginative faculty and power of
judgment. These two things are to be found side by
side, and Spiritual Science must make the truth of
the matter clear.
When in life we perceive something—and from early
morning, from waking to falling asleep we are always
perceiving something of the world—we are more or
less conscious of sympathy or antipathy for what we
perceive, and we are generally satisfied when we have
grasped something. The activity which leads on to
memory, however, is far more extensive than the
activity needed to grasp an impression. It takes its
course far more subconsciously in the soul, and this
subconscious process, going on of itself, often contra-
dicts in a noteworthy way what goes on consciously.
Often we may feel an antipathy towards an impression.
The subconscious does not feel this antipathy; it
generally feels quite differently from the ordinary
consciousness. The subconscious develops a remarkable
feeling towards all impressions. Although a phrase
taken from the physical world and applied to the
spiritual can only be figurative, here it is quite suitable
to say that the subconscious develops a certain feeling
of gratitude towards every impression—irrespective of
its nature. It is not inaccurate to say that while your
126
conscious impression of someone may be highly un-
pleasant—he may hurl insults in your face—the sub-
conscious impression would still be a certain feeling of
gratitude. The simple reason is that everything in life
which approaches the deeper element of our being,
including unpleasant experiences, enriches our life,
really enriches it. This has no connection with the way
in which we consciously conduct ourselves towards
outer impressions. How we consciously respond to any-
thing has nothing to do with what takes place sub-
consciously; in the subconscious everything leads to
a certain feeling of thankfulness; there we receive every
impression as a gift for which we must be grateful.
It is extraordinarily important to pay attention to
these happenings below the threshold of consciousness.
This activity which breaks into a feeling of thankfulness
works in a similar way to the effect of an impression
that comes to us from the outer world and passes into
memory; it goes along side by side with the concept.
Only a man who has a distinct feeling that all the time
he is awake he is also dreaming can be consciously
aware of these things. In the public lecture on “The
Historical Life of Man and its Problems” I said that as
regards our feeling and will we continue to sleep and
dream even in waking life. So long as we allow the
world to work upon us, we are continually forming our
impressions and concepts, but beneath all this we
dream about everything, and this dream-life is far
richer than we think. It is only eclipsed by our conscious
concepts, as is a weak light by a stronger.
127
We can experiment in getting to understand these
relationships by paying attention to various intimacies
of life. Try the following experiment: suppose you are
lying on a sofa and wake up. Of course a man does not
then observe himself, because immediately the world
makes various impressions upon him; but it may
happen that he lies quiet for a time after waking. Then
he may observe that he perceived something before he
awoke, and this he can notice particularly well if
someone has knocked at the door and not repeated the
knock. This he can confirm; but when he wakes he
knows that something has happened; it is apparent
from the whole situation.
When a man observes something in this way, he is
not far from recognising what Spiritual Science can
verify—that we perceive unconsciously a far wider
range of our environment than is possible consciously.
It is quite true that if, on going into a street, we meet
someone just coming round the corner, we may feel
that we had seen him just before he appeared. Quite
often we may have a feeling of having seen some-
thing happening before it actually occurs. It is indeed
a fact that we have first a psychic-spiritual connection
with what we perceive later; only we are “deafened”
by the later sense-perceptions and do not observe what
goes on in the intimacies of the soul-life.
This again is something which takes place of itself
subconsciously, like the formation of memory or the
feeling of thankfulness in regard to all surrounding
phenomena. The dead can speak to us only through the
128
element which pervades the dreams that are inter-
woven with our life. The dead speak into these intimate
subconscious perceptions which occur of themselves.
And it is possible for us, given the right conditions, to
share with the dead the same spiritual-psychic air.
If they wish to speak to us, it is necessary that we
should take into our consciousness something of the
feeling of gratitude for all that reveals itself to us. If
there is none of this feeling within us, if we are not able
to thank the world for enabling us to live, for enriching
our life continually with new impressions, if we cannot
deepen our souls by often realising that our entire life
is a gift, the dead will not find a common air
with us; for they can speak with us only through this
feeling of gratitude. Otherwise there is a wall between
us and them.
Now we can see how many obstacles there are in
regard to intercourse with the dead; for, as we know from
other connections, it depends on our being karmically
united with them. We cannot arouse in ourselves this
feeling of gratitude if, having lost them, we wish them
back in life; we should be thankful that we had them
with us quite irrespective of the fact that we have them
no longer. Thus if we do not have this feeling of grati-
tude with regard to the being we wish to approach, he
does not find us; or at least he cannot speak to us.
The very feelings we so often have towards our nearest
dead are a hindrance to their speaking to us. Other
dead persons, who are not karmically united to us,
usually have more difficulty in speaking to us; but
129
9—EDACL
with those nearest to us, we have too little of the feeling
of thankfulness that they have been something to us
in life. We should not hold fast to the idea that we
have them no more, for that is an ungrateful feeling in
the wider sense of life. If we clearly understand that the
feeling of having lost them weighs them down, we shall
keep in mind the whole bearing of this. If we have lost
someone we love, we must be able to raise ourselves to
a feeling of thankfulness that we have had him; we
must be able to think selflessly of what he was to us
until his death, and not of what we feel, now that we
have him no more. The better we can feel what he was
to us during his life, the sooner will it be possible for
him to speak to us; to speak to us through the common
air of gratitude.
In order to enter more and more consciously into
the world out of which all this comes, many other things
are necessary. Suppose you have lost a child. The
necessary feeling of companionship can be brought
about by picturing to yourself how you sat with him
and played with him in such a way that the game was
as interesting to you as it was to the child. When you
can do this, you have the appropriate feeling of com-
panionship—for there is sense in playing with a child
only if one is as much a playfellow as the child itself.
Thus, if we picture ourselves playing with the child
and bring the picture to life, the place is created upon
which our gaze and his can fall. If I am able to grasp
what the dead says, I am in conscious union with him.
This, too, can be brought about by many things.
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For many people, thinking is remarkably easy. You
will say—That is not true! Still, there are some who
find it very easy; if people find it “difficult,” that is
really a different feeling. The very people who take
thinking most easily, find it most difficult. That is
because their thinking is lazy. I mean that most people
take their thinking easily (one cannot say how easily,
because it is so very easy to think); all one can say is
that they just think; they acquire not a single idea—
that might be too “‘difficult.”” They merely think; they
form their concepts—then they have them and are
content to live with them. Then other things come along
—for example, Spiritual Science. Spiritual Science is
not avoided by so many people because it is difficult to
understand, but because a certain effort is needed to
lay hold of its ideas; and most people shy away from
this. Anyone who progresses in Spiritual Science
gradually observes that to comprehend the thoughts
requires an application of the will, just as much as in
lifting a hundredweight. But people do not want that;
they think “easily.”” Anyone who makes progress in
thinking finds himself thinking more and more strenu-
ously, more and more laboriously, as it were, because
he learns that in order really to assimilate a thought, he
must make efforts. Nothing is more favourable for
penetrating into the spiritual world than the experience
of finding it harder and harder to grasp the relevant
thoughts. Best of all for progress in Spiritual Science
is for a person to find that he can no longer apply the
standards of easy thinking that are customary in daily
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life, so that he says to himself: Thinking of this kind is
a really harrying exercise—it takes as much effort as
threshing with a flail!
Such a feeling can only be indicated, but it can
develop, and this is good and favourable. Many people
are so quick with their thinking that it is only necessary
to mention a particular point and they grasp its whole
context; they always have an answer ready. What
would drawing-room conversations amount to, if
thinking were difficult! We can, however, observe that
as we gradually become acquainted with the inner
relationships of things, it becomes more difficult to
chatter and be ready with an answer; for that comes
from easy thinking. When a man advances in know-
ledge he becomes more Socratic, so that he has to strain
every nerve to gain the right to express an opinion.
This feeling, that efforts of will go into the grasping
of thoughts, is related to another feeling we often have
when we commit something to memory, and have to
“cram’’—and fail to take in what we should. We can
experience the relationship between these two things
—the difficulty of retaining something in the memory
and the difficulty of exerting an effort of will in order
to understand something. We can, however, exercise
ourselves in this; we can apply what may be called
conscientiousness, a feeling of responsibility in regard
to our thinking. It often happens that when from a
certain experience of life a person says, for instance:
“‘So-and-so is a good man,”’ the other instantly retorts,
“An awfully good man.” Just think how often a reply
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is not positive, but comparative. There is of course no
reason at all why the answer should be comparative;
it comes only from not in the least knowing what to
think. We have a feeling that we ought to have had
some experience and that we ought to speak of it. Of
course, such a demand must not be pressed too far, or
in many drawing-rooms the ‘“‘great silence’ would set
in.
Still, this feeling, which springs from a sense of
responsibility towards thinking and from a recognition
that thinking is difficult, opens the way towards the
possibility and capacity for receiving inspirations. For
an inspiration does not come in the way that thoughts
spring up in most people; it comes always when it is as
difficult as anything else we find difficult. We must
first learn to feel thoughts as “‘difficult,’’ to feel the
retaining of memories as different from mere thinking;
then we shall be able to experience a feeling for that
weak, dreamlike arising of thoughts which do not
really want to stay, but to vanish; when thoughts arise
which are difficult to seize. We can reinforce ourselves
by developing a feeling of really living with the
thoughts. Let us clearly realise what goes on in our
souls when we intend, for example, to go somewhere—
and get there. As a rule a man does not think about
this, but he should reflect on what has taken place in
his soul as a result of his having accomplished his
purpose and attained what he had in view. Often this
may be quite strikingly expressed; when a mountaineer
has to exert himself strenuously to reach the summit
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and at last, arriving breathless at the top, exclaims,
“Thank God I am here!”, one feels how his emotions
have responded. In this way one can acquire an even
finer perception, and this delicate perception is carried
on further in the intimate life of the soul. Someone who
begins to call to mind a situation shared with a dead
friend, and is trying to reach a common interest with
him, to unite himself through his thoughts and feelings
with the dead friend, will feel as though he were on a
journey; and then a moment arrives when he feels as
though coming to rest in this thought. Anyone who
can first cultivate a thought, and then reach a state of
equipoise in
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