The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The following article, translated from the Basler Nachrichten of Nov. 3rd, 1924, is Dr. Steiner's own account of the new building. With the December number of Anthroposophy the reproduction of a drawing by Arild Rosenkrantz interpreting Dr. Steiner's design for the new Goetheanum will be presented to our subscribers.—Editor (see drawing at the end)

The rebuilding of the Goetheanum has been the subject of much discussion in the Press and has aroused interest in the widest circles. We are now in a position to publish a picture of what the future building will be like and have also approached Dr. Rudolf Steiner, asking him to give us the thought which underlies the building.

To rebuild the Goetheanum in conformity with the underlying thought of its purpose is no easy task. An entire change of outlook was necessary because the old building was constructed principally of wood and the new one is to be entirely of concrete.

It has to be borne in mind that there must be no contradiction between the form of the building which is to be devoted to the cultivation of Anthroposophy and the nature of Anthroposophy itself. Its creation must come from the spiritual sources from whence flows spiritual knowledge for the intellect but from whence flows also art forms and style for the imagination that has sensibility. It strives for the primval origins of knowledge but also for artistic form in style and proportions. It would be absurd for anyone to build the working centre for Anthroposophy who, with any kind of artistic perception, looked upon the nature of Anthroposophy from a merely external standpoint. This working centre can only be built by one who experiences every detail of its form from a spiritual, artistic outlook; the same outlook through which he experiences with understanding every word that is spoken out of Anthroposophy.

By reason of the softness of wood it was possible to build a Hall in that material in such a way that one could strive to imitate the creating of organic forms in Nature. The organic character of the whole building made it necessary that even the smallest part in the structure could not be different; just as in Nature, no detail—say for instance the lobe of the human ear—could possibly be constructed otherwise.

Starting from the artistic realization of this organic creating of Nature, one is led to an 'organic' style of Architectural construction in contradistinction to one relying solely on what is static or dynamic—a style in which even what is of Nature is raised to what is of Spirit through creative fancy. Thus, for instance, in the lobby of the old Goetheanum which visitors entered before attaining the great auditorium, it was possible to make a structure where the forms in the wood clearly denoted: 'the auditorium is ready for those outside to enter.'

But the peculiarities of special forms were quite over-ruled by each part being incorporated and made one with the whole building. The same thing could be observed in the outward form of the building. Here was revealed through art all that was constructed and embraced for the object of Anthroposophical work.

This way of building from constructive thoughts cannot be carried out in concrete as in wood. For this reason it has taken nearly a whole year to construct the new model. When building in wood one works forms and spaces into the wood; by carving out surfaces, shapes arise. The opposite is the case with concrete, a material from which shapes arise through raising surfaces within the limits of the necessary space. This applies also to the building of forms which tend outwards. Surfaces, lines, angles and so on, must be placed so that what is formed within presses out into the outward forms and thus expresses itself.

Besides all this it was necessary to construct the second Goetheanum more economically with regard to space than the first which was in reality but one single Hall and was built so that it made a frame for both lectures and performances. Now however we must have two stories, a lower one for work and lectures, with a stage for auditions; and an upper one, the auditorium and stage which can also be used for lectures.

This inner arrangement had to follow the architectural lines and surfaces which tend outwards. This can be seen in the shape of the roof which this time will not be a cupola. Anyone with a feeling for form will realize how it has been attempted to solve the difficulty of making the roof on one hand artistic and in conformity with the rake of the auditorium and on the other hand to enclose the stage with its tore rooms. Perhaps a way will be found through unprejudiced, artist's consideration to carry out the architecture in accord with the necessities of its outline and connect all with the forms of the west front which we have already ventured to give.

The building will stand upon a terrace. Thus it will be possible to walk round the building on a level raised above the ground. Wide steps will lead from the ground to the terrace and thus to the Portal. Under the terrace there will be the cloak rooms.

The designer of the building is convinced that the shape of the hills upon one of which the Goetheanum will stand, will be in keeping with the structure of this concrete building. When he made the wooden building he was not yet at home with these nature forms as he is now when he can look back over a decade during which time he has learnt to know and to love them. He can create the building out of their own spirit, and in a way quite different to that which was possible eleven years ago.

We lose the human being from our field of vision if we do not fix the eye of the soul upon his entire nature in all its life-manifestations. We should not speak of man's knowledge, but of the complete man manifesting himself in the act of cognition. In cognition, man uses as an instrument his sense-nerve nature. For feeling, he is served by the rhythm living in the breath and the circulation of the blood. When he wills metabolism becomes the physical basis of his existence. But rhythm courses into the physical occurrence within the sense-nerve nature; and metabolism is the material bearer of the life of thought, even in the most abstract thinking, feeling lives and the waves of will pulsate.

The ancient Oriental entered into his dream-like thinking more from the rhythmic life of feeling than does the man of the present age. The Oriental experienced for this reason more of the rhythmic weaving in his life of thought, while the Westerner experiences more of the logical indications. In ascending to super-sensible vision, the Oriental Yogi interwove conscious breath with conscious thinking, in this way, he laid hold in his breath upon the continuing rhythm of cosmic occurrence. As he breathed, he experienced the world as Self. Upon the rhythmic waves of conscious breath, thought moved through the entire being of man. He experienced how the Divine-Spiritual causes the spirit-filled breath to stream continuously into man, and how man thus becomes a living soul. The man of the present age must seek his super-sensible knowledge in a different way. He cannot unite his thinking with the breath. Through meditation, he must lift his thinking out of the life of logic to vision. In vision, however, thought weaves in a spirit element or music and picture. It is released from the breath and woven together with the spiritual in the world. The Self is now experienced, not in connection with the breath in the single human being, but in the environing world of spirit. The Eastern man once experienced the world in himself, and in his spiritual life today he has the echo of this. The Western man stands at the beginning of his experience, and is on the way to find himself in the world. If the Western man should wish to become a Yogi, he would have to become a refined egoist, for Nature has already given him the feeling of the Self. which the Oriental had only in a dream-like way. If the Yogi had sought for himself in the world as the Western man must do, he would have led his dream-like thinking into unconscious sleep, and would have been psychically drowned.

The Eastern man had the spiritual experience as religion, art, and science in complete unity. He made sacrifices to his spiritual-divine Beings. As a gift of grace, there flowed to him from them that which lifted him to the state of a true human being. This was religion. But in the sacrificial ceremony and the sacrificial place there was manifest to him also beauty, through which the Divine-Spiritual lived in art. And out of the beautiful manifestations of the Spirit there flowed science.

Toward the West streamed the waves of wisdom that were the beautiful light of the spirit and inspired piety in the artistically inspired man. There religion developed its own being, and only beauty still continued united with wisdom. Heracleitos and Anaxagoras were men wise in the world who thought artistically; Aeschylos and Sophocles were artists who moulded the wisdom of the world. Later wisdom was given over to thinking; it became knowledge. Art was transferred to its own world. Religion, the source of all, became the heritage of the East; art became the monument of the time when the middle region of the earth held sway; knowledge became the independent mistress of its own field in man's soul. Thus did the spiritual life of the West come to existence. A complete human being like Goethe discovered the world of spirit immersed In knowledge. But he longed to see the truth of knowledge in the beauty of art. This drove him to the south. Whoever follows him in the spirit may find a religiously Intimate knowledge striving in beauty toward artistic revelation. If the Western man beholds in his cold knowledge the spiritual-divine streaming forth below him and glancing with beauty, and if the Eastern man senses in his religion of wisdom, warm with feeling and speaking of the beauty of the cosmos, the knowledge that makes man free, transforming itself in man into the power of will, then will the Eastern man in his feeling intuition no longer accuse the thinking Western man of being soulless, and the thinking Western man will no longer condemn the intuitively feeling Eastern man as an alien to the world. Religion can be deepened by knowledge filled with the life of art. Art can be made alive through knowledge born out of religion. Knowledge can be illuminated by religion upheld by art.

The Eastern man spoke of the sense-world as an appearance in which there lived a lesser manifestation of what he experienced as spirit in utter reality within his own soul. The Western man speaks of the world of ideas as an appearance where there lives in shadowy form what he experiences as Nature in utter reality through his senses. What was the Maja of the senses to the Eastern man is self-sufficing reality to the Western man. What is the ideology constructed by the mind to the Western man was self-creating reality to the Eastern man. If the Eastern man finds today in his reality of spirit the power to give the strength of existence to Maja, and if the Western man discovers life in his reality of Nature, so that he shall see the Spirit at work in his ideology, then will understanding come about between East and West.

In hoary antiquity the humanity of the Orient experienced in knowledge a lofty spirituality. This spirituality, laid hold upon in thought, pulsated through the feeling; it streamed out into the will. The thought was not yet the percept which reproduces objects. It was real being which bore into the inner nature of man the life of the spiritual world. The man of the East lives today in the echoes of this lofty spirituality. The eye of his cognition was once not directed toward Nature. He looked through Nature at the spirit. When the adaptation to Nature began, man did not at once see Nature; he saw the spirit by the way of Nature; he saw ghosts. The last residues of a lofty spirituality became, on the way from East to West, the superstitious belief in ghosts. To the Western man, a knowledge of Nature was given as Copernicus and Galileo arose for him. He had to look into his own inner nature in order to seek for the spirit. There the spirit was still concealed from him, and he beheld only appetites and instincts. But these are material ghosts, taking their place before the eyes of the soul because this is not yet inwardly adapted to the spirit. When the adaptation to the spirit begins, the inner ghosts will vanish, and man will took upon the spirit through his own inner nature, as the ancient man of the East looked upon the spirit through Nature. Through the world of the inner ghosts the West will reach the spirit. The Western ghost superstition is the beginning of the knowledge of spirit. What the East bequeathed to the West as a superstitious belief in ghosts is the end of the knowledge of spirit. Men should find their way past the ghosts into the spirit—and thus will a bridge be built between East and West.

The man of the East feels “I” and sees “World”; the I is the moon which reflects the world. The man of the West thinks the “World” and radiates into the world of his own thought “I”. The I is a sun which irradiates the world of pictures. If the Eastern man comes to feel the rays of the sun in the shimmer of his moon of wisdom, and the Western man experiences the shimmer of moon-wisdom in the rays of his sun of will, then shall the will of the West release the will of the East.

The ancient Oriental felt himself to be in a social order willed by the Spirit. The commandments of the spiritual Power, brought to his consciousness by his Leader, gave him the conception as to how he should integrate himself with this order. These leaders derived such conceptions out of their vision in the super-sensible world. Those who were led felt that in such conceptions lay the main directions transmitted to them for their spiritual, political and economic life. Views regarding man's relationship to the spiritual, the relationship between man and man, the handling of the economic affairs were derived for them from the same sources, commandments willed by the spirit. The spiritual life, the social-political order, the handling of the economic affairs were experienced as a unity. The farther culture progressed toward the West, the more relationship of rights between man and man and the handling of economic affairs were separated from the spiritual life in human consciousness. The spiritual life became more independent. The other members of the social order still continued to constitute a unity. But, with the further penetration of the West, they also became separated. 3y the side of the element of rights and the state, which for a time controlled everything economic, there took form an independent economic thinking. The Western man is still living amidst the processes of this last separation. At the same time, there arises for him the task to mould into a higher unity the separated members of the social life—the life of the spirit, the control of rights and of the state, the handling of economic affairs, if he achieves this, the man of the East will look upon this creation with understanding, for he will again discover what he once lost, the unity of human experience.

Among the partial currents whose interaction and reciprocal conflict compose human history, there is included the conquest or labor by man's consciousness. In the ancient Orient, man labored in accordance with an order imposed upon him by the will of the Spirit, in this reeling, he was either a master or a worker. With the migration of the life of culture toward the West, there came into human consciousness the relationship between man and man. into this was woven the labor which one performs for others. Into the concepts of rights there penetrated the concept of the value of work. A great part of Roman history represents this growing together of the concepts of rights and of work. With the further penetration of culture into the West, economic life took on more and more complicated forms, It drew labor into itself when the structure of rights which this had hitherto taken on was not yet adequate for the demands of the new forms. Disharmony arose between the conceptions of work and of rights. The re-establishment of harmony between the two is the great social problem of the West. How labor can discover its form within the entity of rights, and not be torn out of this entity in the handling of economic affairs, constitutes—the content or the problem, if the West begins to advance toward this solution, through insight and in social peace, the East will meet this with understanding. But, if this problem generates in the West a stand in thinking which manifests itself in social turmoil, the East will not be able to acquire confidence in the further evolution of humanity through the West.

The unity between the spiritual life, human rights, and the handling of economic affairs, in accordance with an order willed by the Spirit, can survive only so long as the tilling of the soil is predominant in economics, while trade and industry are subordinate to agricultural economics. It is for this reason that the social thinking of the ancient Orient, willed by the Spirit, bears with reference to the handling of economic affairs a character adapted to agricultural economics. With the course of civilization toward the West, trade first becomes an independent element in economics. It demands the determination of rights. It must be possible to carry on business with everyone. With reference to this, there are only abstract standards of rights. As civilization advanced still farther toward the West, production in industry becomes an independent element in the handling of economic affairs. It is possible to produce useful goods only when the producer and those persons with whom he must work in this production live in a relationship which corresponds with human capacities and needs. The unfolding of the industrial element demands out of :he economic life associative unions so moulded that men know their needs to be satisfied in these so far as the natural conditions make this possible, To discover the fight associative life is the task of the West. If it proves to be capable of this task, the East will say: “Our life once flowed into brotherhood. In the course of time, this disappeared; the advance of humanity took it away from us. The West causes it to blossom again out of the associative economic life. It restores the vanished confidence in true humanness.”

When the ancient man composed a poem, he felt that spiritual Power spoke through him. In Greece the poet let the Muse speak through him to his fellowmen. This consciousness was a heritage of the ancient Orient. With the passage of the spiritual life toward the West, poetry became more and more the manifestation of man himself. In the ancient Orient, the spiritual Powers sang through man to men. The cosmic word resounded from the gods down to man. in the West, it has become the human word. It must find the way upward to the spiritual Powers. Man must learn to create poetry in such a way that the Spirit may listen to him. The West must mould a language suited to the Spirit. Then will the East say: “The divine Word, which once streamed for us from heaven to earth, finds its way back from the hearts of men into the spiritual world. In the human word mounting upward we behold with understanding the cosmic Word whose descent our consciousness once experienced.”

The man of the East has no understanding for “proof”. He experiences in vision the content of his truths, and knows them in this way. And what man knows he does not prove. The man of the West demands everywhere “proofs”. Everywhere he strives to reach the content of his truths out of the external reflection by means of thought, and interprets them in this way. But what is interpreted must be “proven”. If the man of the West releases from his proof the life of truth, the man of the East will understand him. if, at the end of the Western man's struggle for proof, the Eastern man discovers his unproven dreams of truth in a true awaking, the man of the West will then have to greet him as a fellow-worker who can accomplish what he himself cannot accomplish in work for the progress of humanity.

The course of the year has its own life. With this life the human soul can unfold a feeling-unison. If the soul opens itself to the influences that speak so variously to it week by week, it will find the right perception of itself. Thereby the soul will feel forces growing within that will strengthen it. It will observe that such inward forces want to be awakened—awakened by the soul's ability to partake in the meaningful course of the world as it comes to life in the rhythms of time. Thereby the soul becomes fully aware of the delicate, yet vital threads that exist between itself and the world into which it has been born.

In this calendar a verse is inscribed for each week. This will enable the soul to participate actively in the progressing life of the year as it unfolds from week to week. Each verse should resound in the soul as it unites with the life of the year. A healthy feeling of “at one-ness” with the course of Nature, and from this a vigorous “finding of oneself” is here intended, in the belief that, for the soul, a feeling-unison with the world's course as unfolded in these verses is something for which the soul longs when it rightly understands itself.

—Rudolf Steiner
Foreword to the Second Edition

On the Corresponding Verses by Hans Pusch

It is apparent that the Calendar of the Soul is composed of corresponding verses which divide the year into two halves, from Easter to Michaelmas, and back again to Easter. For the translator, the most important task is to bring the corresponding verses into harmony with each other. By printing them side by side, each verse can be experienced with its ‘octave’ of the corresponding one.

But something else comes to expression in letting them speak side by side. Their relationship follows a certain law of evolution. Out of the whole evolve the parts, and this is the meaning of subtraction. We number the verses from 1 to 52 according to the weeks of the year, Easter to Easter. And now a double subtraction has to take place. We have one verse, say Number 5 for the fifth week; to find its correspondence, we must subtract 1 from our 5, which leads to 4 ... and then subtract the 4 from 52, resulting in 48, the verse we are looking for. It is necessary each time to subtract from the verse number and then from the whole.

This tracing of the related weeks is a gesture akin to the process of evolution. Out of the majestic un-folding of macrocosmic forces, the microcosmic worlds came into being. We ourselves followed this same process of subtraction by evolving by degrees the consciousness of self. It was a process of diminution by which we slowly exchanged our ancient clairvoyant vision, embracing totality, for our present earth-bound sight and mind, geographically conditioned by the existence in a physical body.

Subtracting means, therefore, on the one hand a diminishing, but on the other it creates a new principle of evolution, that of polarity. Not only are the parts a contrast to the whole, but also the parts themselves form opposites. There is no better description of the process than the one Emerson gave in his essay “Compensation:”

“Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity ... If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you must condense there. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation ... Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law.” What lived in Emerson's mind underlies the style and composition of these weekly verses. And it is the human being who must reach a stage of compensation, of balance between the opposites, enhancing the polarities to forces of inner growth and maturity. It is a most invigorating development when it is practiced year after year in faithful succession. By combining the two corresponding verses in the mind, we gain a new insight into the workings of that which is outside and that which lives within.

The sunlight is gleaming—
What carries its beaming
to crystal and flower
so far down below?

Es leuchtet die Sonne—
Was traget ihr Strahlen
Zu Blüten und Steinen
So machtvoll daher?

The soul has been drifting—
Who yearns for uplifting,
from faith to the power
of vision to grow?

Es wehet die Seele—
Was hebet das Leben
Aus Glauben zum Schauen
So sehnend hinauf?

Seek, soul, to be seeing
in stones the light fleeing,
in blossoms its bower,—
yourself you shall know.

O suche, du Seele,
In Steinen den Strahl,
In Blüten das Licht—
Du findest dich selbst.

The heavens are blueing—
What aims are pursuing,
what secrets outsending
expanses blue-pearled?

Us blauet der Himmel—
Was sendet die Tiefe
Aus Femen zur Erde
Geheimnisvoll her?

The spirit is waking—
What strength is in making,
what will is unbending,
what shining unfurled?

Es wirket der Geist—
Was schaffet der Starke
Aus wollendem Sein
Zur scheinenden Kraft?

So, spirit, be guiding,
remote still abiding,
to vision unending,—
you find all the world.

So lenke, o Geist,
Zur Ferne den Blick,
Zur Tiefe dich selbst—
Du findest die Welt.

The starlight is dancing—
What radiance entrancing,
the centre unsealing,
is sent from afar?

Esfunkeln die Sterne—
Was breitet das Glänzen
Aus Weiten zur Mitte
Enthüllend daher?

And men are still questing—
They strive, never resting,
and anxiously feeling,
to know who they are?

Es fraget der Mensch—
Was rätselt im Innern
Aus bänglichem Streben
Zum Wissen sich hin?

So man, be expanding
your soul's understanding,
your essence revealing,—
you find your own star.

So lenke, du Mensch,
Zur Weite dich selbst,
Zur Mitte das Sein—
Du findest den Geist.

The night is unfolding—
What beings are moulding,
in infinite spacing,
of nothing—sheer weight?

Es waltet die Nacht—
Was dämpfet die Wesen
Im endlosen Raum
Zu lastendem Nichts?

The universe trembles—
What breathing dissembles,
in darkness embracing
mysterious fate?

Es weset das All—
Was waltet, sich hüllend
Im Dunkel der Gründe,
Verborgen atmend?

The spirit inspiring
is thirsting, is firing,
with worlds interlacing,
small beings and great.

Es ahnet des Geistes
Erbrennendes Dursten
In Welten die Wesen,
In Wesen die Welten.

Aries:

How brightly his eyes are blinking;
In his head there stumbles his thinking,
By pleasures of brooding consumed.
Mid storms his fine memories following,
In wonderful images wallowing
That on branches of knowledge once bloomed,
Through mystical fever-nights loomed.

Die Augen leuchten ihm helle,
Im Kopfe stolpert sein Denken,
Vom Glück des Sinnens ganz berauscht.
Im Sturme folgt es der Erinnerung
Des wunderbaren Traumes,
Der Blüte des Erkenntnisbaumes,
In mystisch schwüler Nacht erlebt.

Taurus:

Soon spooks through his whirring brain,
In fooling somnambulem mood,
By heart-felt enjoyment pursued,
A ghostly and galloping train,
A vision, with clarity showing
How out of the cosmos, stridently crowing,
A chorus of spirits wail in refrain.

Schon spukt im wirren Hirne,
Possierlich grüblerisch verträumt,
Vom Herzen aus mit Wohlgefühl begleitet
Im Traumgaloppe geisterwärts,
Gewichtig Schauen, kühn erspähend,
Wie aus dem Kosmos, deutlich krähend,
Ein Geisterchor sich offenbaret.

Gemini:

The Ego resplendent is sailing away
From a thinking based on mere physical clay,
On spiritual wings upborne,
Is kicked by a greatly superior scorn
From the path of ennobled living,
And cosmic ethereal striving,—
Is ousted with little delay.

Entrissen fühlt das helle Ich
Dem Denken sich, das physisch nur
Und drum vom hohen Geistestrieb
Mit einem Seelentritte mächtig
Vom Pfade edlen Strebens
Und kosmisch hohen Lebens
Wird kühnlich weggeschmissen.

Cancer:

Outside the mere body already unfolding,
By spiritual messengers properly led,
By spiritual love conveniently fed,
By wise tomfoolery starkly sped,
Is the tenebrous soul's beholding:
In the wide and infinite expanses
Of cosmical spirit it swims and dances.

Ganz aus dem Leibe fühlt sich schon,
Durch Geistesboten recht geführt,
Durch Geistesliebe wohlgepflegt,
Von weiser Torheit stark gestossen,
Der Seele dunkles Schauen
In den weiten Geistesauen
Ganz kosmisch geistgenährt.

Leo:

What sounds so tremendously gripping,
So pregnant with spirit but void of ideas,
With love universal so splendidly dripping,
That keenly his high heart hears?
Advanced to the grade of the Lion,
There is fine new regalia to try on,
—Up the steep path of knowledge he's tripping.

Was wirkt so mächtig wundersam
Gedankenlos und geistesträchtig,
Von Weltenliebe prächtig triefe>
In kühnem Herzen ihm so ahnungsvoll?
Er ist zum Löwengrade
Auf dem steilen Wissenspfade
Ja klärlich nun schon vorgedrungen.

Virgo:

And now to receive he is really prepared,
From cosmical thinking worthily wise,
From cosmical love with the universe shared,
From zig-zag lightning of spirit skies,
From the region of the hierarchies,
The initiation of his soul,
Deep, undivided, whole.

Nun muss er auch empfangen
Aus Weltgedanken würdevoll,
Aus Weltenliebe gnadereich,
Mit zuckendem Geistesblitz,
Aus der hierarch sehen
Region Die hohe Seelen-Initiation,
Ganz ungeteilt und tief.

Libra:

He lives in harmony already,
The spheric music round him playing;
He feels within his heart unsteady
The world-truth wildly swaying;
He feels inside him cosmic Scales
On which the spirits well are weighing
World problems packed in bales.

Erlebt nun schon in Harmonie
Mit aller Weltenklarheit.
Empfinden kann in seinem Herzen er
Die Schwungkraft aller Wahrheit.
In sich fühlt er die Weltenwaage,
Auf der des Daseins Rätselfrage
Von Geistern abgewogen steht.

Scorpio:

Soon come the scissors snicker snack—
“My spirit's trial,” (so he thinks)
“Explains this pricking of my back.”
“These pricks attack the soul that stinks,”
Replies with smirk a quite non-wiseman,
A mystically undersize-man,
Who at the Mystery just winks.

Da zwickt und zwackt es ihn.
“Des Geistes Prüfung, ” findet er,
“Scheint mir dies Prickeln in dem Leibe.”
“Der Stich, der trifft ihn sicher!”
So grinst verständig jetzt ein Ungelehrter,
Ein ganzlich mystisch Unverkehrter—
Den Mysterien ganz frech entgegen.

Sagittarius:

But he was in world-midnight seeing
How Homer, Socrates and Goethe too
Within his ego's deepest being
Their sharp soul-arrows shot—(at who?).
And their quite undiminished center
By karma into him did enter,
In him into still grander being grew.

Er aber hat in Weltennacht erkannt,
Wie doch Homer und Sokrates, Goethe aush,
In seines Iches Wesensgründen
Die schärfsten Seelenpfeile schossen,—
Und ihre unverfälschte Menschenwesenheit
Verkörpert wie mit Selbstverständlichkeit
In ihm zu neuer Daseinsgrösse sich.

Capricorn:

“And so you feel old Homer's genius move
Most strongly in your conscious reach?"
"Oh, no! such things I do not love,"
Thus spake with pointed speech
The Initiate. "I never for Maya strove;
Old Homer in my present incarnation
Would rest his mind in mystic meditation."

“Erfühlst du denn Homers Genie
In deinem Denken stark sich regen?”
“ O, regt es sich, ich liebt es nicht,“
So sprach mit spitzer Rede
Der Eingeweihte, “ das wäre Maja-Streben.
Homer will in meinem gegenwärt'gen
Leben All sein Genie im Mystenschlafe pflegen!

Aquarius:

“O mystic transformed Socrates, I seek
In vain a trace in you of that great Greek.
He was as wise as you are egoistic.”
“Cease slandering,” (replied the Mystic).
“That man knows most, who knows he naught doth know,”
Said Socrates. And I know nothing, so
I stand securely on Socratic peak.

Dir fehlt, o mystisch umgeformter Sokrates,
Vom klügsten Griechen jede Spur.
Dazu bist du so eitel, wie er weise war.
“ Erdrücke Lasterrede!”, sagt der Myste,
“ Nichts zu wissen, liebte ich als dieser Mann ...
Und da ich jetzo gar nichts weiss und kann,
Erfühl ich dieses Leben ganz sokratisch-mystisch.”

Pisces:

“And which of Goethe's sunbeams then doth lurk
Within you, is at present showing
Your soul the path to riper fruits of knowing?”
The Seer then grasps his sharpest quirk—
“No! Goethe's light, too bright, does but confuse!
Preferring then to dream his art, I choose
The depth of sleep in which to do my work!”

Und welcher Sonnenstrahl von Goethe,
Als Bote führt er deine Seele
Zum Reifen hoher Wissenstriebe?”
Der Seher greift zum schärfsten Redepfeile.
“ Es schuf,” so sagt er, “Goethe viel zu helle.
Drum träum ich Goethes hohe Kunst, und wähle
Des Schlafes Tiefen mir zum Arbeitsfeld.”

Before the presentation I would like to say a few words about how relationships can be seen in everything we are attempting—in everything that we attempt and in everything that emanates from what we attempt. Without doubt there is an intense longing in our time to gain the connection between the material life and the spiritual life. On the other hand, the possibilities for fulfilling such longings are not so easy to find, for, as I have emphasized on other occasions, very few Europeans today have a clear feeling of seeking the essential nature of the other worlds connected with and lying at the basis of our world. If you consider teachings that are offered today about poetry, about art, you will frequently notice how everything artistic leads back to something higher, and yet how difficult it is for people today really to sense the connection with this higher element. For this reason we may hope that as eurythmy becomes increasingly familiar, in the way we are attempting it, it will make more accessible from a totally human aspect what is needed in order to find the relationship between the human being and the spiritual worlds.

You will often have heard from this or that group calling itself theosophical that an essential aspect of the soul life is based on becoming one with the great universal being that fills space and weaves through time. Although this longing for feeling oneself at one with the great universe is emphasized in theosophical circles with great enthusiasm and fervor, there is little inclination to take hold of the reality of this experience. Many today emphasize the form in which the extinction of the self was striven for in the Middle Ages—for example by Meister Eckhardt or Johannes Tauler—the feeling of being at one with the divinely permeated universe. Today, however, we are in a period in which this must be striven for concretely, in reality, a period in which something must really be done to lend confirmation to the great truth that the human being in his doing and his being can harmonize with the doing and being of the world. This is just what is being attempted tonight in what we will come to know through those who are pursuing this in the second phase of our eurythmy. I will only direct your attention very briefly to something that could be gathered from today's presentation.

In the second presentation¹ you have seen how something that moves and is at rest is presented as an image, so to speak, of what is in the universe: the twelve-foldness that exists in the universe as the Zodiac and the seven-foldness that exists in the universe as the sequence of the planets. You have also experienced how the resting quality of the images of the Zodiac in relation to the mobile quality of the planetary nature confronted you during the presentation. Such things are possible, of course, only if this spirit of feeling at one with the universe is inherent in the whole presentation. Thus an attempt has been made to do something in which there is a very intimate consonance between the spoken word—and not simply the spoken word but also the sensations revealed—and every single movement. It will gradually be understand that in this presentation the spoken word will be only one aspect contributing to the whole. Gradually it will be understood that if the movements are done in their fullness it will be possible to recognize from the movements what is being said, just as one can read the meaning in letters of the alphabet one is looking at. One need only have learned to read, and then gradually, when the whole system is developed, it will also be possible to read what is being presented here. One will be able to read not only in accordance with the letter, with the sound, but also in accordance with the meaning.

To that end it is necessary that one have a concept of the inner experience corresponding with the meaning. As an earthly human being—wandering about aimlessly, as man does, with the beings who were cast into the abyss, into the earthly depths—a person generally, as a matter of course, errs with his thoughts and feelings during earthly existence. Yet he is able to raise himself aloft out of this erroneous thinking and feeling, to raise himself to what becomes for him, out of quiet movement, a firmer thinking or feeling. You see, the cosmos that confronts us to begin with as our solar system is only a special case. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was of God.” And in the cosmos we see the word as though congealed, the word at rest and the word in movement. One must feel it in the cosmos, however. I certainly hope that what is presented here will not be taken for all kinds of confused mysticism current today. We are not concerned here with imitating the methods of those modern astrologers who outdo all materialism with their methods, simply adding ignorant superstition to materialistic ignorance. We are concerned here instead with introducing the lawful relationships of a spiritual world that manifest in the human being just as in the cosmos. True spiritual science does not try to find human laws from the constellations of stars but rather to find human laws as well as natural laws out of the spiritual. Although this spiritual science is again and again thrown together with nonsensical mystical strivings of modern times, it has no relationship to them at all. Here, where in certain descriptions of the human being analogies with cosmic relationships are applied as the basis of a way of expression, it must be emphasized particularly that spiritual science does not wish to have anything to do with the dilettantism of modern astrologers and their crude revelations.

Thus an attempt has been made to offer a sequence of feeling, sensing, and speaking, which, as it is presented, gives, as it were, another version of the inner soul-feeling in relation to what has flowed into the movements of our solar system. The structure of twelve verses, each with seven lines, corresponds, you could say, to the outer skeleton. If you take this attempt at a twelve/seven-membered poem, however, you will see that what wishes to reveal itself is present in every detail. If you take the mood in Cancer, for example, in which after the ascent there again follows the descent, where one has the feeling that the sun comes to rest for a moment—let us simply use this picture for now; many pictures could be used—there you will be able to feel something from the way in which the words within the Cancer verse are placed.

Compare this, if you will, with the verse for Scorpio. In every verse you find exactly the mood that corresponds to the constellation in question in the heavens. This is not all that is attempted, however; if you take certain verses you will be able to experience something else as well. I will take one line from every verse, the line for the planet Mars:

Although in every single line the general mood of the verse is maintained, you will be able to discern the Mars mood in each of these lines taken from the sequence of seven lines; you will be able to discern what corresponds with Mars. Thus the ideal would actually be for someone, were he awakened from sleep and had one line read to him—“In becoming activity pauses”—to be able to say, “Ah, yes! Mars in Scorpio!” With another line, he would have to say, “Jupiter in Libra,” and so forth. You see, this is the opposite of any subjective arbitrariness. Being at one with the laws of the universe is really taken seriously. Here we do not merely proclaim that one should be at one with the universe; rather it is this being-at-one. We are attempting, at least, to realize this being-at-one. You will also have noticed that the gesture is held, for example, in a certain instance; you will have noticed how, as the sun circled around, the Libra mood was also beautifully maintained in the gesture, not in an affected way but only by virtue of the fact that the corresponding consonant sound is simply there. In the Libra mood you have seen everywhere the balance of the scales! It happened by itself that the gesture of Libra was maintained just there. These things occur entirely of their own accord if they are done correctly.

What is actually being attempted in something like this? It is certainly something entirely different from mere whimsy! What is attempted is to maintain in real, inner comprehension what was carried out cosmically when our solar system was created. An attempt is made really to enter into it in mood, to enter into it in doing and in everything else; it could be said that what you have seen presented here offers the possibility of creating movement, as well as concepts steeped in movement, out of what can be expressed in the following phrase:

The word weaves through the world,
world-formation holds the word fast.

Das Wort wallt durch die Welt,
Und die Weltenbildung haelt das Wort fest.

In the first presentation a world relationship was also attempted, but in a somewhat different way. There you will have seen that, portrayed precisely in movement, one is dealing with verses of four lines each and that the sun makes its twelve movements along an outer circle. There are also twelve verses, but on the outer circle the sun is represented as moving through the Zodiac.

The eurythmists who stood in the middle circle expressed the planetary element, and the one who stood in the center expressed the lunar element, the moon. Thus you had sun, planets, and moon. And there was also the inner connection of the lines of verse and always the relationship of the first to the last line: the first line is always of a sun-like quality, the last of a moon-like quality. Just as the sunlight is reflected by the moon, so the last line is always a reflection.

Thus it was attempted to develop the form out of the secrets of the universe, which can then be spoken as well as expressed eurythmically in movements. When, therefore, the time comes in which one learns to read these things, it will be known unequivocally, when seeing something like this, just what is brought to expression by such a complete system of movement.

One can certainly believe that it is unnecessary to do something like this, but it is possible to have various opinions, isn't it? It is also possible to have the opinion that the human being could be dumb and need not speak. And if all human beings in this world were dumb and only a few began to speak, the others would consider speaking eminently superfluous. Such views are entirely relative, aren't they? It is only necessary to admit to the relativity of these views; then it will already be noticed that true progress in the development of humanity can be achieved only if a person engages himself in really drawing forth all the possibilities inherent in human nature.

When those working in eurythmy are also in a position to teach what now forms the second phase of eurythmy—in addition to what meets your gaze macrocosmically and had certainly to be developed in that direction—you will see that the Auftakte [Auftakteis a German word which, when used in connection with eurythmy, refers to choreographed, lawful eurythmy movements that create an introductory mood but are done without the sounds corresponding directly to those movements being audible.] that we began with will certainly need to have musical accompaniment; [To accompany performance of the “Twelve Moods,” Jan Stuten composed a piece for small orchestra.] today there was only a silentAuftakt. You will see later that a microcosmic element will be added to the macrocosmic and that there will be presentations in which something will be brought to expression just as lawfully as in human speaking itself. Later you will see compositions of eurythmy in which you will notice that there arises at precisely the right place a labial sound, and then precisely at another right place a dental sound arises; what really takes place is what arises in another way in the human being in speaking, so that the human being comes to know himself in what is accomplished in eurythmy. You will also have noticed today that those working with eurythmy will gradually learn to teach that variations in the words, variations in the significance and meaning, come to expression in various ways. You will have noticed today that a concrete word is danced in a completely different way from an abstract word, that a verb suggesting an activity is danced in a different way from a verb suggesting a passive state or a verb suggesting duration, and so on. This connection, you could say, between the brain and the speech organism you will also find presented in eurythmy.

I hope that the satire that follows will not be misunderstood. The mood coming to expression in it must not be missing where a serious spiritual scientific world view lies at the basis of one's way of life. We are certainly not toying with serious matters if we attempt to bring some humor into what is serious; in some circles that deem themselves mystical, every frivolity that assumes the caricatured mask of “spiritual depth” is considered serious, displaying itself in gestures of physical nobility and with tragically elongated faces that merely represent burlesque somersaults of spiritual life to one who really knows life. Whoever wants to be truly serious in the face of seriousness must be able to laugh about the ridiculous when the ridiculous deems itself serious. Whoever can find no humor in the humorous is also unable to be serious in the true sense when confronting what is serious. Especially where knowledge of the spirit is sought after, laughter must also be possible about the absurdities of certain “spirit seekers.” Otherwise they will make what is serious into something ridiculous among those who laugh because their laughing muscles begin to move whenever they don't understand something; or they will enrage those people who fly into a rage when they encounter something they have never “seen or heard before.”

• 1. This is a reference to the eurythmy presentation of the “Dance of the Planets” (Planetentanz). It was performed on August 23, 1915 in Dornach, according to documentation in Die Entstehung und Entwickelung der Eurythmie, by Rudolf Steiner, Verlag der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, 1965. Both the German and English texts of this poem are included at the end of this article.

Since the earliest times, it has been felt that the study of the human being is the most worthy pursuit of human research. Anyone who allows themselves to be influenced by what has come to light over time as knowledge of the human being can easily become discouraged. A wealth of opinions presents itself as answers to the question: what is the human being, and what is his relationship to the universe? The most diverse differences between these opinions arise in contemplation. This can lead to the feeling that man is not called to such research and that he must refrain from achieving anything that can give satisfaction to the feeling mentioned.

Is such a feeling justified? It could only be so if the perception of different views on a subject were a testimony to man's inability to recognize anything true about the subject. Anyone who wanted to accept such a testimony would have to believe that the whole essence of a thing should suddenly reveal itself to man, if knowledge could be spoken of at all. But it is not the case with human knowledge that the essence of things can suddenly reveal itself to it. It is rather the case with it, as with the picture that one paints, for example, of a tree from a certain side or photographs. This picture gives the appearance of the tree, from a certain point of view, in full truth. If one chooses a different point of view, the picture will be quite different. And only a series of pictures, from the most diverse points of view, can give an overall idea of the tree through their interaction.

In this way, however, man can also only look at the things and entities of the world. Everything he can say about them, he must say as views that apply from different points of view. It is not only so with the sensory observation of things, it is also so in the spiritual. With regard to the latter, one should not be misled by the above comparison and imagine that the diversity of points of view has something to do with space. Each view can be a true one if it faithfully reflects what is observed. And it is only refuted when it is shown that it can legitimately be contradicted by another view given from the same point of view. A difference between one view and another given from a different point of view, on the other hand, is as a rule meaningless. Anyone who views the matter in this way is protected against the obvious objection that every opinion must appear justified when viewed in this way. Just as the image of a tree must have a very specific shape from one point of view, so must a mental view from one point of view. But it is clear that one can only prove an error in the view if one is clear about the point of view from which it is given.

We should get along much better in the world of human opinions than we often do if we always kept this in mind. One would then realize how the differences of opinion in many cases arise only from the diversity of points of view. And only through different true views can one approach the essence of things. The mistakes that are made in this direction do not arise from the fact that people form different views, but rather from the fact that each person wants to see his view as the only legitimate one.

An objection to all this presents itself easily. One could say that if man wants to present the truth, he should not give an opinion, but rise above possible opinions to an overall view of a corresponding thing. This demand may sound acceptable. But it is not realizable. For what a thing is must be characterized from different points of view. The chosen image of the tree being painted from different points of view seems appropriate. Anyone who wants to avoid looking at the different images in order to gain an overall picture might end up painting something very blurry and foggy; but there would be no truth in such a blurry picture. Nor can truth be gained by a knowledge that wants to encompass the object with a single glance, but only by combining the true views that are given from different points of view. This may not correspond to human impatience; but it corresponds to the facts that one learns to recognize when one develops a meaningful striving for knowledge.

Few things can lead so strongly to a genuine appreciation of truth as such a striving for knowledge. And this appreciation may be called genuine because it cannot be followed by faintheartedness. It does not lead to despair in the striving for truth, because it recognizes truth as such in limitation; but it protects against the empty arrogance that, in its possession of truth, believes it can encompass the comprehensive essence of things.

Those who take this sufficiently into account will find it understandable that, in particular, knowledge of man should be sought in such a way that one tries to approach his nature from different points of view. One such point of view shall be chosen for the following remarks. It shall be characterized as one that lies between two others, as it were, in the middle. And it is not to be asserted that there are not many other points of view besides the three considered here. But the three shall be chosen here as particularly characteristic.

The first aspect to be considered in this regard is anthropology. This science collects everything that can be observed about humans and seeks to gain insights into their nature from the results of its observations. For example, it considers the structure of the sensory organs, the shape of the bone structure, the conditions of the nervous system, the processes of muscle movement, etc. With her methods, she penetrates into the finer structure of the organs and seeks to learn about the conditions of feeling, of imagining, etc. She also investigates the similarity of the human being to the animal and seeks to gain an idea of the relationship between humans and other living beings. She goes further and examines the living conditions of primitive peoples, who appear to be lagging behind in their development compared to civilized peoples. From what she observes in such peoples, she forms ideas about what the more developed peoples were once like, which have progressed beyond the level of education at which those remained. She studies the remains of prehistoric people in the layers of the earth and forms concepts about how cultural development has progressed. She examines the influence of climate, the seas, and other geographical conditions on human life. It seeks to gain an understanding of the conditions of racial development, of the life of nations, of legal conditions, the development of writing, of languages, etc. The name anthropology is used here for the entire physical study of man; it includes not only what is often counted in the narrower sense, but also the morphology, biology, etc. of man.

At present, anthropology generally keeps within the limits that are now considered to be those of scientific methods. It has compiled an enormous amount of factual material. Despite the different types of representations in which this material is summarized, it contains something that can have the most beneficial effect on the knowledge of human nature. And this material is constantly growing. It corresponds to the views of the present time to place great hopes in what can be gained from this side in elucidating the human riddle. And it is quite natural that many consider the point of view of anthropology to be as certain as they must regard the next one to be characterized here as doubtful.

This other point of view is that of theosophy. Whether this term is fortunate or unfortunate is not to be examined here. It is only a second point of view in relation to the anthropological view of man that is to be characterized. Theosophy assumes that man is above all a spiritual being. And it seeks to recognize him as such. It bears in mind that the human soul not only reflects and processes things and events perceived by the senses, but that it is capable of leading a life of its own, which receives its stimuli and content from a source that can be called spiritual. It relies on the fact that man can penetrate into a spiritual realm just as he penetrates into a sensory one. In the latter, man's knowledge expands as he focuses his senses on more and more things and processes, and forms his ideas on the basis of these. In the spiritual realm, however, knowledge advances differently. The observations are made in inner experience. A sensual object presents itself to man; a spiritual experience arises within, as if rising from the center of the human being itself. As long as a person cherishes the belief that such an ascent can only be an inner matter of the soul, so long must Theosophy be highly doubtful to him. For such a belief is not far from the other, which assumes that such experiences are only further inner workings of what has been observed by the senses. It is only possible to persist in such a belief as long as one has not yet obtained the conviction through compelling reasons that from a certain point on, the inner experiences, like the sensory facts, are determined by something that is an external world to the human personality. Once one has obtained this conviction, then one must recognize a spiritual external world just as one recognizes a physical one. And then it will be clear to everyone that man is connected with a spiritual world in relation to his spiritual nature, just as he is rooted in a physical world through his physical nature. It will then also be understood that materials for the knowledge of man can be taken from this spiritual world, just as anthropology takes materials for the physical man from physical observation. Then the possibility of research in the spiritual world will no longer be doubted. The spiritual researcher transforms his soul experience in such a way that the spiritual world enters into his soul experiences. He shapes certain soul experiences in such a way that this spiritual world reveals itself in them. (How this happens is described by the writer of this sketch in his book: “How to Know Higher Worlds?” Berlin, Philosophisch-theosophischer Verlag.) This kind of inner life can be called “clairvoyant consciousness.” But one must keep far from this concept all the nonsense that is done in the present with the word “clairvoyance”.

To arrive at inner experience in such a way that these or those facts of the spiritual world reveal themselves directly to the soul requires long, arduous, and self-denying soul-searching. But it would be a fatal mistake to believe that only those who experience spiritual realities directly through such soul-searching can reap the fruits of their soul-searching. The case is quite different. When spiritual facts have been revealed through the appropriate soul-searching exercises, they are, as it were, conquered for the human soul. When the spiritual researcher communicates them after having found them, they can be understood by every person who listens to them with a healthy sense of truth and unprejudiced logic. One should not believe that only a clairvoyant consciousness can have a well-founded conviction of the facts of the spiritual world. Every soul is tuned to recognize the truth of what the spiritual researcher has found. If the spiritual researcher wants to assert something that is untrue, this will always be ascertainable through the rejection of the healthy sense of truth and unbiased logic.

The direct experience of spiritual knowledge requires complicated soul paths and soul activities; possession of such knowledge is necessary for every soul that wants to have a full consciousness of its humanity. And without such consciousness, a human life is no longer possible from a certain point of existence.

Even if Theosophy is able to provide knowledge that satisfies the most important needs of the human soul, and that can be recognized by the natural sense of truth and by sound logic, there will always be a certain gap between it and anthropology. It will always be possible to show the results of Theosophy regarding the spiritual essence of man and then be able to point out how anthropology confirms everything that Theosophy says. But there will be a long way from one field of knowledge to the other.

But it is possible to fill the gap. In a certain respect, this is done here by sketching an anthroposophy. If anthropology can be compared to the observations of a wanderer who walks from place to place and from house to house in the plain in order to gain an idea of the nature of a region; if theosophy resembles the overview that can be gained from the summit of a hill over the the same district: then anthroposophy is to be compared with the view that one can have from the slope of the hill, where the individual is still in front of one's eyes, but the manifold is already beginning to merge into a whole.

Anthroposophy will observe the human being as he presents himself to physical observation. But it will cultivate observation in such a way that the physical fact is used to seek out the reference to a spiritual background. In this way, anthroposophy can lead from anthropology to theosophy.

It should be noted that only a very brief sketch of anthroposophy is intended here. A detailed presentation would require a great deal. The sketch is intended to take into account only the physical body of man, insofar as this is a revelation of the spiritual. And within these limits, anthroposophy is meant in the narrower sense. It must then be followed by a psychosophy, which considers the soul, and a pneumatosophy, which deals with the spirit. In this way, anthroposophy leads into theosophy itself.

The beginning of anthroposophy is to be made with a consideration of the human senses. Through the senses, the human being enters into a relationship with an external world. When speaking of the senses, two things should be considered. First, one should disregard how the human being enters into another world, namely the spiritual world, through a different path, as described above. And then one should initially disregard whether there is anything spiritual behind what the senses observe. When speaking of the senses, one should approach the spiritual in such a way that one waits to see to what extent the hint of the spiritual arises naturally from the observation of the senses. The spiritual must not be rejected nor presupposed; its manifestation must be awaited.

It is not the objects of sensory observation, but the senses themselves, as human organs, that are considered here. On the basis of what his senses convey to him, man forms ideas about an external world. This is how knowledge of this external world comes about. In relation to knowledge, one can speak of truth and error. Does error now arise in the realm of the senses, or only where judgment, memory, etc. are used to form ideas about the statements of the senses? We have a right to speak of illusions. If, through some irregularity in the ear or the eye, a sound or a light appears differently than it would with the normal formation of the organs concerned, then, for example, there is an illusion. Does this mean that Goethe was wrong when he said, “You may trust your senses implicitly; they will not let you see anything false if your intellect keeps you alert”? Goethe's statement proves to be immediately justified when we consider the following. An error that is caused by reason or memory is different from a sensory deception. The latter can be corrected by common sense. If, through an error of the eye, a tree standing before him appears to someone as a human being, he will only fall into error if he does not correct the eye defect and sees in the pretended human being an enemy against whom he defends himself. It is not so with an error of the intellect, for there it is this intellect itself that errs, and which therefore cannot at the same time correct its own mistakes. The illusions of the senses only become real errors through the mind. This distinction is not pedantry, but a necessity.

Many people are accustomed to listing five types of sensory perception when speaking of sensory perception: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching (or feeling). But we cannot stop here, because there are other ways in which a person enters into a relationship with the outside world that differ from those of hearing or seeing, for example. Even anthropological science currently speaks of senses other than those included in the above list. It is not necessary here to go into the list given by anthropology. It should only be noted that here lies one of the very gratifying points where science, based on mere sensory-physical facts, is pushed by its own observations to views that partly coincide with what the spiritual researcher must establish. Such points of contact will arise more and more in the course of time; and if goodwill prevails on both sides, a time will soon come when natural science and spiritual research will be mutually accepted.

In anthroposophical terms, everything that causes a person to recognize the existence of an object, being or process in such a way that it is justified to place this existence in the physical world can be called a human sense that leads man to recognize the existence of an object, being or process in such a way that he is justified in placing this existence in the physical world.

Seen in this light, the most indeterminate and general sense appears to be that which can be called the sense of life. Man only really notices the existence of this sense when something is perceived through it that breaks through the order in the body. Man feels weariness and fatigue in himself. He does not hear the fatigue, the weariness; he does not smell it; but he perceives it in the same sense as he perceives a smell, a sound. This kind of perception, which relates to one's own corporeality, is ascribed to the sense of life. It is basically always present in an alert person, even if it only becomes quite noticeable when there is a disturbance. Through it, the person perceives themselves as a corporeal self filling the space.

This sense is different from the one by which a person perceives a movement they have performed, for example. You move a leg, and you perceive this movement. The sense by which this happens is called the sense of self-motion. The difference between this sense and the first arises when you consider that through the sense of life you only perceive something that is present in the inner body without you doing anything about it. The sense of one's own movement perceives such things that require activity or mobility.

The third sense arises when one notices how the human being is able to maintain a certain position in relation to above and below, right and left, etc. It can be called the sense of equilibrium or the sense of static. Its peculiarity arises from the fact that one must have a perception of one's position if one is to maintain oneself in it as a conscious being. If the sense of equilibrium does not function, then dizziness will overtake the person; he will fall over. An unconscious object is maintained in its position without being aware of it. Such an object cannot be affected by dizziness. When speaking of this sense, anthropology points to a small organ in the human ear. There are three semicircular canals in the so-called labyrinth of the ear. If these are injured, dizziness occurs.

If you survey the peculiarities of the three senses listed, you will find that humans perceive something through each of them that relates to their own physical existence. Through the sense of life, he acquires general sensations about his corporeality; through the sense of self-movement, he perceives changes in this corporeality of his; through the sense of equilibrium, he perceives his relationship to the spatial outside world. However, he receives this perception in such a way that it reveals itself to him as a state of his own corporeality, as his own sensation of position. — Through these three senses, the human being acquires the sensation of his own corporeality as a whole, which is the basis for his self-awareness as a physical being. One can say that through the senses of life, of self-movement and of balance, the soul opens its gates to one's own corporeality and senses this as the physical external world that is closest to it.

With the following senses, the human being encounters the external world that does not belong to him in this way. The first sense to be considered here is that through which man comes into closest contact with what is called matter. Only gaseous or airy bodies allow close contact with the material. And this is conveyed through the sense of smell. Without a substance being divided into the finest particles and thus spreading like air, it cannot be perceived by the sense of smell.

The next stage of sensory perception is that by which not only the substance as such, but also the effects (deeds) of the substance are perceived. This happens through the sense of taste. This sense can only perceive a watery body, or one that is dissolved in the fluid of the mouth in order to be tasted. Through the sense of taste, man penetrates one degree deeper into the external materiality than through the sense of smell. With the latter, it is the substance itself that approaches the person and manifests itself in its own way; with the sense of taste, what is felt is the effect of the substance on the person. This difference can best be felt by considering how, in the sense of smell, the gaseous nature of the substance must be ready to approach the person so that he can perceive it as it is; in the sense of taste, the person, through his own liquid, dissolves the substance, thus making a change with it, in order to penetrate into those peculiarities of that substance which it does not reveal to him by itself. The sense of smell is suited to perceive the outer side of material things; the sense of taste penetrates more into the inner side of material things. And this inner aspect of material things man must first induce to reveal itself by changing the outer aspect.

Man penetrates even deeper into the inner aspect of the physical external world through the next sense. It is sight. Whether man sees a body as red or blue reveals more about the inner aspect of this body than is contained in the effect conveyed by the sense of taste. It depends on the nature of a body whether it behaves towards the colorless sunlight in such a way that it appears red or blue under its influence. Color manifests itself as the surface of a body. But one can say how the body reveals itself on its surface; this is an appearance of its inner essence through the medium of light.

The sense of warmth penetrates even deeper, as it were, below the surface of the bodies. If you feel a piece of ice or a warm object, you are aware that cold or warmth is something that does not just appear on the surface like color, but that permeates the body completely. You will notice how the sequence of senses characterized here is such that with each successive one, the human being delves deeper into the interior of the bodies of the external world.

A further advance in this immersion is given with the sense of hearing. It leads to the interior of the bodies to a far greater degree than the sense of warmth. Sound causes the interior of the bodies to tremble. It is more than a mere image when one speaks of the soul of a body being revealed through sound. Through the warmth that a body carries within itself, one experiences something of its difference from its surroundings; through sound, the intrinsic nature, the individuality of the body emerges and communicates itself to perception.

If, as is appropriate, one speaks of meaning where knowledge comes about without the participation of understanding, memory, etc., then one must recognize other senses than those listed. If we apply this distinction, it is easy to see that in everyday life the word “sense” is often used in a non-literal way. For example, when we speak of a sense of imitation, a sense of concealment, etc. In what appears as imitation, concealment, etc., the intellect and judgment are already involved. Here we are not dealing with mere sensory activity.

But the situation is quite different when we perceive in language what is revealed by the sound. It is certainly self-evident that a complicated act of judgment is involved in the perception of something spoken, that comprehensive soul processes come into play that cannot be described by the word “sense”. But there is also something simple and direct in this area that represents a sensation before all judgment, just as a color or a degree of warmth is. A sound is not felt only in terms of its pitch, but something much more inward is grasped with it than the tone itself. If we say that the soul of a body lives in the tone, we may also say that in the sound this soul-life reveals itself in such a way that it is released and freed from the physical, and enters into manifestation with a certain independence. Because the sensation of sound precedes judgment, the child learns to sense the sound-meanings of words before it can use judgment. It is through speech that the child learns to judge. It is entirely justified to speak of a special sense of sound or sense of language. The reason that recognizing this sense is difficult is because the most diverse exercise of judgment usually occurs in addition to the direct sensation of what is revealed in the sound. But a careful examination of oneself shows that all hearing of what is given in sounds is based on an equally direct, judgment-free relationship to the being from which the sound emanates, as is the case when a color impression is perceived. It is easier to grasp this fact if we visualize how a sound of pain allows us to directly experience the pain of a being, without any kind of reflection or the like interfering with our perception. It is important to consider that the audible sound is not the only thing through which such inwardness is revealed to a person, as is the case with the sound of speech. Gesture, facial expression, and physiognomy ultimately lead to something simple and direct, which must be counted as much a part of the meaning of speech as the content of the audible sound.

To an even greater degree, the sensory character is hidden in the next sense to be characterized. When we understand a person who communicates through speech, gestures, etc., it is true that judgment, memory, etc. play a predominant role in this understanding. But here too, right self-contemplation leads us to recognize that there is a direct grasping and understanding that can precede all thinking and judging. The best way to develop a feeling for this fact is to realize how one can understand something even before one has developed the ability to judge it. There is, in fact, a very direct perception of that which reveals itself in the concept, so that one must speak of a sense of concept. What a person can experience as a concept in his own soul, he can also receive as a revelation from another being. Through the perception of the concept, one delves even deeper into the inner being of another person than through the perception of sounds. It is not possible to delve even further into another person than to the sensation of what lives in him as a concept. The sense of concept appears as that which penetrates into the innermost being of an external being. With the concept that lives in another person, the human being perceives what lives in him or her in a soul-like way. The sensory character of what is usually called the sense of touch does not appear in the same way as with the ten senses mentioned. This sense conveys external pressure, resistance, hardness, softness. One must visualize the essence of what is meant by “pressure”. The process is by no means a simple one. In reality, we do not perceive the pressing body directly, but rather the fact that it causes us to recoil at this or that point on the skin, or that we have to make a greater or lesser effort to make an impression on the body. There is a remarkable difference between this perception and that of, for example, a degree of warmth that is revealed on a body. Even if it is absolutely true that a cold bath will appear in a different state of warmth to a person who is hot from exercise than to a person who is freezing, that is, that in the perception of warmth, the subjective state is also perceived, it remains true that essentially the nature of the external object is revealed in the warmth. This results in a direct relationship between the feeling person and the object. It is not the same as saying to oneself that one must exert oneself more or less to make an impression on a body or to overcome the resistance it offers through its hardness or softness. What one says to oneself is the reproduction of an experience that one has within oneself in the body. And even if the fact is hidden, it is still true that in such a perception the judgment plays along, as it were secretly: “I find strong resistance, therefore the body is hard.” Just as it is true that, for example, in the sense of language, perception can be a completely direct one without any judgment, it is also true that, in the sense of touch, there is always an underlying judgment, however hidden. What is directly sensed by the sense of touch can always be found within the realms of the first three senses listed here. A body that presses on me, for example, causes a shift in the position of my body, which is sensed by the sense of life, or the sense of self-movement, or the sense of balance.

It is necessary to clearly define the differences between the individual sensory areas. With each sense, the relationship that a person has with an external object is different than with the other senses. Through the sense of life, the sense of self-movement, and the sense of balance, a person is immersed in his or her own physicality and perceives him or herself as a being of the external world. Through the sense of smell, the sense of taste, and the sense of sight, the physical reveals itself insofar as it manifests itself outwardly. Through the sense of warmth, it reveals inwardness, but still in an external way. With the help of the sense of hearing, the sense of speech, the sense of thought, the human being perceives an alien inwardness that is external to him. If one pays attention to these differences between the sensory areas, then one will not be tempted to speak too much in general terms about what a sense, sensory perception, etc. is. Rather, one will pay attention to the particular relationship through which the human being enters into the external world through each sense. It does not say much to characterize sensory perception, for example, as an impression that is directly caused by a stimulus of the sensory nerve in the soul. Through such definitions, it is all too easy to lose the characteristic of each individual sense in blurred generalizations. But it is important to note that the impression we experience from the warmth of a body is quite different in nature from that caused by a light impression. If we do not take this into account, we are easily led, for example, to place far too much value on judgments such as: “Man perceives the external world through the senses and forms ideas and concepts on the basis of sensory perceptions.” Here sense perception is simply set against conceptual thought. Such a judgment obscures the necessary free view of the fact that, for example, the sensation of smell is very far removed from the conceptual experience, but that the sense of hearing as a sense perception already approximates to what is present within the soul as such an experience.

Another aspect now becomes part of the sensory life of the human being. Here too we can distinguish a number of areas. First of all, there is the process by which the inner life of the body is sustained from the outside: breathing. In this process, the life of the body touches the outer world; it confronts the outer world, as it were, in a form in which it cannot continue to exist, in order to receive from it the strength to continue. These words express approximately what is revealed to man in the breathing process, without going into the results of sensory science. The latter belong to anthropology. But what is characterized here is experienced by man directly in life, in his desire for air, in the observation of the inhibition of life when there is a lack of air, etc. A further process in this area is that which can be described as warming. For the maintenance of bodily life, man depends on the development of a quite definite degree of warmth within his body, which does not depend on the processes that determine the warmth of his surroundings, but on those that take place within him, and which maintain the intrinsic warmth within definite limits, however the external warmth may be constituted. A third process of this kind is nutrition. Through it, the life of the body enters into a relationship with the external world in such a way that the substances consumed by it are replaced. A fourth process must be added to nutrition if it is to take place. In the mouth, the food consumed must interact with the saliva secreted by the body; similarly, such a process takes place during the further digestive process. This can be described as the fourth process in this area: secretion. Physical self-observation now shows that this process is followed by another. In the secretion that aids digestion, what is secreted is merely able to transform the food in such a way that it can be absorbed into the body. But man must also secrete that which can enter into this bodily life. He must transform the nutrients in such a way that they can serve to build up his body. This is based on a process that goes beyond what is given in the secretion just characterized. This process shall be called the process of preservation. Another process arises when we turn our attention to human growth. This goes beyond mere maintenance. In addition to the maintenance process, which would leave the body as it is at a particular point in time, there is another process that can be described as a growth process. The growth process and the maintenance process reach their conclusion when the finished body presents itself to the human being in a very specific form. This shaping of the human being from the inside out into a very specific form is called production. Reproduction then presents itself as a repetition of this production. That which belongs to one's own body is brought forth in such a way that it remains united with the human being; in reproduction, the brought forth comes out. Since here, for the time being, we are only speaking of the human being as a self-contained physical individuality, the process of reproduction is not taken into account.

The processes that are referred to here as aspiration, warming, nutrition, secretion, maintenance process, growth process and production are now followed by inner experiences for humans in a similar way to how inner experiences follow the processes of sensory perception in the ego. Emotional experiences follow breathing, warming and nourishment. These experiences are less noticed in their middle states, but they immediately stand out when this state is disturbed in one direction or the other. If breathing cannot take place in the appropriate way, anxiety and the like occur. A disturbance of the warmth state manifests itself in the feeling of frost or heating. Disturbance of nutrition manifests itself in hunger and thirst. It can be said that breathing, warmth and nutrition are linked to inner experiences, which reveal themselves as a kind of well-being, comfort, etc. These experiences are always there; they underlie what manifests itself as malaise, discomfort, hunger, etc. when there is a disturbance. Real introspection now shows that such emotional experiences are also related to secretion, the process of preservation, the process of growth and the process of creation. Think of how states of fear and anxiety manifest themselves in excessive perspiration; and you will be able to admit that secretion of this kind, within certain limits, is connected with a feeling that manifests itself in a general sense of comfort, just as one can see that all secretion is accompanied by an emotional state that escapes the attention of consciousness as long as it is normal. And further, self-reflection shows that such emotional experiences are also connected with the processes of preservation, growth and production. One can feel, for example, that the feeling of strength of youth is the expression of what inner experiences follow growth.

These inner emotional experiences are now something that stands in a similar way in the human being to the processes of breathing, warming, growing, etc., as the inner experiences that follow sensory perceptions stand in the “I” to the processes of these perceptions. It is therefore possible to speak of the fact that, for example, breathing is connected with an experience in the human being in a similar way to how hearing is connected with the experience that is designated as sound. The only difference is that the degree of clarity with which external sense perceptions are inwardly relived is much greater than that which is accorded to the inner experiences characterized here. Hidden beneath or within the 'ego-person' is another person who is built up out of inner experiences, just as the ego-person is built up out of the results of external sense perceptions. But this human being who lies beneath the 'I-human' is only really noticed in life when he announces himself to the 'I-human' in the disturbances of his experiences. But just as little as one may throw together the process of sensory perception with the process in the ego that is linked to it, so little may one do so, for example, in relation to the breathing process and the inner experiences (of an emotional nature) that combine with this process. It would be easy to be tempted to completely misunderstand the nature of these inner experiences and to say that there is no essential difference between them and those that develop under the influence of sense perceptions. It must be admitted that the difference between the two types of inner experiences, for example, between the sense of life and the inner emotional experience during the breathing or warming process, is not particularly clear. But it can easily be determined by more exact observation, if one bears the following in mind. It belongs to a sense experience that a judgment can only be attached to it through the “I”. Everything that a person accomplishes under the influence of a judgment must, if it relates to sense perceptions, be such that the judgment is made within the “I”. For example, one perceives a flower and passes judgment on it: this flower is beautiful. What is now evoked by the processes of breathing, warming, nourishment, etc., as inner experiences, points, without the intervention of the “I”, to something similar to judgment. In the experience of hunger there is an immediate indication of something corresponding to hunger and connected with it in the same way that, after making a judgment in response to a sense perception, the human being connects with that sense perception. Just as the activity of the 'I' connects with the sense perception when making a judgment, so with hunger something external is connected without the 'I' establishing this connection. This union may therefore be called an instinctive manifestation. And this applies to all inner experiences that are connected with breathing, nourishment and growth processes. We must therefore distinguish between the instinctive inner experiences of breathing comfort and warmth and well-being, and the corresponding perceptions of the meaning of life. The wave of instinct must, as it were, first beat against the 'I-human being' in order to reach the realm of the meaning of life. The structure of the inner experiences that take place through the processes described behind the 'I-human being' are now to be ascribed to the 'astral human being'. Again, the name 'astral human being' should initially be associated with nothing other than what is described here. Just as the “I-person” draws his experiences from the “sense world” through the sense organs, so the “astral person” draws his from the world that is given to him through the processes of breathing, growing, etc. For the time being, let this world be called the “world of life”.

In order for a “life world” to exist, the organs of life must be built out of a world that lies beyond all life in a similar way to the forces for building the sense organs lying beyond the world of sense perceptions. This world reveals itself again in its effects, in the structure of the organs of life. The individual areas of the life processes: breathing, warming, nourishment, etc., can be interpreted as references to just as many areas of this world. One can now see that the areas of the life processes are less strictly separated from each other than the areas of sensory perception. The sense of taste, for example, is strictly separated from the sense of sight, whereas the areas of life processes are closer; they merge more. Breathing leads to warming, which in turn leads to nutrition. - Anthropology therefore shows essentially separate sensory organs for sensory perception; for the life processes, it shows organs that flow into one another. Thus the lungs, the most exquisite respiratory organ, are connected with the organs of blood circulation, which serve for warming; these in turn flow together with the digestive organs, which correspond to nutrition, etc. — This is an indication that the corresponding areas of the world in which their constructive forces lie also relate to each other in a different way than the forces for building the sense organs. The latter must, as it were, be more mobile in relation to one another than the organs of sense. The experiences of the sense of taste, for example, can only meet with those of the sense of hearing in the common 'I' to which they belong. The feeling of growth, on the other hand, meets with itself through that which is revealed in the breathing process. The feeling of the power of growth is revealed in the ease of breathing, in warming, etc., through increased inner life. Each feeling-like experience of this kind can coincide with another of the same kind. The areas of sensory perception could be depicted as a kind of circumference, with the individual areas resting on it while the “I” moves across them. The life processes can be depicted in a different way. They can all be imagined as being mobile and capable of moving across each other.

Now, however, there are also clear relationships between the sense perceptions and the life processes. Take the breathing process and relate it to the auditory perception. In both cases, the corresponding bodily organ is directed towards the outside world. This is an indication that in the outer world that which has a relationship to both the one and the other organ reveals itself. It is only that, for instance, two things reveal themselves in the air; in relation to one, the respiratory organ is formed and places it at the service of the body; in relation to the other, the structure of the organ of hearing is related. It may be recognized that the forces that shape the organ of hearing must, so to speak, be more original than those that form the respiratory organ. For in the developed human body, everything is interdependent. A human organ of hearing can only unfold from the inside out if the respiratory system is predisposed in just the way it is. From out of the organism, the respiratory system grows towards the outer world, as does the organ of hearing. Now the respiratory organ serves only the inner life of the body; the organ of hearing, however, must be adapted to the outer world - to the realm of sound. In the outgrowth of the respiratory organ from the body, therefore, only the nature of the body itself needs to be taken into account; the organ of hearing must outgrow itself in such a way that it is appropriate for the outer world of sound. No other organ needs to lie in front of the respiratory organ; it grows in accordance with the inner formative forces. The organ of hearing, however, must grow towards an already existing structure. Its adaptation to the outer world must precede its emergence from the inner life of the body. This shows that the forces that form the organ of hearing as a sensory tool belong to a world that is the more original or higher than the other, in which lie the forces that reveal themselves as such, which form both the organ of hearing and the organ of respiration from the body. A similar thing can be shown for other sensory perceptions and life processes. One's attention is drawn to the sense of taste. The secretions can be related to it in a similar way to the respiratory process to the sense of hearing. The saliva of the mouth contains what the food dissolves and thus makes it possible to taste. A similar reflection to the one just made can show that the forces from which the secretory organs are formed are the less original ones compared to those through which the sense of taste arises.

In the light of such considerations, one can therefore assume a higher supersensible entity in man, whose powers reveal themselves in the structure of the human sense organs. Likewise, there is another whose effects reveal themselves in the structure of the human organs of life. The latter world is felt by the 'astral man' as his instinctive inner experiences; the former manifests itself to the 'I-man' as a sensory reality (sensual world). However, neither the first world through the senses nor the second can come directly to manifestation in the astral man.

It has been said that the supersensible world reveals itself in the “I”, as it were shrunk to a point, in its own nature; in the same sense, it can be recognized that the second of the worlds mentioned shows itself in the emotional experiences of the “astral man”, which can be described as life instincts. In these experiences something is expressed with which the other instinctive experiences of the “astral man” merge into one and are an image of a supersensible world in the sense that the “I-man” is an image of such a world.

The “I-person” and the “astral person” represent two human parts that express themselves in inner processes. In order to make the “I-person” possible, the forces of a supersensible world build up the sense organs. In so far as the human body is the carrier of the sense organs, it shows itself to be built out of a supersensible world. Let us now call this carrier of the sense organs the physical human body. The 'I-human' permeates it in order to live with its help in the sense world. We must therefore see in the physical human body an entity that is built out of forces that are related in their nature to the 'I' itself. Within the sense world, the physical human body can only reveal itself in its sensory manifestation. According to its inner reality, it is a being of a supersensible nature. — In order to make the “astral human being” possible, another world, which is added to the characterized supersensible world as a “life world”, builds the organs of life. The forces of this world have proved to be akin to those of the experiences that the “astral human being” has in the instincts of life. What builds up the physical human being reveals itself in the sense world in the sense described above. The forces that build the organs of life can only reveal themselves in the physical world in the processes of life. This is because they generate the organs of life, and only through such organs can a life process manifest itself. The organs of life themselves are not organs of perception. Therefore, not only the forces that build up the organs of life remain imperceptible to the senses, but the manifestation of these forces in the human being cannot become manifest to the senses either, but can only be an intuitive, instinctive experience. This revelation will now be called the 'etheric human body'. (The word 'etheric' should be understood to mean only what is meant here, and in no way what bears the name 'ether' in physics.) Just as the physical human body relates to the 'I-human', so the 'etheric human body' relates to the 'astral human'. The physical body is, in its essence, such that it provides the I with sense experiences; the “etheric body” can only be experienced directly by the “astral human being” in terms of feeling. The relationship between the I and the physical human body is the same as that between the “astral human being” and the “etheric human body”. Thus the organs of life presuppose forces to which they adapt themselves, in that they shape sense organs, such as the organ of hearing, out of the body in the sense of experiences to which they themselves do not serve; and the sense organs in turn presuppose the organs of life in that they are maintained by their processes.

Thus we can distinguish: 1. A supersensible world in which lie the forces for building up the sense organs. 2. A supersensible world in which lie the forces for building up the organs of life. The former presupposes the latter; therefore the former can be called the higher spiritual world and the latter the lower spiritual world. 3. A world in which the astral human being is related to the life processes in such a way that these reveal themselves in him as life instincts. This presupposes the life processes, and thus the second world. It may be called the astral world. 4. A world in which sense experiences reveal themselves to the human being through the sense organs. This, however, is the physical-sensual world.

The physical human body is formed from the higher spiritual world, in so far as it is the carrier of the sense organs. The etheric human body is formed from the lower spiritual world, in so far as it builds up the life organs. In the astral world, the astral human being enters into a relationship with the processes of life, in so far as these reveal themselves in the life instincts. In the physical world, the human ego enters into a relationship with the sense experiences (sound, tone, warmth, light, etc.) that present themselves as the external world, insofar as these reveal themselves as the sense world.

If we now assume, as we have done above, that the formative forces for the organs of life and the predispositions for the sense organs lie in the lower spiritual world, then a distinction arises for the formative forces of the organs of life prevailing in this world between those that presuppose an internalized substance and those that shape their organs for the absorption of the substance from outside. It is easy to see that the latter are a prerequisite for the former. For if matter itself did not possess the potential to become internalized, it could not become active within itself. Thus, forces must prevail in matter that enable it to evoke counter-effects from what is external to it. The above description has shown that matter can produce such counter-effects in itself. The reversed senses of life, of self-movement and of equilibrium carry within them the hidden possibility of acting in such a way that, in order to produce internal formations, they are active as substance itself, without using the internal formative principles as such. They act, after all, not only within, but also outside their measure. If we now imagine these three inverted sensory activities as being so effective that they do not encounter any internally formed organ, but remain in the character of their effectiveness, then they reach a boundary where they must return into themselves. At this boundary, therefore, the material would throw itself back into itself; it would be inhibited in itself. At this boundary, what could be called materiality in materiality would be given. And this points to the possibility of how the organs that need inner substance arise out of a world in which the material-outer becomes material-inner. In this world, the first rudiments would have to lie both for those organs of the life process that are supplied by internalized substance and for those that need external substance. And the forces that bring the external substance to the interior should already have the potential for this internalization. Just as the forces in the organs of life themselves point to a world of other forces, from which the organs of life are first formed, so the internal flow of matter in the organs of life points to potentialities from an even higher world, from which they are formed. We are led to point to an outer world which, through the contrast between the sense of life, the sense of self-movement and the sense of equilibrium, can spark an inner world within itself. This world, however, can be called the “higher spiritual world”. What would be sought in it? Not forces that shape organs of life in the first place, but those that implant in their structures the potential to become organs of life. These forces, however, are to be thought of as the opposites of the sense of equilibrium, the sense of self-movement and the sense of life. If these forces are stopped before they reach the limit of their effectiveness, through inner formative processes in organs that are already being formed, then they shape the sense organs of hearing, of sound and of concept out of such organ predispositions. What happens when they reach the limit of that activity which lies in their own character? If the sense of life that is turned inwards did not encounter something in the organ of concepts that it only has to reshape, then it would obviously lead the conceptual experience back into itself. And in its reflection, it would immediately encounter itself. It would be the same as in a sensory experience, but it would have an independent existence without an underlying sensory organ. The same could be said for the sense of balance and equilibrium when reversed. In the higher spiritual world, we would thus find sense experiences that are at rest in themselves and which prove to be related to those sense experiences to which the human being in the physical world is closest with his ego, the experiences of the sense of concept, sound and hearing. But those experiences are as if there were not, as it were, a human ego standing before them and taking them in, but as if there were a being behind them that creates them in its own activity.