The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The absorption of nutrients allows the cosmic activity to immediately flow into the sphere in which the human etheric body is active. This transition is already conditioned by the forces that underlie the human form. Within this absorption into the etheric body process, the cosmic forces of movement intervene insofar as they are concentrated in the seven organs, so that the gall process still represents the descent of the human ego into the first nutritional processes.

Then, in the liver, human astrality descends, so that it contributes to the inner life process through the spleen; from the body tissue, human astrality now begins to intervene in the overall life process, insofar as it acts through the etheric body on the physical body; it comes to life in the lymphatic system; from the heart (blood) the human I intervenes, which acts through the astral body on the etheric body and from there on the physical body; the descending processes of muscle tissue, cartilage tissue and bone tissue arise. And now one can work the processes of salting from the outside onto the blood, from the inside through the nutritional process. These interventions take place until the absorption through the blood from one side, and through the fluids until the transformation by the seven organs from the other side. The metallization goes into the seven organs and their soul correlates. The easily combustible substances go as far as the exchange process of lymph and 7 organs; they thereby regulate the processes associated with body warming; the forces active in the plant kingdom directly intervene in the sphere of 7 organs and lymphatic system; they go directly to the life processes, insofar as these are ascending.

Mineral substances on all systems = internally on bones, cartilage, muscle system (arbitrarily) on the organs, if their nutritional processes are not in order. —

Herbal substances on the life systems, if their functions are not in order.

The outside world forms in the exoderm, so that it goes inward until it is connected to the nervous system.

The impression of the outside world then progresses to the muscle and bone systems in the mesoderm; (outside) the inner world presents itself as the older one in the lesser muscle and vascular systems... inner mesoderm.

The inner world pushes this system towards the outside and is present from the inside in the intestinal gland system - which opens outwards. Entoderm.

With the first inner world, the lymphatic system pushes its way into the organism [to absorb what is produced by the inner world in the organism itself], and the system of inner perception.

With the second inner world, the system of unlocking the outward with the corresponding drainage system and the upwardly differentiated sensory system pushes forward.

When the cell is rejected, all nascent life = germ cell = this has all the nascent processes and is not viable because the cosmic processes can give less than it demands; it dies from excessive energy, which does not allow the outer mesoderm to completely close the skin and deposit bones, and the inner mesoderm to form organs. The sperm cell contains the predispositions for those processes that condition the opening up of the organs inwards in such a way that they can cope with the outside world; they kill the outer mesoderm to such an extent that it can reach the point of bone deposition and skin closure; the inner mesoderm in such a way that the organs harden around the [pulsating] substances and forming tissues.

I must now approach some details through which the general truths of this subject will come to light. Everything would become much clearer through a little practical exercise.

But I must put the subject in as general a light as possible, so that no obstacle arises for the reader's judgment. And when I use the term “nothing,” I presuppose something other than the possession of a rule by which it can be said how the facts are. By knowing, I mean that the facts of a subject are available in the mind to come actively into consciousness when attention is directed to them. Michel Angelo recognized the human form; he could give every smallest fact about it. If he were to name it in a picture, he would see, mentally, how every muscle and every wrinkle of the hand lay in relation to the surrounding parts. We must achieve a knowledge as good as Michel Angelo's. There is a great difference between Michelangelo and us; but let us express this difference, not in our way of perceiving, but in the difference between the things he perceived and those we perceive. We now take simple lines and know them as absolutely as he perceived the complicated structure of the human body. Let us take a block of cubes; it can be any number, but to achieve consistency, let us put together 27 cubes to form a large cube of 27 parts. Let each cube be labeled so that it can be recognized, and let each be given a name so that it can be referred to. We assume that we have become acquainted with this block of dice in such a way that each of them is known, so that each is individually recognized and its relation to the others is known.

Now that we have acquired this knowledge of the block as it stands before us, we ask ourselves whether there is any self-element in our knowledge of it.

Undoubtedly, there is such a self-element. We have come to know the dice as they stand in accordance with their own convenience in relation to each other. We see the lower ones first; and the others above them, and we see those below as the bearers of the upper ones. Now, however, this relationship does not have to do with the dice themselves; it depends on the conditions under which we stand to grasp the block of dice; it depends on our own position in relation to the earth's surface when gravity is an important factor in our perception. In fact, our vision is so accustomed to taking gravity into account when considering things that when we look at a landscape or an object with our heads upside down, we do not see it in reverse, but we reduce it to this knowledge of gravity and get an impression little different from that in an upright position. If we are not things in space, then comprehending in space is the way in which the unrecognized us exists as spirit.

The Anthroposophical Society is dedicated to the cultivation of spiritual scientific research. The basis of this research is the realization that it is possible and necessary for our time to experience a similar change of views regarding the spiritual as human views experienced a similar change 4-5 centuries ago through Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Giordano Bruno and others regarding the natural sciences. This spiritual science is based on a real exploration of the spiritual world. In this respect, it is strictly opposed to all materialistic - or, as it is often called today, monistic - dogmatism. It seeks to apply the real methods of spiritual research and is of the opinion that materialistic world views and mere natural science simply do not know these methods - or have no inclination to deal with them - and therefore reject them. It takes the view that this rejection is currently arising from the same blinkered mentality as that which once opposed the Copernican worldview. The view of repeated lives on Earth is not a dogma of faith for spiritual researchers, but a result of their research. It seems just as incredible to people today as the assertion that the earth moves and does not rest once seemed to them. Thus, the Anthroposophical Society is to be regarded as a scientific society, not as a religious community or sect. The insights of spiritual research that are already possible today can be found in the writings of Dr. Rudolf Steiner. The building in Dornach near Basel, which is currently under construction, also serves to cultivate this knowledge. The artistic expression flowing from the insights of the spiritual world is also expressed in this building.

Since the spiritual-scientific results concern the important facts of the human soul life, it is natural that people's minds should also be interested in these results, that these results can become the innermost personal convictions, valuable to each one, which support and sustain him in his ethical, in his whole spiritual and also outer life. At the same time, it remains true that there can be no question of the Anthroposophical Society founding a religion or anything similar. The Society is far from even touching on any religious worldview. It can have the adherents of any religious confession in its midst. It cultivates spiritual scientific research and has nothing to do with any creed. It presents what can be investigated by spiritual science, just as natural science presents what can be investigated by natural science. Just as true natural science can never interfere with religion, given a proper understanding of the relationship between the two, so spiritual science cannot do so either. At present, anthroposophy no longer has any community with the so-called theosophical societies. It stands completely independently of any other society on the basis of the spiritual research characterized above. It is understandable that it faces opposition from religions and also from materialistic science, since its research results are currently still misunderstood, misinterpreted and the like. She will have to struggle not to appear like a sect, but like the bearers of such knowledge, which at the time of its appearance seems like fantasies, but which then become the basic pillars in the progression of the human worldview.

However, anyone who believes that there can be no other view of the spiritual world than the traditional one, or that such a view must be preserved for “belief”, will inevitably misunderstand the whole nature of spiritual research. But one should recognize that this currently reveals the same attitude as that which rejected Copernicus because it was believed that the Christian canon was contrary to the Bible.

Those who are familiar with spiritual science are of the opinion that the establishment of the fundamentals of human life in the broadest sense can lead to an elevation of the moral and of all life in general, and that with the spread of spiritual science, many an ideal will be realized, for which the best and most honest minds yearn; or in whose realization many despair because they see no possibility of realization in the materialistic present. Perhaps he will no longer do so when he penetrates into the real meaning of spiritual research. The Anthroposophical Society would like to serve knowledge and life in a calm way, based on genuine science. But it is based on a science that does not stop short of exploring real spiritual realms. —

Etheric body (etheric body). A coarser (externally perceptible) human body (and that of other living beings) underlying finer body (body). It is characterized by the newer theosophy as the system of forces, which have their lawful content from the spiritual basis of the world and which find their expression (objectification) in the organic forms of the physically perceptible body. The etheric body has nothing in common with the speculative-mystical “vital force” of the old vitalists. However, it does coincide with the “inner man” of earlier philosophies, referred to as the “scheme”, and also appears in the world view of Origenes and Augustinus. In more recent times, it found a representative in the philosophers Troxler, I. H. Fichte, among others. In Kant, it is found, albeit surrounded by skepticism, in the dreams of a spirit-seer as a soul-like inner man who bears all the limbs of the outer man within him as a possibility. For modern theosophy, the etheric body is a reality that can be perceived when the “inner senses” of the observer are awakened and brought to perception through appropriate soul training from their latent state in which they are in ordinary human life. It then reveals itself as a system of forces that changes its forms (never taking fixed forms), flows through the physical body and merges into the indefinite (into the forces of the cosmos) in the area of the anterior physical body (like a kind of mirror image of the spine). It forms an intermediate link between the physical body and the higher components of the human being, the soul and the spirit. In the state of sleep, the etheric body remains fully connected to the physical body, while the soul and spirit detach themselves from the region of the sensory organs and the central nervous system (but not from the other organs and the sympathetic nervous system). During dreaming, the spirit is detached from the sense organs and the central nervous system, but the soul is not detached from them. (This detachment is not to be thought of as spatial, but as dynamic). In death, the etheric body, soul and spirit (the soul is also called the astral body, the spirit of man is called the “ego body”) detach themselves from the physically perceptible body (spatially and dynamically); these three parts of the human being remain connected for a short time (several days); then the etheric body detaches itself from the soul and spirit. It then passes over, in accordance with natural law, into the general cosmic forces: one part into the etheric sphere of the earth, another part into the etheric world that does not belong to the earth. This dissolution of the etheric body takes place at different times and also varies in character according to the individual. An observation of the laws of this dissolution is one of the most difficult problems of spiritual science. This kind of dissolution is connected with the character of the physical life on earth and forms part of the causes of destiny that affect soul and spirit after they have passed into the spiritual world after their separation from the etheric body.

In this lecture, I will discuss two products of the human mind: knowledge of nature and knowledge of the spirit. This touches on something that not only occupies the human intellect, but also has a profound impact on all of human life; it touches on an antagonism that has produced disastrous struggles in history, great disharmony in the coexistence of people, and the most tragic conflicts in the individual human soul. In this paper, we will discuss an attempt that is currently being made to clarify this issue. We will discuss the attempt that lies in the theosophical line of thought and research in the present day.

'Wherever science is mentioned in our time, one has a certain idea of the nature of science. Even if one or the other contemporary understands the concept in a slightly different way, the differences are not so great that one could not speak of a general agreement. It is required of science that its explanations can be the subject of objective knowledge at any given point in time and for any given person. Everything that is not asserted for the reason that things themselves tell us, but rather for the reason that it lies only in the subjective experience of the human being, is excluded from science, and in an especially strict sense from natural science.

If I now want to talk about the relationship between Theosophy and this natural science, I cannot assume an agreement in the same sense about the former term. It is therefore my responsibility to say what I will call Theosophy in my explanations. The name has been in use for many centuries. And it has always been applied more or less clearly to such knowledge that strives to penetrate into an area that concerns the spiritual, the supersensible starting points and backgrounds of natural phenomena and human existence through special sources of knowledge. Within the broad boundaries that this denotes, however, the concept of Theosophy varies among those who have used it. In my explanations, I will now speak of no other concept of Theosophy than one that assumes a very specific premise. It is the one that assumes that the power of knowledge is not exhausted with the abilities that present-day science applies. Rather, it asserts that through very specific activities that human beings undertake with their soul life, other abilities come to light through which the supersensible world can be opened up. It further asserts that only the development of such abilities can provide a truly experienced knowledge of the supersensible worlds, while everything that is gained only through inference from ordinary knowledge is to be referred to the realm of hypotheses. The assertion does not go so far as to say that the results provided by the assumed powers of knowledge are meaningless for all those who do not acquire these powers themselves. These powers are necessary only for research, not for testing the knowledge once it has been gained against the standard of logic and a properly guided sense of truth. Only those who are able to use their soul as an instrument in the manner indicated can arrive at such knowledge; and it must be clear and comprehensible to every sound sense of truth.

Certain circles speak of Theosophy in this sense, and whether rightly or wrongly, they have usurped this name for their endeavors. And in this sense, Theosophy will also be spoken of in this hour.

One need only repeat what has just been said and one can immediately encounter an apparently quite justified objection on the part of science. One can say that then Theosophy appeals precisely to a realization that depends entirely on the person himself, which is achieved precisely by the soul bringing itself into a certain state. Those who raise this objection fail to consider that the question is whether the soul cannot, through the preparations undertaken, attain a state that frees it from everything that science itself seeks to exclude. In that case, the soul's preparations for supersensible research would be a purely inner, subjective process, but not the state ultimately attained. This could then lead to insights in the same sense that the eyes of people lead to an agreement about colors, which is sufficient for the practice of life. But even those who are aware that different eyes see differently will not deny this agreement.

Now spiritual research provides methods for such training of the soul faculties, by which the required can be achieved.

I ask the honored audience to allow me for the time being as a mere assertion, which will find its justification in my further remarks. I assume that there is a second person in every human being, so to speak. And while the first is meant to be the one whom the senses see and the mind initially admits, the second is meant to be a conductor who is supersensible and far removed from ordinary thinking. And I ask you to understand that by this second person I do not mean something merely imagined, but a reality, even if a supersensible one.

What alone gives us the right to speak of such a second person? Nothing other than what also gives us the right to speak of the fact that hydrogen is contained in water. It would be quite inappropriate to speak of the absence of hydrogen in water if one were not able to separate hydrogen from water in the laboratory and present it as a separate entity. Is something similar possible in relation to two human beings? The fact that it is possible is precisely the result of spiritual research. In natural science, man recognizes that he has his two natures undivided in one another, just as hydrogen and oxygen are undivided in water. But it is possible to free the supersensible man from the sensual man in such a way that the former can be by himself, that he can enter into a contemplation of the world that does not make use of the tools of the second human being.

Now, man cannot, as it were, leap into such a state. He must start from the kind of knowledge he has in ordinary life. This is done by taking the first half of the leap, so to speak, by still retaining something of ordinary knowledge. The point is to initially suppress all attention and interest in the objects presented to the senses. Furthermore, all thoughts must be silenced. Through an intense effort of will, one must acquire the mental practice of being in an absolutely even inner state, undisturbed by any impression. The mistake usually made in this practice is that one has too little idea of it. The less one believes that one has already achieved the necessary with a certain state, the better it is. It takes a great deal of time and inner strength to achieve even a little in this regard. It must be expressly stated that the state one enters must have nothing of what could even remotely be described as pathological. And there is a great danger of crossing the safe boundary between healthy and morbid in such soul training. This is why certain schools of thought that make the methods of spiritual research compulsory for their followers do not talk about these things in public at all.

There is currently a tendency among scientists and doctors to consider anything that deviates from the norm as pathological.

In contrast, it cannot be emphasized enough that the soul training should not be considered a kind of mental training, in which the aim is to achieve a state of consciousness that is as close as possible to the state of consciousness of a healthy person.

The danger is very real that one crosses the safe boundary between healthy and morbid in such soul training. This is why certain schools of thought that make the methods of spiritual research compulsory for their followers do not talk about these things in public at all.

There is currently a tendency among scientists and doctors to consider anything that deviates from the norm as pathological There is currently a tendency among natural scientists and physicians to classify as pathological everything that deviates from the norm that is considered correct.

In contrast to this, it cannot be emphasized enough that all mental states achieved through the training methods referred to here do not represent a reduction but an increase in health. And only if the training is not carried out properly will the development take a course contrary to the right one. Of course, I cannot characterize in one hour all the individual soul functions that proper training brings about. For this many individual acts are necessary. A more exact idea of what is needed can be obtained from my book, which in the German edition bears the title “Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?” The French edition is entitled “L'Initiation”. - If a person now observes everything that is indicated there, and if he does not shy away from time, effort and self-denying moods, then he can achieve what can be described as a complete dwelling within the soul without any content from ordinary life. The essential point is that this is a state in which full consciousness of the soul is present, without the soul's content being there, which in ordinary life fills consciousness.

Once such a state has been attained, the task is to fill the emptied soul with content again. This must not be content taken from ordinary life. For such a content would lead the soul back into the realm it wants to leave. But where should another content come from? Here it comes into consideration what I just described when I said that the leap must first be made half way. The soul must bring it about through further intensive efforts of will, now as if out of the nothingness of the soul life, to fill itself completely with a powerfully effective idea. This must be a symbol that does not represent any external object or event, but one that symbolizes a meaningful thing. In this case, the symbol acts as something between an ordinary idea and a phantasm. It refers to something real; but it does not represent anything real. When one concentrates all that lives in the soul upon such a symbol, one draws the inner soul together into itself, as it were, and one frees oneself from that state in which one knows the inner man only through the instrumentality of the outer man. One gets to know the experience that consists in regarding the outer man as a being that, like other objects of the outer world, does not belong to us but belongs to the objective world. It may be said of this experience that some mystics come close to it, but do not fully attain it. The philosophical critics who have discussed the experience knew it only in this imperfect form. And that is why what they object to is justified from their point of view. They find that everything that can be gained from the experience can have a personal value for a person. They admit that through it he can feel as if he has been transported into a spiritual world. But they do not admit that through this experience one can gain spiritual knowledge that is quite independent of the personality. But one can only do so when the experience deepens to such an extent that one really feels like a kind of double being. One then sees one's own organism in a completely new form. In this form, it shows with all certainty all those characteristics by which one gives one's experiences a personal coloration in normal life. And in this way it becomes a teacher of truly impersonal knowledge. One need only look at him and say to oneself: “This is what makes things appear to you with this or that nuance of feeling.” In this way one is able to eliminate everything that is subjective. This important experience, which must precede every ascent to supersensible knowledge, bears the name in the language of esoteric science: “Encounter with the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’”. Since I am not speaking here of the path that leads man to act in the supersensible world, it is not incumbent upon me to describe in detail the terrible form that this “Guardian of the Threshold” shows to all those who want to come to such action. It is quite justified that the means by which this guardian of the supersensible worlds is approached in this field is not spoken of publicly. For the encounter with him is terrible and full of danger. It brings before the spiritual eye all the instincts, desires, passions, down to the lowest forms, of which man could only be capable if all the inhibitions that education, heredity, knowledge, social sense, etc. lend to life did not work. And since nothing counteracts the terrible spectre of one's own nature, there is a serious danger that man will not be able to escape the temptations and will head towards terrible moral decay. One only has to read the descriptions of those mystics who have taken a few steps into these dangerous worlds. What they describe of temptations and wild passions is completely true. The experiences one can have there are such that the usual descriptions of hell pale in comparison. It is well known that such mystics protect themselves from these temptations by striving for a complete annihilation of their personality before they enter these regions. They kill every feeling of their own, every will of their own. “It is no longer I myself who feel, no longer I myself who will, but it is Christ in me.” This attitude of Paul's becomes the ideal of these mystics. By sanctifying their whole inner being, they seek to escape the temptations of the same. For those who do not seek complete entry into the supersensible realm, but only the gaining of knowledge from it, the meeting with the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’ is less perilous. As already mentioned, only those reasons arise at the significant boundary that determine a person to see the world in a subjective way. Now, of course, these reasons are also terribly enticing. They are so strong that there is a danger that a person will lose all sense of anything other than what is personally sufficient for them as truth. He may then lose all sense of an impersonal form of truth in spiritual matters. This danger can be avoided if the one who ventures into the supersensible has first acquired a sound judgment and genuine critical faculty. These are the only things that can be taken from the ordinary world into the world of supersensible knowledge. In regard to the content of experience the two worlds are fundamentally different; but they are the same in this, that he who really thinks logically in the one world can also do so in the other. This thinking gives the spiritual researcher nothing that he could carry over into his new world. One does not learn the nature and facts of this world through concepts that one carries over from the ordinary world into it. They can only be known through observation, through direct experience. Yet this thinking is necessary for the reason that one should not lose touch with the old world when entering a new one. It is impossible for anyone in a supersensible world to distinguish hallucination or vision from reality who is not able to compare or measure his experiences in this world with those of the ordinary world. No matter how interesting the stories about the most wonderful and marvelous things in a spiritual world may be, no matter how much they may captivate attention. They are worthless for man's understanding of the world if one is unable to explain their relationship to the ordinary sense world in a logically satisfactory way.

The one danger into which man falls in his ascent into the supersensible world, and which has just been indicated, can also be described by saying: At the boundary between the two worlds, the tendency arises, indeed an almost irresistible urge, to mistake error for truth. He who cannot conquer this tendency becomes a visionary, a dreamer. He does not become a spiritual researcher. In the literary or philosophical world, which deals with these things outside of the theosophical world view, one knows nothing of the strict laws that the spiritual researcher imposes on himself after recognizing this danger. Therefore, it is quite understandable that everything he describes as true is considered by others to be nothing more than visions, hallucinations, etc. For outwardly, i.e. for those ideas that one can form without the characterized experience, they are nothing else. And a truly critical distinction between reality and appearance is only possible for those who have hardened their cognitive abilities in the fire through which they must pass when they have that experience.

All this, however, only points to one of the dangers of the supersensible path of knowledge. The other is that in the moment in which one has left one's ordinary organism, one is like a helpless child in the supersensible world. At first one only knows that one has become a different person: one does not know what to do now. Two cases can arise: Either one feels like being in an empty nothing. Then it is necessary to keep courage and composure. This is a sign that one has not yet sufficiently mastered the soul exercises of symbolic visualization. One is in a situation like a hungry person who has awakened a longing for a new world, but who is unable to satisfy this longing. To continue the exercises, one then needs great courage and self-confidence. If one cannot summon them up, one falls back into ordinary life; and one has gained nothing for it, but one has lost one's naive contentment and peace.

The other case is when, through the spiritual exercises undertaken, one has concentrated so much of the spiritual powers of the human being that they begin to show themselves as a spiritual organism. Then one is just like a helpless child. Perceptions arise before the spiritual field of vision that run in colorful interplay. But one does not know what to do with them. You now have to learn to orient yourself. This can only happen in a calm, serene inner soul life. It is the case that little by little the details that you experience form parts of an overall picture, that they give each other meaning. In this way, the spiritual field of vision is filled with images. It is a world of which one knew nothing before. The errors that arise when real seers describe this world stem from the fact that these seers have to use the words of ordinary language, which, after all, are only formed for the perceptions of the sensory world. They have to talk about sounds and colors. In truth, however, these are all only figurative expressions. But one should not say that it is therefore impermissible to use these expressions. On the contrary, it is entirely justified. For when the seer says, “I see red here and there,” he is aware that by using the word “red” he does not mean the red as seen by the eye when looking at a red cloth; but what he sees evokes in his soul an experience similar to the red of the cloth.

The supersensible picture presented to the seer in this way must be approached in a quite different way from the approach to the sense world. If one perceives something in the world of sense, it is sufficient for all practical purposes of life to take what one perceives for reality. No matter how clearly the idealistic philosopher may demonstrate that the sense picture of the dog is only an appearance, the man who stands in practical life must first of all hold fast to what he sees as a 'dog'. If we now were to do the same with regard to the supersensible picture just described, we should fall into the worst error. We must be able to say to ourselves: everything that lies in my supersensible field of perception is as yet nothing at all; it shows nothing real, but only images of the real. It is nothing; it only signifies something. We must be able to say to ourselves: everything you have before you is basically nothing but an illusion if you can't go any further. You have to be able to take a step forward now. But this step is basically nothing more than an expectation of what happens when you persist with calmness, self-confidence and presence of mind. I would like to illustrate this step with a comparison. It is as if you opened your eyes to the bright sun and were blinded, but then you could wait until your eyes had become hardened to look boldly at the sun. In this way, the inner spiritual man indeed hardens and strengthens. The images then become transparent and what they mean appears. Only now has entry into the supersensible world been accomplished. Only now can one experience its essence. For this reason, the supersensible world is called the imaginative world as long as it is a world of images. When it then opens up to reveal what it means, it is called the world of inspiration.

Only when one has reached this point does one stand face to face with the supersensible world. What the seer then perceives in this world can become the content of what is communicated to the world as theosophy. Whether or not this is accepted will depend on the attitude with which one faces life and ordinary science. One can be in such a frame of mind that one perceives the overpowering way in which the sense world reveals itself as the only reality. Then one will not at all be open to the subtle assurances of the seer or spiritual researcher with regard to everything he has experienced, in order to be able to distinguish between vision, hallucination, etc. and reality. One will dismiss his communications as visions, his spiritual mood as ecstasy in the popular sense. At best, one will accept them as personal mystical experiences that have nothing to do with objective science. Even if this is the case in many circles of the present day, and even with the vast majority of our contemporaries, it may also be said that there are many other circles that respond to the seers' statements because a natural sense of truth enables them to agree with the messages, and because life would seem full of contradictions to them if they were not to acknowledge that the world of the seer lies behind the ordinary world as a source and origin. People from these circles are the ones who devote themselves to the theosophical trend. They are people with deep spiritual needs, people who, through their inner longings, must ask themselves the question about the origin, meaning and goal of life. Often such people have sought refuge in the most diverse world views. And not only in search of knowledge, but also for a soul that must feel bleak and empty if it cannot look up to a higher world. After a long search, and unable to reconcile some of what they found with what they experience in happiness and misfortune, in suffering and pain, in memories and hopes, they have come to theosophy. And in its messages they find a structure of ideas that initially seems improbable, even unscientific, but which not only resolves otherwise insoluble scientific contradictions, but also harmonizes with life experiences in the most perfect way. With this sentence, I do not want to express a theoretical assertion, which may be debatable; rather, I want to point out a fact that many souls experience in the present.

What appears to be particularly significant, however, is that scientific thinking is also on the way to knocking on the doors behind which lies theosophy. I would like to point out a number of things that lie in a field in which today's so-called exact research and spiritual research will meet in the not too distant future. In the last few decades, a whole series of subtle thinkers have emerged who have found it necessary to break down the frameworks of old scientific views, especially in those areas where the ordinary scientist most strongly believes himself to be on safe ground. I must touch on some remote subjects here. Who would believe that there is anything more scientifically certain than the simplest theorems of geometry. And yet, in Lobatschewski and Bolyai, and also in Riemann, ingenious mathematicians have arisen who have conceived of completely different geometries than our own. These geometries have, so to speak, no application in our world. They would apply to beings that live in completely different worlds than we do. And these geometries are not fantastic in that their ideas correspond with each other and do not contradict anything other than our sensory world.

The astute mathematician Henri Poincaré, a member of the French Institute, has based an opinion on this that is significant in the highest sense. He sees in our ordinary geometry only a sum of views that actually apply to man for no other reason than because he finds them advantageous for finding his way around in his sensory world. And therefore Poincaré can see in this human sense world only one of many possible worlds. Now in this way nothing else can be shown than how many more worlds are conceivable than can be directly experienced. But one can see from this how science is on the way to breaking the fetters of the sense world, at least intellectually. The time will come when it will no longer be considered ridiculous to claim that the human soul is also capable of transcending its ordinary abilities to perceive worlds that Lobachevsky and Poincaré recognize as conceivable for the mathematical-physical mind.

Furthermore, I would like to point out how even the admirable natural science, with the significant advances of the descent theory, the reformed Lamarckism and Darwinism, stands at a point from which a bridge is possible to spiritual science in the theosophical sense. It is well known how this science has presented a developmental series before the observing human being. It begins with simple beings, which develop ever higher and higher through differentiation of the organs. Adaptation to living conditions and the struggle for existence are said to play a role in this, through which the lower is transformed into the higher. Today, there are already numerous scientific thinkers who find it particularly difficult, in the individual results of research, to really bring the development of higher forms from lower ones to mind in concrete terms. It is not so long ago that bold naturalists enthusiastically constructed the entire developmental series of organisms and proudly presented humans as the final link in the evolution of the animal creatures that were closest to them. Today, under the oppressive burden of the facts, great caution has been adopted in this area. And there are more and more researchers who consider it necessary to hypothetically consider creatures in the distant past that had neither anything of today's humans nor of the highest animal organisms. I need only refer to research such as that of the successful Selenka to suggest the tremendous perspectives that open up here. Natural scientists are increasingly coming to realize that pure fact-finding is more likely to raise countless questions than to solve them by their methods.

What does spiritual research have to say about all this? The seer is able, by means of the methods that have been described, to look into the most distant past. And the spiritual essence of what he sees becomes all the richer the poorer it becomes in relation to what is accessible to the senses. He finds that the natural scientist is right when he imagines the earth in its primeval state as being inhabited only by simple material life, but that the spiritual world is becoming ever richer. He finds an original, entirely spiritual state of being on earth. But man already existed in this spiritual state as a spiritual-soul being. Indeed, he existed as such before other organisms were present. In ancient conditions we are dealing – my description can only be an approximation on this point – with the spiritual-soul man. And the present state of humanity is only a condensation of the ancient soul-spiritual form of man. That man has come to his present sensual-real form is due to the fact that he has gone through the transition into it at a relatively late time on earth. The various animal forms have arisen because their corresponding spiritual primal beings came to earthly densification earlier. As a result, they remained at more imperfect levels, which man has progressed beyond. Thus, through the seer's observation, an upward expansion of the theory of evolution is given. And this is in such a way that no results of natural science are disregarded. All the achievements of so-called positive research can be done justice to precisely because of this. And anyone who wants to see can already see how the two streams of research, the natural scientific and the seer's, will meet in this field in the near future. It can already be seen how the thinking of the present is pushing towards this. It is only necessary to draw attention to a thinker like Henri Bergson. Bergson finds that all the paths of research that science has taken since Galileo require a supplement. He finds this supplement in a certain intuition. And in this, Bergson even goes some way towards meeting theosophy. In his mind's eye he sees a complex primeval human being, which in its further development has become man. And the animal kingdom in its forms, and even a part of the plant kingdom, seem to be like the splintered debris of the progressive human stream of development. All this is abstract intuitive thought in Bergson. He does not take the step into theosophy. But it will be taken one day. For what Bergson constructs only in thought, presents itself to the seer's observation in a perceptible form, quite concretely in its development, just as the individual stages of human life present themselves to sensory observation as childhood, youth, maturity, old age.

[From the chapter “World of Thought, Personality, Peoplehood”] The thoughts that a person is able to form about reality easily come to fill his entire mental life. He believes that they give him a light that shines into all the secrets of the world. If he finds that someone has different thoughts from his own, he speaks of a different world view. He believes that the other person's thoughts contradict his own and that they therefore cannot exist alongside his own.

However, by judging in this way, one usually confuses two things that need to be kept separate by anyone who wants to gain insight into the true reasons why thinkers' ideas about reality differ so widely. This paper is based on the view that, when one looks more closely at the ideas that are believed to belong to different worldviews,

In the way that one speaks of the diversity of the worldviews of thinkers, two different causes of this diversity are lumped together, resulting in a confusion of concepts. A thinker can have thoughts about reality that differ from those of another, like the image of a tree photographed from one direction is different from that of the same tree photographed from another.

If one seeks to recognize how the forces of nationality are effective in the thinkers of a [people], then one will be able to find significant examples in such personalities as they have appeared in Planck, Troxler, 1. H. Fichte and others described in this writing. For the purpose of such a consideration is to find those popular instincts that also work in other branches of popular activity, and that drive their peculiarity into the world of thought in such thinkers. These forces often have no influence on the opinions that are then formed about the course and value of worldviews and that are expressed in the writing of history; and so it happens that thinkers rooted in the soil of their nation are often not only lonely during their lifetime, but that their thoughts are also lonely for posterity. The most effective forces of a people reveal themselves in their achievements; and the strength of the recognition, even the recognition of these forces, does not necessarily correspond to what has been achieved. If one says in response: yes, but this thinker, who is supposed to be so rooted in the people, has not had a great effect, one does not see how the forces at work in him are precisely those that continue to have an effect, that are indestructible. If we want to know the driving forces of a tree, we must not see how one branch affects another, but how the forces present in the trunk are manifested in the individual branch. It is not a matter of focusing on how this or that thinker has influenced these opinions, but rather on what forces of the folk-soul are at work in a personality.

It is important to see: this or that trait is national and it shows in the idiosyncrasy of this or that thinker.

How the national character works in the thinker.

If one seeks to recognize how the forces of national character are effective in the thinkers of a nation, /bricht ab]

Planck, like Troxler and some of the other personalities described here, has remained without a more far-reaching effect of the kind that is expressed in the recognition of contemporaries, in the dissemination of views and the like. But if one wants to identify thinkers in whom the essence of nationality lives, then he belongs among them. For what has become thought in him sprouts from the impulses of nationality. In his thoughts, it is precisely those impulses of the people that are often unconsciously at work, but which underlie the activity and achievements of the people.

What is expressed in all truly popular activity and achievement in the most diverse fields; what lives in the most diverse forms: in the case of such a thinker, it becomes a world of ideas. Materialism is not overcome by rejecting the view of a series of thinkers in the second half of the nineteenth century who considered all spiritual experiences to be a mere material effect, but by engaging in thinking about the spiritual in the sense that one thinks about nature in a natural way. What this means can already be seen from the preceding remarks in this essay, but it will be shown in particular in the final considerations intended as 'outlooks'.

A deepening of insight into the soul of a people can never lead to an underestimation of the essence and value of other peoples; it cannot indulge in such feelings as are today felt by many towards the German people.

The author of this writing hopes that it will be seen from it how far removed from him any appreciative immersion in the spiritual idiosyncrasy of a national character is from any misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the essence and value of other national characters. It would be unnecessary to say this at any other time; today it is necessary in view of the feelings that are now being expressed by many sides towards German nature.

The author of this essay hopes that it will be seen that his view, that a deeper understanding of the psychological characteristics of one nationality should not lead to a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the nature and value of other nationalities, is apparent from it. It would be unnecessary to say this at other times. Today it is necessary.

[On the chapter 'Images from Austria's Intellectual Life': Robert Hamerling and 'Homunculus'

In his satirical poem “Homunculus”, Hamerling shows, so to speak, what would become of human life if what is merely presented as scientific theory were to be realized in reality. The human being who lives without a soul because he thinks in a spirit-shy way is the “homunculus”. In our time, this “homunculism” is having a wide impact. There is even talk of how homo sapiens of a bygone age is being transformed entirely into homo oeconomicus. This is /bricht ab]

Hamerling is looking for a worldview that incorporates a spiritual way of thinking into the purely scientific world of thought.

What would life be like if man were really what a world view presents him as being, one that only takes into account the sensory world? One could ask the question: what would a world order have to look like if it were a reality, one that a world view presents, one that only forms its ideas from the reality of the senses. If, therefore, the purely scientific mode of thought wants to be, so to speak, [breaks off]

In his satirical poem “Homunculus”, Hamerling portrays a person who is only what the world view takes him to be, which draws its ideas only from the sensory world.

The world of the scientific way of thinking is the world that man perceives in reality; but it is presented without anything by which it could make itself perceptible to any being.

What this way of thinking conceives as light and sound does not shine or resound. One only knows from life that one has gained the representations of this way of thinking from what shines and resounds, and therefore lives in the belief that what is imagined also shines and resounds.

When Mach speaks of sensation, he is pointing to that which is felt; but in thinking the object of the sensation, he must separate it from the ego. He does not realize that by doing so, he is thinking something that can no longer be felt. He also shows this by the fact that the concept of the ego completely dissipates. That he actually loses the “I” completely. It becomes a mythical concept. Because he does not consciously think of his world of feeling as imperceptible, it throws the perceiving ego out of his thinking. Thus Mach's view in particular becomes proof of what has been explained here.

Hamerling, however, is only standing before the experience of the seeing consciousness with a presentiment. This sees in the material of the brain the conditions for the soul entities to recognize themselves in their mirror image through the ordinary consciousness. Matter can never be the bearer of thought, but it can be the bearer of the images of consciousness of the creative thinking. The latter experiences itself in the vision of consciousness in its essence independent of matter and regards the material activity of the brain as spiritual activity becoming a real image.

With this thought, however, Hamerling is only intuitively approaching the point of view of the observing consciousness. To want to derive the thought in the human brain from the activity of the material atoms certainly remains a futile and foolish undertaking for all time. For it is no better than wanting to derive the mirror image of a person from the activity of the mirror.

But what ordinary consciousness knows as thoughts is only the reflection, brought about by the brain, of the living, thinking essence of the soul. One cannot say of this reflection that something in the processes of the brain is essentially the same as it. When the observing consciousness experiences itself in the essential nature of thoughts, then it also beholds in them the reality that underlies the brain. The brain is related to this reality as an image is to the essence that it visualizes.

Enhanced consciousness is not developed from ordinary consciousness through bodily (physiological) processes, as ordinary waking consciousness develops from dream consciousness. The intensification is a completely soul-spiritual experience that cannot have anything to do with bodily processes. When awakening from dream into waking consciousness, one is dealing with a changing attitude of the body; when awakening from ordinary consciousness to spirit-perceiving consciousness, one is dealing with a changing attitude of spiritual-soul experiences.

But the image-form of the thought in ordinary consciousness is also for the seeing consciousness a reflection of the essential being that is experienced in the soul. And when the soul, living and cognizant, becomes aware of itself in the observing consciousness, it knows itself to be in a reality within which the material substance of the brain is not essentially the same as the thoughts of the ordinary consciousness, but it is the same as the spiritual substance with which the thoughts reveal themselves. In the observing consciousness, the soul knows itself to be in the spiritual substance that the brain forms out of the creative spiritual substance. But what Hamerling describes in his Atomics of the Will would only correspond to this creative spiritual essence if he knew himself as living in the consciousness of vision and was striving to visualize the spiritual experience with his description.

That is the world in which the soul knows itself to be one with what [breaks off]

[To the chapter: “Images from the Thought Life of Austria”: Josef Misson]

Misson cannot be considered a thinker among those described in this writing. But if one considers what must have gone on in his soul life, it gives an understanding of the special coloring of the ideas of Austrian thinkers. But what lives in the constitution of his soul sheds light on Austrian thinkers. The thoughts of Schelling, Hegel and Planck can be vividly dissected like the limbs of a thought organism, so that each thought always grows out of the other; a popular element can be seen in this way of growing out of one another. The thoughts of Austrian thinkers stand like isolated plants on a spiritual ground from which they all grow in the same way, with each one less arising from the other. Therefore they do not so much bear the immediate popular character in their form, but more in their fundamental mood. Such a fundamental mood is, however, held back in the thinker; in a personality like Mission it appears as a yearning for the popular. — In Schröer, in Fercher, in Carneri, Hamerling it lives as the fundamental mood of their thoughts, while their content reveals less of it.

[On the chapter 'Images from the Thought Life of Austria': Oriental-Indian Mysticism]

A kind of counter-image to the purely scientific way of thinking is Oriental-Indian mysticism. The former does not reach the spirit because it loses itself in observing the senses; the latter does not enter into reality with its spiritual experience because it does not want to awaken from ordinary consciousness to the heightened consciousness meant here, but rather dampens ordinary consciousness, thereby falling into a dream-like recognition. She believes she is recognizing the spiritual by leaving the reality that is immediately present to her. But it is part of the real spiritual that this reality arises from it. Therefore, if one weaves as a knower in a spiritual world that has stripped away this reality, then this imagined spiritual world lacks what is in truth in the real spiritual world. This oriental-Indian mysticism also claims to overcome the “I” of ordinary consciousness. In truth, it only falls back to a level of consciousness that has not yet reached the “I”. The awakened consciousness meant in this writing goes beyond the level of consciousness at which the “I” has been attained. Ancient Indian mysticism is a kind of counter-image to the scientific way of thinking. If the former paints a world that is imperceptible, the latter paints a world in which life is lived spiritually, but nothing is to be perceived. The cognizant person does not seek to awaken from sensory reality to a heightened consciousness through the power of soul experiences, but withdraws from all reality in order to be alone with cognition. He believes that he has overcome reality, while he has only withdrawn his consciousness from it, and in a sense left it standing outside itself with all its difficulties and riddles. The knower also believes that he has become free of the “I” and, in a selfless devotion to the spiritual world, is one with it. In reality, he has only obscured the experience of the “I” for his consciousness and unconsciously lives entirely in the “I”. Instead of awakening from the ordinary consciousness of self, he falls back into a dreamy consciousness. He thinks he has solved the riddles of existence, when in fact he has only turned his soul's gaze away from them. He has the pleasant feeling of knowledge because he no longer feels the riddle of knowledge weighing on him. One can have to say all this to oneself and still have no less admiration and understanding for the magnificent creation of the Bhagavad-Gita or other products of this mysticism than someone to whom the above only gives the impression that it must have been written by someone who simply has no sense for the sublimity of these creations. One should not believe that only the unconditional follower of a world view can fully appreciate it. I write this here, knowing that I have no less appreciation for Indian mysticism and no less experience with it than any of its followers.

Today, one often hears it said that the materialism of the second half of the nineteenth century has been overcome by newer schools of thought. They point out how many thinkers are again assuming an independent principle of life, whereas in the high tide of materialism belief prevailed that all life is only a complicated formation of those forces that work in inanimate nature. And similar things are cited to show that human thinking is turning to spiritual contemplation.

Such thoughts are often put forward precisely by those who describe the anthroposophical view as unacceptable. They cloak their aversion to it in the assertion that the justified movement towards the spiritual can be achieved without the turn that is sought through anthroposophy. What is the need for this, it is said, since materialism is only the legacy of a certain naturalistic radicalism, which is wreaking havoc among lay people, while it has been overcome for scientifically minded people.

It must be asserted in response to this claim that it is precisely this claim that fails to recognize the contemporary historical significance of materialism. And it is entirely possible for an anthroposophical consideration to appreciate this. It sees in materialism the one-sided transformation of a school of thought that is justified in its own field into a worldview. But it must admit the fruitfulness of the materialistic interpretation of certain phenomena based on its insights. And it does justice to an independent understanding of the spiritual by [...]

At first, one might have the feeling that the striving of spiritual science is contrived. The people who deal with it are idle people who are out of touch with reality and have a lot of time, which they spend in a way that those who are busy with their working lives could never think of.

This view can be justified by saying that man is born into the world, and the world needs his labor as a physical being. In the course of this life, the mysteriousness of this life emerges. Man feels that his nature cannot be exhausted by the performance of his physical labor. But then religion comes to meet him, through which he can be imbued with the eternity of his being; the gate of death becomes for him the gate of the immortal spiritual life.

This reasoning is contradicted by the more recent development of humanity. This development has created a form of life that presents questions and puzzles that did not exist centuries ago, but now impose themselves on people. Modern science is admirable in its progress. However, it does not answer questions about the soul, but raises them. These questions intrude into human life. They are taken up as we grow into this life from the stage of childhood. Not so long ago, people did not ask these questions because they did not grow into life as they do now. Those who turn to spiritual science feel the burden of these questions. If no one felt them, there would have to be very specific consequences for the future of humanity. We would gradually grow into a life that is completely incomprehensible. We would have to numb our souls in order not to feel this incomprehensibility. We would have to leave the noble powers of the human soul unused. We would have to have the feeling towards these powers as if we had our hands but they were just a useless appendage that we had to leave unused. This would gradually undermine the urge to actively engage with life. But this paralysis of the soul would also undermine the religious life of the human being. Indifference and dullness towards this life would take hold. Ultimately, it would disappear. And humanity would sink into unconsciousness of the spiritual and soul world. The forerunners of this are the attitudes that have developed from the belief that the questions that the world poses to man can be answered by natural science alone.

One example of this is Conrad Deubler.

What has been created by the newer life requires a continuation from the spiritual side. Just as in earlier times the religious man could find the spiritual world, which religion gave him, in the rising and setting of the sun; just as the year was not a meaningless cycle for him, but he fully experienced the reign of the spiritual world in the festivals, so the modern man must also be able to recognize the spiritual world in the revelations of natural science.

Reference to the scientific doctrine of the origin of the world from the nebula.

This science must end with the admission: Man is incomprehensible.

Spiritual science begins where natural science must leave off. Its research is directed precisely at the human being. It awakens abilities in the human soul that lead to the spiritual world. These abilities are needed only by the spiritual researcher himself. Once he has found them, their results can be applied by every person of sound mind. They are like tools, and the spiritual researcher is the toolmaker. The literature of spiritual science is of a different nature than the literature of natural science. It should radiate life.

These abilities lead to the insight that the visible human being is only one part of the whole complete human being. This visible human being is only the image of the invisible.

The invisible human being contains the etheric human being first of all. This belongs to the extra-terrestrial world. The etheric human being lives the same life that pours out from the periphery of the earth over the earth when the seeds of the plants are called into existence. The spiritual eye sees the spiritual plants growing out of the extra-terrestrial forces towards the physical plants, which the physical eye sees coming out of the earth.

What flows into the plant world can also be seen by the spiritual eye at work in the human being as he grows into life. This then gives a vivid picture of the infinitely rich life of the first seven years of human life. The fine development of the brain. The upright gait, the ability to speak, the acquisition of the power of memory.

At the end of the seventh year, the human being is physically a reflection of the extraterrestrial forces at work in his soul. When he enters life through birth, he is physically a reflection of the forces at work in earthly existence; at the end of the seventh year, he physically carries an extraterrestrial world of forces within him.

Now the supersensible part of the human being contains not only the etheric body but also a higher link. What it is called is irrelevant. It belongs to a spiritual-soul world. It acts on the etheric body. Its action is rhythmic. It strives to repeat the action of the etheric body. This repetition is counteracted by what has developed in the physical body during the first seven years of life. Thus, from the ages of seven to fourteen, it is not a repetition that arises in the physical body, but an image of the astral body. A spiritual-soul element takes hold of the person that is not present in the physical world, nor in the extra-terrestrial world. The 'I' now acts on the astral body again. The life of the will flows through the physical body. This 'I', as it is recognized by spiritual observation, intervenes in this earthly life with the subconscious experiences of previous earthly lives. The forces of the earth itself are recognized as having emerged from the whole cosmos. But in such a way that the previous state of the earth was still itself such that it, in a sense, constantly recreated itself in rhythm, just as the plant world only renews itself every year.

Natural science is not treated with hostility in spiritual science; it points to a world that is regarded by spiritual science just as truly as the vibrations of air are regarded by the person listening to music; however, listening is not achieved by looking at the air vibrations.

Religious life:

Article of faith
Theological Trinity
Temporal beginning of the world
Fall of Man
Redemption
Incarnation
Sacraments

Praeambula Fidei:
Existence of God as the world's
intelligent creator of the world
world-ordering creator of the world
sustainer of the world
ruler of the world
judge of the world

The earthly beginning of life
Science in relation to it
only apologetically.
So-called self-redemption

Spirituality and immortality of the human soul

Difference between good and evil

The foundations of ethics, politics and everything that is science, anthropology, aesthetics. —

In addition, the spiritual world under God, the human soul, which, in its essence, draws strength from one life on earth for the next.

The development of the scientific world view. Ed. v. Hartmann

Weber: “Now the extravagances of this genius have reached the ultimate (7th Symphony); Beethoven is now ripe for the madhouse.”

Abbé Stadler: with a throbbing 'e': “There is always the - e -, he just can't think of anything, the untalented fellow.”

[Beginning missing] Formation of thoughts receives, and what he draws out of himself when he forms thoughts.

Reality is revealed to man as material in the context of his sensory observation. He must form thoughts that are shaped in the sense of a scientific view if he adheres to this revelation. Anyone who, when faced with the revelation of nature, does not immediately imagine the force of gravity (or something similar in the realm of material events) when a stone falls to the ground, but thinks of a little demon who imagined that the stone was falling to the earth: this can just as well apply to a fantasist as to the person who believed that the hands of a clock were moved by little goblins hidden inside the clock, and not by the elasticity of the springs and the wheels. The formation of ideas must take place here in the sense of the scientifically minded. These conceptions are formed in a certain way because, through sensory observation, man comes into a certain relationship to reality, which can be pictorially represented by the relationship, for example, of a tree being photographed to the camera. Through scientifically-oriented conceptions, one obtains a view of reality, just as one obtains an image of the tree that shows its true form from a certain direction. A different relationship of extra-human reality to man gives rise to ideas that express the spiritual essence of reality. Anyone who rejects such ideas, if they are gained through genuine experience of spiritual existence, not through confused mysticism, because they seem to contradict the scientific way of thinking that he alone considers to be justified, does not see what is at stake. He believes that ideas that originate from the spiritual in reality come only from the personal (subjective) being of the thinker. He is like someone who knows the image of a tree and, when confronted with an image taken from a different direction, says that this image has nothing to do with the tree he knows; it contradicts it. This second image can therefore only have originated in the photographic apparatus itself. - (Here this characterization of human modes of perception in their relation to reality can only be presented in such a way that it must appear as a mere assertion to those who do not know its foundations. I hope that some of these foundations can be found in this writing. In a large part of my other writings, I have endeavored to express what justifies this view.)

[Beginning missing] The formation of thoughts receives, and what it brings out of itself when it forms thoughts. If I photograph a tree from a certain point, I get a picture that shows the tree from one side and is different from the picture taken from one point. The reasons for the difference between the pictures do not lie in the imaging apparatus, but in the position of the tree in relation to the apparatus; and this is just as outside the apparatus as the tree itself. And both pictures have their origin in the tree; the inner condition of the apparatus does not contribute to their difference. The relationship between extra-human reality and the human being is comparable to this. The material world is in the vicinity of the human being's sensory observation. It reveals itself to him in such a way that he must form ideas about it in terms of the context of natural law. Anyone who, when confronted with the revelations of nature, refuses to recognize the effect of gravity in the falling of a stone to the ground, or something similar in the material realm, and instead speaks of a little demon that makes the stone fall to the ground, would be considered as fanciful as someone who imagines that the hands of a clock are moved by little goblins hidden inside the clock, rather than by the hands themselves. The formation of ideas must be done here in the sense of the natural scientifically minded. But in this way one gets ideas that stem from a certain relationship of the extra-human world to man, like the image of a tree from its location to the apparatus. An illusion arises when one thinks that through the natural scientific way of thinking, one gets ideas that relate to reality differently than the image of the tree taken from one side to the other. Mystical conceptions present another relation of extra-human reality to man. The mystical character of the conceptions does not have its origin in man, but in the fact that certain essential traits of reality reveal themselves only when they are mystically experienced. However much offense some people may take at this, it must be said: He who, in his explanations of the ideas which arise in genuine mystical experiences, seeks their origin only in man, makes the same mistake that a person would make who sought an explanation for the position of the tree in relation to the camera in the construction of the camera itself. Thoughts that are scientifically oriented and mystical thoughts are rooted in the same reality. The real world is not encompassed by either scientific or mystical thought; it demands not one or the other thought, but both. And it demands many other types of thought as well. The reasons why people view the world scientifically, mystically, monistically, dualistically, [breaks off]

Someone might think that it is unjustified to regard Planck's thoughts as significant for the driving forces of the German Volkheit, since these thoughts have not been widely disseminated. Such an opinion fails to recognize what is important when talking about the effect of the people's being on the views of a nation's thinkers. What is effective here is the impersonal (often subconscious) forces of the people's being, which live in the activity of the people, in their achievements in the most diverse areas of existence, and which shape ideas in such a thinker. These forces were there before he appeared and are there after he has gone; they live even when no mention is made of them. And so they can also have a particularly strong effect on a native thinker who is grounded in his people and about whom no one talks, because these forces often radiate less into the opinions that people form about him than into his thoughts. Such a thinker will often stand alone, not only during his lifetime, but his thoughts can also stand alone for posterity. But once one has grasped the nature of these thoughts, one recognizes that what has become a personal entity in him remains resiliently effective in the folk mind, that it must appear again and again in ever new impulses. Regardless of the question of what he was able to achieve, the other question is what worked in him. One can try to recognize what led him to his achievements and what would lead to similar achievements (again and again).

I cannot think the same as those who dispute the value of mystical ideas, believing that they are doing the only scientifically correct thing. They are of the opinion: “What man does not know from the outset, observation of nature teaches; what observation of nature does not teach, experiment teaches; and what experiment does not teach, theory teaches, which adheres to observation and experiment; but what theory does not teach can never be the object of human knowledge.” Such is the judgment of the man who adheres purely to the scientific way of thinking, and his followers recognize nothing but his observation, his experiment, his theory. And now, of course, it is not he who is rejected by the other men, but he is not considered worthy of the name of a scientifically serious man who cannot certify that he has no relationship to any mystical thoughts. The fact that it is possible to live without the true mystical ideas proves no more than the fact that people lived without modern surgery until the fifteenth century.

How ridiculous someone who appreciates the blessings of today's surgery would find someone who might say, “Well, people lived in the times Hyrtl talks about, and they didn't have surgery in the modern sense.” It should be realized that people live without those who are in life pouring out or giving what is necessary for life from a thoroughly justified point of view. If one wanted to consider this properly, one would perhaps not consider those to be completely nonsensical who regard the talk of the dispensability of mystical ideas as a very questionable one for life. And /bricht ab]

For many people today, it is not only strange but also nonsensical to say that mystical ideas relate to those based on science in the same way that the image of a tree taken from one side relates to that taken from another. Such people will be inclined to say: apart from all other scientific objections to such a view, it should be dismissed because scientific knowledge is justified and demanded by real life, which cannot be said of mystical ideas. Those who speak in this way believe they know what is valuable for human life; but based on their assumptions, what they say is also understandable to those who, while acknowledging that the scientific way of thinking also has its full value for life, can nevertheless assess the true mystical ideas in terms of their significance for life. Only an unreasoning person could dispute the incalculable blessing that surgery has been for humanity. But read what the distinguished anatomist Joseph Hyrtl writes in his “Anatomy of Man” (9th ed. Vienna 1866):

We turn away in disgust from the scenes of horror that ancient surgery, in the belief that it was doing the best, inflicted on its patients: “What medicine does not cure, iron cures; what iron does not cure, fire cures; what fire does not cure cannot be cured in any way. Thus spoke the forefather of surgeons, and his blind admirers [in the Middle Ages] knew of nothing better to do than to cut out, tear out, burn out – and this was called surgery. No wonder, indeed, that in Germany these surgeons were considered dishonest until the fifteenth century, and that no craftsman would take an apprentice into his service unless he could certify that he was the child of honest parents and not related to a knacker, hangman or barber-surgeon (wound doctor).

How would someone who appreciates the blessings of modern surgery find it laughable if someone were to say: Well, human life existed in the times Hyrtl is talking about. And they didn't have surgery in the modern sense. One could also see this: that one can live without true mystical ideas proves no more than the fact that people until the fifteenth century - and longer - lived without the newer surgery [breaks off]

Anthroposophy is meant to be a challenge to the scientific way of thinking.

Science has expanded the realm of its way of thinking.

It also wants to embrace the science of the soul.

On the one hand, it has slipped over into physiology.

On the other hand, it has become experimental psychology.

Neither can lead to a true science of the soul.

In the past, nature was not thought of as separate from the life of the soul.

Now, however, the ideal of natural science is to eliminate everything subjective from the natural. This can only lead to a presentation of nature that satisfies subjective soul needs. What is achieved for nature in this way is achieved by the soul simply by experiencing itself. The observer must first be sought for the soul.

The usual methods of knowledge only provide the questions. At the borderlands of knowledge. Experiencing the questions. Soul organs. Imagination. Inspiration. Intuition.

As long as one wants to interpret natural events, one is on the wrong track. The spiritual does not present itself as an interpretation of nature, but rises from natural experience like the content of what has been read by following the sequence of letters and words. Through natural experience, one becomes independent of it. The actual soul cannot be investigated experimentally: 1.) The observer can never determine the onset of observation. 2.) Attention is switched off. 3.) No observation can be repeated under the same circumstances. 4.) The conditions cannot be determined under different circumstances.

Special characteristics of mental perceptions:

1.) Non-reminiscence.

2.) They can only be grasped in the mind to the extent that preparatory concepts are present. Anything beyond that would lead to visions, etc.

3.) The more often a mental fact is perceived, the more difficult it is to grasp it clearly.

Ordinary mental facts can only be seen correctly if they are observed with the consciousness of vision. - Bergson connects the “I” with life.

What is united in the soul (thinking, feeling, willing) does not necessarily come from the same root. According to Bergson, the intellect pulverizes experiences. Memory is akin to the power of inheritance.

Abstract concepts are tied to the material body.

According to Bergson, the brain is a kind of telegraph center.

Why can't the mental facts be calculated? Because the result enters into ordinary consciousness, but not what leads to that result.

Benedikt:

The fact of consciousness through brain cell excitation is not essentially different from the fact of gravity bound to matter.

Wundt:

[Should the concept of matter therefore be reformulated to include the possibility of physical and mental events simultaneously, it would thereby expand into a more general concept of substance. It is clear that the question of the admissibility of such an extension can only be answered by empirical psychology at the end of its investigations. Until then, we must adhere to the premise directly required by experience, that psychic events are regularly accompanied by certain physical phenomena, and that lawful relationships consistently occur between these internal and external life processes.

Through imaginative knowledge, we obtain the formative forces of the body as mirrored in the life of ideas; through inspired knowledge, we obtain the soul, which actually lies outside the course of life; and through intuitive knowledge, we obtain the spiritual (I), which lies outside both the soul and the body. The spiritual (I) is united with the soul-generating forces.

These statements may be taken as the results of someone's work – not someone who negates natural science, but someone who has such a high opinion of this newer natural science that he ascribes to it the ability to produce a spiritual science – if it does not merely want to age, but wants to pass on its basic character in offspring.

The experimental psychologist has given up defining the soul. He takes as soul what ordinary experience calls soul. Metaphysically, it has become nothing less than a horror.

In the sensation, the emotional tone is already seen.

One would like to summarize as physiological sense substance: sense organ. nerve. place in the cerebral cortex. Skin sensation: Blix. Goldscheider. v. Frey paradoxical cold sensation (stimulus above 45 °C). pressure. warmth. cold. pain.

Taste sensations: Kiesow. Öhrwall: sweet, sour, bitter, salty. - Functional diversity of papillae.

Smell sensations: Olfactometer. Zwaardemaker: 9 groups of smells: Essential. Aromatic. Balsamic. Ambrosia / Amber-Musk. Leek-like. Allyl-Cacodyl. Fiery. Buck-like / Capryl. Repulsive. Disgusting.

Ear sense:

Otoliths (location); semicircular canals (passive movement of the body. Dizziness). Snail: (auditory sensations).

Perception. Apperception. Physiology of reading.

Imagination:

Külpe: centrally excited sensation. Memory images.

Koffka attempted to separate the life of imagination from the life of sensation through the experiment. - The terminating tendency. Theories.

2 spir. should fail: 1. that animals have imaginations. 2. that reproduction depends on the brain.

2. Physiological image theory (dismissed): 2. Traces

Theory (Hering)

R. Semon: Engram. Sum of engrams. Mneme.

Semon sees the essence of the mnemonic in the fact that repetitions occur when the earlier conditions are not perfectly recurring.

synchronous. temporary.

engrafisch. constantly transforming. maintaining effect.

Ekphorie.

When observing the soul:

1. The observer can never determine the onset of an observation; he can only wait for the observation to occur. 2. He must be able to switch off attention.

3. No observation can be repeated under the same circumstances.

4. The conditions under which a mental phenomenon occurs cannot be determined by varying the accompanying circumstances, because the altered conditions no longer apply to the same mental experience, but to one that has been altered by the preceding circumstances.

Observation of the mental:

1. The content of consciousness does not remain unchanged? You cannot observe a train if you are inside it.

2. In memory, illusion lives? You have to get to know the conditions of illusion as laws of mental perspective.

Strangely enough, when it comes to the soul, there is an immediate desire to have it different from how it is.

Ed. v. Hartmann: never apodictic certainty. (Hypotheses of causes. Hypotheses of laws.

Content and form of consciousness: Fortlage, Herbart,

Benecke – content becomes independent

Rehmke: form becomes independent.

Consciousness: product, not producer: but then it must not develop an opinion about itself. What is not produced by consciousness therefore does not remain unconscious.

Ed. v. Hartmann:

However, such an activity (which spans the experiences of consciousness as a unifying thread) does not occur in consciousness, nor does its carrier, [the individual of a higher order,] and therefore [psychology, which is limited to consciousness, can never explain the synthesis of several consciousnesses into one.

Feeling: passion, mood, ...

Memory: the ideas themselves cannot be remembered.

In a dream, it is not an X that is known by the lower parts of the brain, but the activity at the lower parts of the brain is known.

Ed. v. Hartmann: Pleasure: discharge of accumulated chemical tension.

Aversion: inhibition of the same. —

In Hartmann: feeling effect of wanting.

Aversion when unconscious wanting is hindered in the realization of its goal. —

Pleasure when this inhibition is removed. —

Representation when the volition is paralyzed in the realization of its

goal. —

Life when the paralysis is lifted.

Ed. v. Hartmann: Every volition is determined by a representation. But every representation is also determined by a volition. Volition: like child to man. Volition becomes representation. But representation gives birth to volition.

Hartmann: the unconsciousness of volition.

Wundt: the characteristic feature of a volitional process is “the apperception of a psychic content.” Ed. v. Hartmann: “The motif acts like the pressure of a finger on the button of a galvanic line, through the closure of which a hundred mines explode at once.