Lecture IX
Wisdom and Health
Berlin 14th February, 1907
Spiritual
science aims to be an influence in practical life, to be a
source of strength and confidence. It is for people who wish
to be effective in life, not for the merely curious.
Knowledge of the spirit has always existed. It has been
fostered in circles where it was recognized that human beings
are capable of developing spiritual forces of greater
capacity than the ordinary intellect. In these circies there
was awareness of the fact that healing was connected with
holiness; it was felt that the Holy Spirit was the wholly
healthy spirit that united itself with mankind's soul to
bring healing to the world.
This aspect is
the one least understood. Spiritual knowledge guides the
human soul away from narrow attitudes and egoistical aims; it
points to universal issues that unite the individual with the
cosmos. Nevertheless, the higher forces it bestows often are
used as an incentive for egoistical striving. It is often
made to serve egoism despite the fact that its very nature is
to lead human beings away from the personal; people demand
that through spiritual science egoistical wishes should be
fulfilled from one day to the next.
There once
existed in Africa a brotherhood — the Therapeutae,
which fostered spiritual knowledge. In the region where
Christianity arose, the same sect was known as the Essenes.
The narre indicates that the brotherhood was concerned with
healing, which they practiced by combining their spiritual
insight with knowledge of matter. When spiritual knowledge is
absorbed, healing forces are absorbed also. Spiritual science
is an elixir of life; though it cannot be proved by argument
the proof will be seen when it is assimilated, then applied
to life, and health follows.
However, a
person might as well know nothing about spiritual science if
all that person can do is talk glibly about reincarnation and
karma. If its effect is to be experienced, a person's whole
inner being must be steeped in spiritual science; one must
live it every hour of the day, and calmly be able to wait. In
this connection Goethe's saying is apt: "Consider the what,
but even more consider the how." Spiritual science is rightly
understood if it is assimilated like a spiritual food, and
allowed to grow and mature within a person. It is rightly
understood if, in moments of sorrow or happiness, of devotion
and exaltation, or when life threatens to fall apart, a
person experiences the hope, strength and incentive to action
it brings.
Spiritual
science must become a personal quest. The striving human
being, looking at the stars, will recognize the eternal laws
that guide them through cosmic space. When clouds sail across
the vault of heaven, when the sun rises in splendor, or the
moon in silent majesty, a person will see all these phenomena
as the expression of soul-spiritual universal life. Just as
we recognize the look an a face, or the movement of a hand as
the expression of the soul and spirit in human beings, when
we look at the past we look at the same time up to the spirit
whose imprint in the physical is everywhere in evidence.
Absorb the
spirit, and you absorb health-giving forces! Not, however, in
lazy comfort; there are people who entertain the most trivial
notions while declaring that all one needs is to be in tune
with the infinite. That has nothing to do with knowledge of
the spirit. Spiritual knowledge must penetrate a human's
innermost being. It is not through some magical formula that
we discover the spiritual world. What is required is that we
enter with patience and love into every being, every event.
The spiritual world is there and should not be sought as if
it has no connection with the physical. Wherever we find
ourselves placed in life, there we must seek it; then
spiritual knowledge becomes a personal quest.
There are
people who have no sense for music or paintings; likewise
there are people with no sense for what is spiritual. The
following incident illustrates a common notion of what is
spiritual: One evening in a small town, a strange light was
noticed to pass across the church wall. Soon it was a topic
of conversation all over the town. As no natural explanation
was found, it was determined that it was a spiritual
phenomenon. Actually, the fact that it was seen by many
already made this highly unlikely. If a person was able to
perceive a genuine spiritual event, certain spiritual organs
and capabilities must first be developed. In our time this is
a rare event; so the fact that the strange light was seen by
many people is a sure proof that it was not a spiritual
manifestation. And indeed an explanation was soon
forthcoming: An elderly lady with a lantern was in the habit
of walking her dog in the evening. On one particular night
the light happened to be noticed. Investigation of such
meaningless suppositions was pointless. The most significant
spiritual manifestations are to be found in the objects and
events around us every day.
Wisdom is
science, but also more than science. It is science that is
united with, not apart from, reality. At any moment it can
become decision and action. Someone who is knowledgeable
about scientific laws is a scientist; someone who immediately
knows how to apply knowledge so that it becomes reality is
wise. Wisdom is science becoming creative. We must so
contemplate, so merge with the laws of nature that they
become an inner force. Through his contemplation and exact
observation of individual plants, Goethe arrived at his inner
perception of the archetypal plant. The idea of the
archetypal plant is a product of spiritual intuition; it is a
plant-image that can come to life within us; from it
numberless plants can be derived which do not as yet exist,
but could exist. In someone who has become a sage laws are
not bound to the particular, they are eternal living
entities. This is the realm of Imagination; of ideas that are
not abstract but creative images. Abstract concepts and ideas
may lead to science, but not to wisdom. Had Goethe remained
at the conceptual stage, he would never have discovered the
archetypal plant. It must be seen so vividly and so exactly
that one can draw it, including root, stem, leaves and fruit,
without it resembling any particular plant. Such an image is
not a product of fantasy. Fantasy is related to imagination
as shadow is to reality; however, it can be transformed and
raised to become imagination.
We may not as
yet have access to the world of imagination, but it is a
world that is attainable.
We must develop
soul forces that are objective, comparable to the forces
active in our eyes. We would be surrounded by perpetual
darkness if the eyes did not transform the light falling upon
them into colored images and mental pictures. Anyone who
believes we must just wait for some nebulous manifestation of
the Spirit to appear has no comprehension of the inner work
required of human beings. The soul must become active, as the
eyes are active transforming light. Unless the soul creates
pictures, and images within itself, the spiritual world
cannot stream in. The pictures thus created will maintain
objectivity provided they are not prompted by egoistic
wishes; when their content is spiritual, then healing forces
stream into a person's soul. When the ability is attained to
transform the concepts of spiritual science into vivid
pictures full of color, sound and life; when the whole world
becomes such a picture, then this wisdom becomes in all
spheres of life a healing force, not only for ourselves, but
for others, for the whole world. Even if the pictures we
create in the soul are not accurate, it will not matter; they
are corrected by that which guides us. Paracelsus was a sage
of this kind. He immersed himself in all aspects of nature
and transformed his knowledge into vigorous inner forces.
Every plant spoke to him, revealing the wisdom inherent in
nature.
Animals have
wisdom of a certain kind; their instincts are wise. However,
they do not individually possess a soul. Animals share a
group soul that as spiritual wisdom influences them from
outside. All animals whose blood can be mixed without ill
effect have a common soul, that is, a group soul. Wisdom thus
acting from outside has become individualized in humans.
Every human being has his own
individual soul whose influence comes from within. The price
human beings pay is loss of certainty. Uncertainty is
characteristic of human knowledge and scientific pursuit.
Human beings are obliged to grope their way; they must
search, select and experiment. However, they have the
possibility to evolve, to reach higher stages; the knowledge
they are obliged to attain through effort, through trial and
error, they can transform so that it becomes wisdom once
more. What is already in existence must, as it were, become
recast within human beings, must become color-filled,
light-filled, sound-filled imagination; then they attain
wisdom.
Paracelsus had
attained such wisdom; he approached every plant, every
chemical substance and instantly recognized its healing
properties. An animal immediately knows, through its
unconscious instincts, what is beneficial for it. Paracelsus
knew through conscious wisdom that illness would benefit from
a particular substance.
The Therapeutae and Essenes
[
Essenes (200 B.C. to A.D.
100) were a sect that flourished in Palestine. In their monastic community,
they strictly observed the law of Moses.
]
had the same kind of wisdom. It is insight that cannot be
attained through experiments; knowledge is transformed into
imaginative wisdom. The plant then discerns its own image in
the human soul and changes it; in that instant the human
being not only senses, but also knows what healing properties
the plant possesses. Spiritual science has no objections to
natural science; in fact, no one who is serious in his
spiritual scientific striving will neglect to acquaint
himself with the achievements of ordinary science; he will,
however, go further; he will transform such knowledge into
creative wisdom. We know that the human being consists of
physical body, ether body, astral body and the
”I.” Ordinary knowledge penetrates only as far as
the astral body of which it becomes a part, whereas
imaginative knowledge reaches the ether or life body, filling
it with the Life Spirit, making human beings powerful
healers.
The immense
difference between the effect of abstract concepts and that
of imaginative knowledge is easiest to see in an incident
where the effect was painful in nature: A man was present
when his brother had a leg amputated. As the bone was cut it
made a strange sound; at that moment the man felt a fierce
pain in his leg at the place corresponding to where his
brother's Operation was taking place. For a long time he
could not rid himself of the pain, even when his brother no
longer felt any. The sound emitted from the bone had, through
the Power of imagination, impressed itself deeply into the
man's ether body and produced the pain.
A physician in
Berne once made an interesting experiment. He took an
ordinary horseshoe and connected to it two wires of the type
used in electrical machinery. Everyone thought the gadget
must be electrified, and those who touched it were certain
they felt an electric current; there were even some who were
convinced they experienced a violent shock. All these effects
were produced simply by what the persons concerned imagined
to themselves; no remonstration convinced them otherwise.
People became rich by manufacturing pills from ordinary
bread. The pills were supposed to cure all kinds of
illnesses, but were especially popular for curing
sleeplessness. A lady, a patient in a sanatorium, took such a
pill regularly every evening and enjoyed sound sleep. One
night she decided to take her own life and swallowed as many
of these pills as she could lay her hands on. It was
discovered, and the doctors were greatly alarmed; she showed
all the signs of someone dying. One doctor remained calm, the
one who had manufactured the pills.
Human beings
have a natural ability to turn the merely known into vivid
images. Hypnotism relies on this fact. The hypnotist excludes
the astral body and introduces a pictorial content directly
into the ether body, but this is an abnormal process. The
pictures we ourselves produce are imprinted on the ether
body. If they are derived from the spiritual world they have
the power to eradicate unhealthy conditions, which means that
harmony is brought about with universal spiritual currents.
This brings about healing because unhealthy conditions always
originate from egoism, and we are now lifted above our
ordinary mental life, which is dimmed. This process must
occur every so often, for example during sleep; then the
astral body, together with the “I,” separates
from the physical and etheric bodies and unites with the
spirit of the earth. From this spiritual region the astral
body imprints health-giving pictures into the ether body.
This process is unconscious except in highly evolved human
beings.
It was Plato
who said that eternal ideas are behind everything. The
clairvoyant sees the spiritual in every plant whose very form
is built up from such spiritual images. These eternal ideas,
these spiritual images, human beings are able to absorb and
thus become creative. Their health-giving effect acts
throughout nature. Strictly speaking, it is only a human
being that becomes ill; only people take the spirit into
their inner being and must bring it to life once more.
Imaginative wisdom will bring a person health. When knowledge
is transformed into wisdom, the spirit creates the
imagination. Spiritual science is such wisdom, and has the
ability more than anything else to be a healing force,
especially in the sense of preventing illness. This,
admittedly, is not easy to prove. However, through spiritual
science, life-giving forces flow into human beings keeping
them youthful and strong.
Wisdom makes a
person open and receptive because it is a foundation from
which love for all things grows. To preach love is useless.
(The Therapeutae and Essenes were wise; they were also most
compassionate and loving.) When wisdom warms the soul, love
streams forth; thus we can understand that there are people
who can heal through the laying on of hands. Wisdom pours
forces of love through their limbs. Christ was the wisest and
therefore also the greatest healer.
Unless love and
compassion unite with wisdom, no genuine help can be
forthcoming. If someone lying in the street with a broken leg
is surrounded by people full of compassion, but without
knowledge, they cannot help. The doctor who comes with
knowledge of how to deal with a broken leg can help, for his
wisdom transforms his compassion into action. Basic to all
help provided by human beings is knowledge, insight and
ability.
We are always
surrounded by wisdom because wise beings created the world.
When this wisdom has reached its climax it will have become
all-encompassing love. Love will stream towards us from the
world of the future. Love is born of wisdom, and the wisest
Spiritual Being is the greatest healer. From Christ is born
the Holy, that is, the Healing Spirit.
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