Theosophy
and Antisophy
Berlin,
6 November 1913
Already eight days ago, I have drawn your
attention to the fact that just someone who stands within
spiritual science is not surprised at all, if this spiritual
science finds opposition and lack of understanding from the
most different viewpoints of the present. Now I will not
consider it as my task to discuss single oppositions or single
viewpoints from which such misunderstandings and oppositions
result; since there is another viewpoint, which one can take up
as position considering this matter. This is to try to uncover
the roots of any possible opposition against spiritual science.
If one understands these roots, some opposition also becomes
explicable. Now I would not like to define what I communicate
as spiritual science as identical with that what one calls
“theosophy” from this or that side. Since this
offers little incentive to agree anyhow with it. However, not
from the viewpoint of the contemporary prejudice that occupies
the name theosophy but from a
justified viewpoint, spiritual science
represented here can be called theosophical. With it, the topic
of this evening justifies itself which shall explain the
relation between theosophy and that what rebels in the human
nature against this theosophy. One can call it a mood in the
human soul that one can find easily, that turns against
theosophy because of passions, of emotions, often, however,
also because of a certain faith that I call antisophy
here.
If you contemplate what I have said eight
days ago, you remember that spiritual science or theosophy
attains its knowledge if the human soul simply does not stop
where it stands in the everyday life, but if it goes through a
development by its own impulse and activity. From the
indications which I have done in the first talk we have
realised that the human soul comes by such a development to an
inner constitution, different from that of the everyday life
that its feeling and position in the world are different from
that in the everyday life. Something is born as it were in the
human soul by the development meant here that is like a higher
self in the usual self that is equipped with higher senses that
perceive a real spiritual world. The theosophical knowledge can
only attained by developing the corresponding soul condition.
However, one realises at once that a certain requirement forms
the basis of the just said, a requirement that remains no big
requirement for someone who practises the specified way really.
What appears as a requirement becomes a real experience, an
experienced fact for him. It appears as requirement what lives
strictly speaking —
as much as one may object against it
— in every
human soul as longing; it appears as requirement that the human
being if he descends only deeply enough in his soul finds
something in it that connects him with the divine-spiritual
primordial ground of existence. Nevertheless, it is the goal
and the longing of any self-conscious soul to find the point in
its own self where it is rooted in the divine-spiritual
primordial ground. Theosophy consciously confesses to this
goal. One could grasp “antisophy” accordingly very
easily in an idea, in a concept. It would be the opposition
against everything that lives in the longing with the goal to
grasp that deep point in the human soul where this human soul
is connected with the everlasting primordial sources of
existence.
How can such antisophy develop in the human
soul? One could believe at first that it is paradoxical that an
opposition may get up against that what one would have to
appreciate as the noblest pursuit of the human soul. However,
lo and behold, just spiritual science shows that antisophy is
not anything quite arbitrary in the human soul, but on the
contrary, it belongs to its nature in a certain respect. The
human being is not theosophically minded from the start; he is
antisophically minded from the start. One must go into some
knowledge of spiritual science if one wants to appreciate this
apparently paradoxical dictum properly.
If the spiritual researcher attains the
other constitution of his soul, he enters into a real spiritual
world. Then before his spiritual view, the outer nature is
extinguished as it were. It still exists only as memory, and a
real spiritual world appears in which the human soul is to be
recognised not only in the time between birth or conception and
death, but also it is to be recognised in the time between
death and the next birth. I have already drawn your attention
to the repeated lives on earth in the last talk. The human
being is referred to that existence in which he is a spirit
among spirits in which he is after death. This world is
experienced as for the outer senses the outer nature is
experience; in this world is the soul with those forces which
face the human being not only in the usual consciousness, but
compose this usual consciousness. Yes, this world builds up the
tools of the usual consciousness and the complete corporeality
with the whole nervous system. It becomes true for the
spiritual researcher that we are built up as human beings not
only by the force of inheritance, but also by that which
intervenes in the system of these physical forces which
descends from spiritual-mental regions. It is a system of
spiritual forces that seize the physical organisation, and
develops what we should become according to our former lives on
earth. Spiritual science extends the memory about which I have
spoken last time. It goes beyond the present earth existence to
regions of spiritual experience.
If we consider the world and the human
development in such a way, a certain border faces the soul in
particular. The separating line lies in the first childhood of
the human being. There we see the human being living in the
very first childhood like in a dreamlike life that only must
appropriate the full clearness of self-awareness, of
remembering experiences. A vague consciousness is that of the
first childhood. The human being sleeps or dreams, so to speak,
into existence, and that by which we feel, actually, as human
beings, our developed inner life with its distinct centre of
self-consciousness only appears only at a certain turning point
of our childhood. What presents itself in the sense of
spiritual science before this turning point?
If the spiritual researcher looks at the
child, before it has come to this turning point, he beholds the
spiritual forces working that have descended from the spiritual
world and have seized the organism to form it plastically in
accordance with the former lives on earth. Because all
spiritual forces that constitute the human soul pour forth into
everything that lives in the organism that forms the organism,
constructs, and organises it that way, it can become later the
tools of the self-conscious being. Because all soul forces are
used for the construction of this organism, nothing remains
that could deliver a clear self-consciousness anyhow in the
very first childhood. All soul forces are used for the
construction of the organism; and a consciousness that uses
itself for the construction of the organic being can be only
dreamlike, however, is in a large part a sleeping
consciousness.
What happens now with the human being at
that turning point about which I have spoken?
There more and more resistance comes up
from the organism, from the body gradually. One could
characterise this resistance in such a way that one says that
the body hardens gradually; in particular the nervous system
hardens, the soul forces can no longer process it completely
plastically, it offers resistance. That means that only a part
of the soul forces is able to work in the human organisation;
the other part is rejected as it were, cannot find working
points to work on this human organisation. I may use a picture
to show what goes forward there. Why can we see ourselves in
the mirror standing before it? Because the beams of light are
reflected by the shining surface. In the bare glass, we cannot
see ourselves because the beams of light go through. The same
applies to the child in its first age: it can develop no
self-consciousness because all soul forces go through as the
beams of light pass the glass. Only when the organism has
hardened, a part of the soul forces is rejected, as well as the
beams of light are thrown back by the reflecting glass. There
the soul life reflects in itself; and the self-reflective soul
life that experiences itself in itself is the emerging
self-consciousness. This constitutes our real human experience
on earth. Thus, we live if we arrive at the marked turning
point in this reflected soul life. What does mean the
development of the spiritual researcher now compared with this
soul life?
This development is really a leap over an
abyss. It is in such a way that the spiritual researcher must
leave the region of the rejected soul life, and he must
penetrate into those creative, formative soul forces that are
before this turning point. The spiritual researcher has to
immerse himself with the full consciousness in that which he
has developed in the reflected soul life. There he submerges in
those forces that build up the human organism in the tenderest
infancy that one can no longer perceive because the organism
transforms into a mirror. Indeed, the development of the
spiritual researcher must overcome this abyss. From that soul
life that is rejected by the organic nature, he must enter into
the creative spiritual-mental life. He must advance from the
created to the creative. Then he perceives something
particular, if he submerges in those depths that are as it were
behind the organic mirror.
Then he perceives that point where the soul
unites with the creative origin of existence. However, besides,
he still perceives that this rejection is meaningful. If the
turning point had not taken place, the rejection would not
happen; then the human being could never have attained the
complete development of the clear self-consciousness. In this
respect, the life on earth is the development of
self-consciousness. The spiritual researcher can penetrate into
the region, which, otherwise, the human being experiences only
as a dream, by the fact that he has only got the preconditions
of it within the life on earth that he has educated himself to
self-consciousness, and then he penetrates into that region
with this self-consciousness which one experiences, otherwise,
without self-consciousness. However, it is evident from that
that the most valuable that the human being can obtain for the
life on earth is the awake self-consciousness that is normally
secluded from the experience of the roots of existence. In the
everyday life and in the usual science the human being lives
within that what interweaves his soul life after this turning
point. He must live in it, so that he can arrive at his goal on
earth. One does not say with it that he is not allowed as
spiritual researcher to leave it and to look around in the
other region where his roots are. — I would like to
express myself in such a way: the human being must leave the
region of the creative nature to face and to find himself in
his nature rejected in itself compared with the
spiritual-mental nature that is connected with the sources of
existence.
Because of this task on earth, the human
being is really put outside of that region in which he must
find as a spiritual researcher what can be found within
spiritual science. If the human being — without the
spiritual-scientific training — confused one day
what he can experience in the one or in the other region, he
would never be able to stand firmly in the world. The whole
sensory existence of the human being is based on the fact that
he is just put out of that where the sources and roots of
existence where the spiritual world is to be found in their
intimacy. The more the human being wants to live in the sensory
world, the more he must leave the higher world. Our usual
practical knowledge has just its strength because the human
being has left this world.
Is it surprising on the other hand that the
human being also learns to appreciate at first what he has,
while he is expelled from the spiritual world? He does not
stand in the spiritual world during his life. He had to put out
this to live his earth existence suitably. He appreciates
everything quite naturally at first that is not connected with
the source of existence. Thus, it is natural that he refuses
immediately to hear anything of the spiritual world within
which he is not at first. Because of his life, he is not
attuned to acknowledge what connects him with the core of the
world but to acknowledge what holds him together in himself, as
far as he stands beyond this spiritual-mental world. The human
being is antisophical in the usual life, he is not attuned
theosophically, and it would be naive to believe that the usual
life could not be tuned antisophically. It can only be tuned
theosophically if like a memory of a lost native country the
longing in the soul emerges at first — and then more and
more the desire originates to penetrate into the origin of the
spiritual-mental world independently.
One must attain the theosophical attitude
from the antisophical attitude at first. This is internally
rather contrary to many souls. In our age where the outer
civilisation has such wondrous achievements, a natural
propensity has developed for the outer experience that forces
back this longing. Just in our time, it is very comprehensible
that the human soul is tuned antisophically. However, one must
really acknowledge the necessity of a theosophical deepening of
humanity on one side in the whole nature of the human
development and on the other side just in that what presents
itself today. Since so many things face the beholder of the
human spiritual development. I would like to point to one thing
that can show that in our time an antisophical attitude is
natural.
Diogenes Laertius (Greek biographer, third
century AD, Lives and Opinions of
Eminent Philosophers) tells that
once Pythagoras who was considered as a very wise man by the ruler of Phlius, Leon, was asked by him how he positioned himself in
life, how he felt in life. Pythagoras is said to have said the
following: life seems to me like a festival. People come who
take part as fighters in the games; others come to make profit
as traders; but there is a third sort of people, they come only
to look at the thing. They come neither to participate
personally in the games, nor to make profit, but to look at the
thing. Life appears that way to me: the ones follow their
pleasure, the others follow their profit; however, there are
those like me who call myself a philosopher as a researcher of
truth. They look at life; they feel transferred as from a
spiritual home onto earth, they look at life to return to this
spiritual home.
Now one must take such a quotation as a
comparison, as a picture, of course. One would probably get the
entire view of Pythagoras first if one added something without
which this quotation very easily could be interpreted as if the
philosophers were only the gazers and good-for-nothings of
life. Since Pythagoras thinks of course that the philosophers
can be useful with their looking not only for their fellow men,
while they stimulate them to look, but while they search what
is not directly useful for life. However, this leads to the
roots of existence, so that that what is considered as
“of no avail” leads to the everlasting in the human
soul. One would have to add this. However, Pythagoras believed
to express something particular, namely that one finds the
impulse to immerse oneself in the forever imperishable in that
what does not deliver anything useful in the development of the
human soul in the outer use but in himself; and that one must
develop something in the soul that can be applied not in the
outer life directly, but that the human soul develops due an
inner desire. The recognition of such a pursuit is found with
Pythagoras in olden times.
We glance now at a phenomenon of the modern
time which I do not mention in order to mention philosophical
oddities, but because it is typical for the way of the cultural
life of our time.
A worldview has spread from America to
Europe that one calls pragmatism. This worldview appears rather
weird compared with that what Pythagoras demands from a
worldview. Whether something that the human soul expresses as
its knowledge is true or wrong for others, this worldview of
pragmatism does not ask at all, but only whether a thought that
the human being develops as a worldview is fertile and useful
for life. Pragmatism does not ask whether something is true or
wrong in any objective sense, but, for example, it asks for the
following. We immediately take one of the most significant
concepts of the human being: should the human being think that
a uniform self is in him? He does not perceive this uniform
self. He perceives the succession of sensations, mental
pictures, and ideas and so on. But it is useful to understand
the succession of the sensations, mental pictures and ideas in
such a way as if a common self exists; the internal conception
is arranged thereby, the human being thereby accomplishes what
he accomplishes from the soul like from a downpour; life is not
fragmented thereby. We go to the highest idea. For pragmatism,
it does not depend on the truth content of the God concept at
all, but it asks, should one conceive the thought of a divine
being? It answers, it is good that one has the thought of a
divine being, if one did not believe the thought that the world
is ruled by a divine old being, the soul would remain hopeless;
it is good for the soul accepting this thought.
— There
one interprets the value of the worldview in a quite contrary
sense as Pythagoras did. With him, the worldview should
interpret what is not for the benefit of life. However,
presently a worldview spreads out, and one can expect that it
will seize many heads, which almost says — and in practice it
has already done it: valuable is
what is thought as if it exists, so that life proceeds most
profitably for the human being!
We realise that the human development took
place in such a way that one almost considers the opposite of a
worldview as correct that one regarded as right, so to speak,
at the beginning of the European philosophy. The human attitude
developed from the Pythagorean theosophy to the modern
pragmatic antisophy. Since this pragmatism is absolutely
antisophy because it considers mental pictures of something
supersensible under the viewpoint of practical value and
benefit for the sensory world. It is significant that towards
our time the antisophical mood penetrates the human souls. That
is widespread today what once Du Bois-Reymond, a brilliant
representative of natural sciences, explained on a naturalists'
meeting in Leipzig (1872) in his ignorabimus speech! Du
Bois-Reymond (Emil Heinrich Du B. R., 1818-1896) admits explaining it
brilliantly that science has only to deal with the principles
of the outer world of space and time, and never even with the
slightest element of the soul life as such. Later Du
Bois-Reymond even spoke of “seven world
riddles” —
the nature of matter and energy, the origin
of motion, the origin of life, the apparently teleological
arrangements of nature, the origin of simple sensations, the
origin of intelligent thought and language, and the question of
freewill. He says that science cannot grasp them because it
must rely on “naturalism.” At that time, Du
Bois-Reymond finished his explanations quite typically, while
he meant that one would have to penetrate into something else
if one even wanted to understand the slightest element of the
soul life: may they attempt it with the only way out, with that
of supra-naturalism. He added the meaningful words, not as an
argument, but as something that he asserts out of his mood
quite dogmatically: save that science ends where
supra-naturalism begins.
What does such an addition mean compared
with the other sentence that one must recourse to
supra-naturalism, save that science ends where supra-naturalism
begins? One can do a peculiar discovery if one looks around in
the scientific life of the present. In order to prevent
misunderstandings from the start, I note that these talks are
intended here in no way as opposition against the contemporary
science, but that I hold them in full recognition of this
science, — in so far as it remains in its limits. I must say this
because some people assert repeatedly that I hold these talks
here in an anti-scientific sense.
However, this is not the case. Although an
entire recognition of the great results of modern science forms
the basis of all that I say here, nevertheless, I must draw
your attention to the fact that one can strictly prove the
following: one cannot find the smallest justification in
science for the statement that science ends where
supra-naturalism begins. You find no justification. One
discovers that such a statement is done without any
justification, out of a mood, out of an antisophical mood. Why
does one make such a statement? Again, spiritual science can
give information about that. One can externally understand such
a mood due to everything that I have explained today. However,
I have to assume something. There are many subconscious
experiences in the human soul. There are depths of the human
soul life that do not become concepts, mental pictures, acts of
volition, at least not conscious ones, but only in the
character of the human soul life. There is a subconscious soul
life; and everything is there that can be in the conscious soul
life. However, emotions, passions, sympathies and antipathies
which we feel in the usual life consciously can also be in the
subconscious regions, they are not perceived in it, but have an
effect in the soul like a natural force, — save that they are
mental and not physical. There is a whole region of the
subconscious soul life.
The human being asserts, believes, and
means many things not because he is completely aware of their
premises; but he believes and means them from the subconscious
soul life because unconscious emotions, inclinations urge him.
Today even the empiric psychology already gets the idea that
that what the human being asserts does not completely lie in
the mere reason, in that what the human being consciously
surveys. A whole branch of modern experimental psychology deals
with it. Stern (presumably William S., 1871-1938, psychologist) is a
representative of this direction which shows how the human
being has something even in the most scientific statements that
is coloured by his sympathies and antipathies, by his
inclinations and emotions. The outer psychology will prove
gradually that it is a prejudice if anybody believes that he
could really survey everything in the everyday life or in the
usual science that induces him making his statements. It is no
longer an absurd statement today if one characterises the just
mentioned discovery: where supra-naturalism begins, science
ends. Indeed, this Du Bois-Reymond pronounces it as a basic
mood, but it is also a basic mood of countless souls that know
nothing about it. That is not surprising if one understands it
as emerging from the subconscious soul life. Nevertheless, how
does it emerge? What urges the soul to allege the sentence as a
dogma: science ends where supra-naturalism begins?
What worked in the subconscious soul life
of Du Bois-Reymond at that time, and what works today in the
subconscious soul lives of many people who have the greatest
say in life if the sentence is felt, as if it forms the basis
of them subconsciously? Spiritual science gives the following
answer.
We know an emotion very well which we call
fear, fright, or timidity. Any human being knows when fear
appears in the usual life. There are quite interesting
scientific investigations about such emotions like fear; so,
for example, I recommend to everybody to have a look at the
excellent investigations of the Danish researcher Lang (Carl
Georg L., 1834-1900) about the emotions; among them are also those
about fear, timidity and so on. If we experience fear in the
usual existence, something occurs — in particular if the
fear reaches a certain level — that dazes the human
being so that he does no longer control his organism
completely. One becomes “frozen in shock,” one has
a particular countenance, but all kinds of particular
concomitants of fear also appear in the bodily life. Science
has already described these concomitants quite well, as for
example the mentioned researcher. Such fear has an effect down
to the vessels of the person and presents itself
symptomatically. Bodily changed conditions and the need in
particular to hold fast onto something appear with fear. Many a
man who was frightened said, I fall over. This points deeper to
the nature of frightening than one normally thinks. This is
because the organism suffers changes if the soul experiences
fright. The forces of the organism are concentrated
convulsively upon the nervous system; this is overloaded as it
were with soul strength; certain vessels thereby tense up, and
then this tension cannot have any effect.
However, spiritual research investigates
the human soul when it is thinking and imagining, given away to
the outer nature. One can
investigate the nature of that activity in which a soul is
which leaves the remaining body alone, in certain state and
turns the outwardly directed thinking to the outer experiment,
to the outer observation. If one faces the picture of such a
human being spiritual-scientifically, it is just the same as
that of a human being who is in light fright. As paradoxical
this sentence sounds, it is in such a way that the distraction
of the soul forces from the whole organism causes something
quite similar as fright, as numbing fright. That
“coolness” of thinking which one must generate in
the scientific observation, as paradoxical it sounds, is
related to the fright, in particular to the fear. A
concentrated researcher who really lives in his scientific
thoughts is in a state that is related to fear if his thoughts
are directed outwardly or if he reflects about something that
is in the outside world. This dedication to the outside world
differs from the spiritual-scientific development as far as the
latter is based on the fact that the soul activities are
detached from the brain. Thus, that does not happen what is
caused by a one-sided convulsive effort of the soul activity
and letting one part of the body activity flow at the expenses
of the other. This state, related to fear, produces what I have
characterised just now. Of course, everybody can deny this
fear, because it appears in the subconscious. However, it
exists even more certainly there. In a certain respect, the
researcher who turns his eye upon the outside is perpetually in
such a mood that in the subconscious regions of his soul life
the same prevails that consciously prevails in a soul that is
in fear. I say something now that sounds simple that is not
meant simply that can lead to an agreement because of its
simplicity.
If anybody is frightened, he can come very
easily to the mood that one can call with the words: I must
hold fast onto something, because, otherwise, I fall over! This
is the mood of the scientific researcher as I have described it
just now. He must concentrate upon the one-sided thinking; he
develops fear subconsciously and needs the outer sensory matter
to which he can stick, so that he does not sink into the
subconscious fear which — if it does not
advance to theosophy —
finds nothing to which it can stick and
which, otherwise, sticks to the matter. Give me something that
is in the outer material to which I can stick! This mood lives
in the sub-consciousness of the usual scientist. This leads to the
subconscious emotions to accept as science only what allows no
fear because one holds fast onto the materialistic creation of
the world. This gives the antisophical mood: where
supra-naturalism begins, science ends — ends to which one
can stick.
However, with it I have characterised
something that must exist understandably in an age where one
demands to be taken up in the outer observation and in the
outer nature in many a respect. I indicate something with it
that lives not in the single human beings personally. However,
it lives in all who develop an antisophical mood now whether
one says that theosophy is something that flies over science,
that it leaves the reliable ground of science, or whether one
says: theosophy leads only to inner or outer nonsense; nothing
is scientifically reliable in these fields. One has to develop
a mere faith which comes from here or there.
Whether anybody says, my family arrangement
is torn if a family member confesses to theosophy, or whether
another says, if I dedicate myself to theosophy, the fun of
life is spoilt, —
both views are not correct, of course, but
one says something like that out of a certain mood. They dress
the antisophical mood up. This antisophical mood is
comprehensible. Since nothing is more comprehensible than the
antisophical mood to the theosophically feeling human being who
knows that the human soul must always search the coherence with
the world for the sake of its welfare and health with which it
is connected in its deepest roots. Any kind of opposition, any
kind of misunderstanding is comprehensible. Someone who alleges
such misunderstandings should consider always that he says
nothing surprising —
no matter how angry he may be against
theosophy —
to the theosophical feeling human being
because the theosophist can understand him. He differs from the
theosophical feeling human being only by the fact that that who
rages in such a way normally does not know, why he does it
because the origins are in his sub-consciousness which
stimulates the antisophical mood of its own accord. The
theosophically minded person can know at the same time that
this antisophical mood is the most natural of the world as long
as one has not understood the noblest pursuit of the human
soul. One does not show that one has well judged, that one has
thought logically, if one is in the antisophical mood, but only
that one has not yet taken the step to understand that
theosophy speaks out of the sources of existence.
Someone who is not a spiritual researcher
can also understand this theosophy, can fully accept it and
make it the elixir of his soul life. Why? Because that what the
spiritual researcher experiences beyond the usual sensory
experience can be expressed in the same language in which the
experiences of the everyday life and science are expressed. I
take care just in these talks that I use the same language for
the spiritual regions —
not the outer language, but the language of
the thoughts-, as the outer science uses it. Indeed, one can
experience the weirdest things, for example, that one cannot
recognise the language with the adversaries of theosophy, which
they accept for the outer life and science if they hold forth
about the spiritual field.
Theosophy can give the human being a
coherence with the primary source of his existence; it can make
him aware of that point where the depths of his soul are
connected with the depths of the world. Because the human being
grasps the divine-creative forces in theosophy that organise
him, he stands with theosophy within that world power which can
give health and strength, assurance and hope and everything
that it needs for life. As the human being penetrates with
theosophy into the creative source of existence, he also
penetrates into the creative source of existence concerning his
moral life. Existence is increased in the best sense. The human
being feels his determination, his value in theosophy, however,
he feels his tasks and duties in the world too because he finds
himself connected with that in which he is, otherwise, an
unaware member only. The life beyond this source, the life in
antisophy obliterates the existence of the soul. Strictly
speaking, any barrenness of the soul, any pessimism, any
scruples on existence, any incapability to manage his duties,
any lack of moral impulses arise from the antisophical mood.
Theosophy is there not to give any admonitions and the like but
to point to the truth content of life.
Someone who recognises this truth content
finds the impulses of life in the outer and moral fields.
Theosophy raises the human soul to that level which it must
have. Since it gives the soul that by which it really feels as
transported into a foreign land to which it had to come. Since
theosophy is not hostile to earth. If the human being
understands himself with it, he understands himself in such a
way that he must ascend again to the world where he has his
roots where his home is in which he must be to attain his full
human development. From this knowledge of its home that
theosophy can give, optimism, life knowledge, clarity about its
duties, about the impulses of life can flow to the soul
— which
always remain dark under the antisophical mood even if one
believes that they are bright and clear. Theosophy creates that
mood which —
if the word is not abused
— can
become a monistic mood, a feeling one with the spirit living
and interweaving in the world. Theosophy means being in the
spirit, so that one knows: the spirit penetrating any existence
invigorates and pulsates through that what lives and weaves in
me.
The
best human spirits still felt one with this theosophy
even if they did not always ascend to that
what can be given in the beginning of the twentieth century as
world knowledge. If Fichte (Johann Gottlieb F.,
1762-1814, German philosopher) tries to outline the nature
of the human ego with sharp lines of thought, he gets a mood
from quite different lines of thought as they are explained
here which crystallised in the words: the human being who
experiences himself in his ego really experiences himself in
the spiritual world. This is the theosophical mood. This is
something that has coined the nice words from this theosophical
world consciousness just in Fichte. These words appear as a
necessary consequence of the theosophical world consciousness.
It is brilliant how Fichte coined some sentences in his
lectures The Vocation of the
Scholar (1794). There he
summarises again that about which he had thought very much and
that appears like a theosophical mood in the words: if I have
recognised myself in my ego, being within the spiritual world,
then I have also recognised myself in my vocation! We would
say, I have found the point where it is connected in its own
being with the roots of the world being. Fichte continues
saying: “I lift my head boldly up to the menacing rocky
mountains, and to the raging water fall and to the crashing
clouds swimming in a fire sea and say: I am everlasting and
resist your power! Everything shall fall down onto me, and you
earth and you heaven intermingle in the wild tumult, and you
all elements foam and rave and grind the last solar mote of the
body which is mine —
my will with its steady plan shall hover
over the leftovers of the universe boldly and coldly. Since I
have grasped my vocation, and it is more permanent than you
are; it is everlasting and I am everlasting as it is.”
This word comes from a theosophical mood. On another occasion,
when he wrote the preface of his Vocation of the Scholar he spoke the meaningful words against the antisophical
spirit: “We know the fact that ideals cannot be shown in
the real world, we know it maybe as well as they do, maybe
better. We state only that reality is assessed by them, and
must be modified by those who feel the strength in themselves.
Assuming that they could also not convince themselves of it,
they lose very little, because they are what they are; and,
besides, humanity loses nothing. It becomes only clear
that one does not count on them in the plan of improving
humanity. This will continue its way without doubt; the
benevolent nature may rule and give them rain and sunshine,
digestible food and undisturbed circulation of their juices,
and, besides — clever thoughts!”
One feels united in the theosophical mood,
even if spirits of the past times could not speak about the
spiritual world in such a concrete way as it is possible today,
one feels united with these human beings who had this
theosophical mood. Therefore, I feel always in harmony with
every word, with every sentence with Goethe and particularly
with the theosophical mood that vividly penetrates everything
that he thought and wrote. Thus, he could also say an
appropriate word with reference to the theosophical and
antisophical mood, a word with which I would like to finish
this consideration about Theosophy and Antisophy. Goethe had heard a rather antisophical word which
originated from a brilliant, significant spirit, from Albrecht
von Haller (1708-1777, Swiss naturalist and poet). However, Albrecht von
Haller lived in an especially antisophical mood, although he
was a great naturalist of his time; nevertheless it is an
antisophical word when he says:
No created mind penetrates
Into the being of nature.
Blissful is that to whom
She shows her appearance only.
Goethe felt this as antisophical mood, even
if he did not use the words theosophical and antisophical. He
characterises the impression somewhat drastically which
Haller's antisophical words made on him. He expressed the fact
that the soul has to lose itself under such an approach, so to
speak. It would have to lose the strength and dignity that are
given to it to recognise itself:
Indeed
To the Physicist
“No created mind
penetrates
Into the being of nature.”
O you Philistine!
Do not remind me
And my brothers and sisters
Of such a word.
We think: everywhere we are
inside.
“Blissful is that to whom she
shows
Her appearance only!”
I hear that repeatedly for sixty
years,
I grumble about it, but
covertly,
I say to myself thousand and thousand
times:
She gives everything plenty and with
pleasure;
Nature has neither kernel nor
shell,
She is everything at the same
time.
Examine yourself above all,
Whether you are kernel or shell.
|