Some Conditions for Understanding Supersensible Experiences
Rudolf Steiner
A Lecture (hitherto untranslated) given by Rudolf
Steiner at Dornach on January 18, 1920 From a shorthand report,
unrevised by the lecturer. Published by permission of the Rudolf
Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.
FROM the present time onwards it will be impossible for man to
acquire any real self-knowledge or feeling of his own being without
approaching the science of Initiation, for the forces out of which
human nature actually takes shape are nowhere contained in what man
is able to know and experience in the material world. To form an idea
of what I want to convey by saying this, you must think about many
things that are familiar to you from anthroposophical studies.
You must remind yourselves that as well as living through his life
here between birth and death, man passes again and again through the
life between death and a new birth. Just as here on earth we have
experiences through the instrumentality of our body, we also have
experiences between death and a new birth, and these experiences are
by no means without significance for what we do during our earthly
existence in the physical body. But neither are they without
significance for what happens on earth as a whole. For only part
and indeed the rather lesser part of what happens on the
earth originates from those who are living in the physical body. The
dead are perpetually working into our physical world. The forces of
which man is unwilling to speak to-day in the age of materialism are
nevertheless at work in the physical world. Our physical environment
is fashioned and permeated not only by the forces emanating from the
spiritual world, from the Beings of the higher Hierarchies, but
forces proceeding from the dead also penetrate into what surrounds
and overtakes us here. So that a full and complete survey of man's
life is possible only if we look beyond what can be told us by
knowledge obtained through the senses and through history, here on
earth.
The existence of such forces is in the end the one and only thing
that can explain man in his whole being and the whole course of human
evolution on the earth. A time will come in the physical evolution of
the earth it will be after the year 5,700 when, if he
fulfils his rightful evolution, man will no longer tread the earth by
incarnating in bodies derived from physical parents. In that epoch,
women will be barren; children will no longer be born in the manner
of to-day, if evolution on the earth takes its normal course.
There must be no misunderstanding about such a fact as this.
Something else, for example, might come about. The Ahrimanic Powers,
which under the influence of the impulses working in men to-day are
becoming extremely strong, might succeed in preventing
earth-evolution in a certain respect. It would then become possible
for men by no means for their good to be held in the
same form of physical life beyond this time in the sixth or seventh
millennium. They would become much more like animals, while
continuing to be held in the grip of physical incarnation. One of the
endeavours of the Ahrimanic Powers is to keep humanity fettered too
long to the earth in order to divert it from its normal evolution.
However, if men really take hold of the best possibilities for their
evolution, then in the sixth millennium they will enter for a further
2,500 years into a connection with the earthly world of such a kind
that they will, it is true, still have a relationship with the earth,
but a relationship no longer coming to expression in the birth of
physical children. In order to make the picture graphic, I will put
it like this: In clouds, in rain, in lightning and thunder, man will
be astir as a being of spirit-and-soul in the affairs of the earth.
He will pulsate, as it were, through the manifestations of nature;
and in a still later epoch his relationship to the earthly will
become even more spiritual.
To speak of any such matters to-day is possible only when men have
some conception of what happens between death and a new birth.
Although there is not complete conformity between the way in which,
between death and a new birth to-day, man is related to earthly
conditions and the way in which he will be related to them when he no
longer incarnates physically, there is nevertheless a similarity. If
we understand how to imbue earth-evolution with its true meaning and
purpose, we shall enter permanently into the same kind of
relationship with earthly affairs that we now have only between death
and a new birth. Only our life between death and a new birth in the
present age is, shall I say, rather more essentially spiritual than
it will be when this relationship is permanent.
*
Without the science of Initiation, understanding of these things lies
leagues away. Most people to-day still persist in believing that the
essential way to acquire knowledge of the science of Initiation is to
amass all kinds of spiritual experiences, but not by the path that is
proper for us in the physical body. Even the experiences gained by
spiritualistic methods are apt to be valued more highly to-day than
those which can be understood by the healthy human reason. Everything
that is discovered by an Initiate, and can be communicated, is
intelligible by the normal, rightly applied, human reason if only the
necessary efforts are made. It is a primary task for the Initiate,
also, to translate what he is able to proclaim out of the spiritual
world into a language intelligible to human reason. Much more depends
upon such translation being correct than upon the fact of having
experiences in the spiritual world.
Naturally, if one has no such experiences, there is nothing to
communicate. But crude experiences which arise without healthy reason
being applied to their interpretation are really worthless, and have
not the right significance for human life. Even if people were able
to have many super-sensible experiences, but disdained to apply
healthy reason to them, these experiences would be of no use whatever
to humanity in the future. On the contrary, they would do serious
harm, for a super-sensible experience is of use only when it is
translated into the language that human reason can understand. The
real evil of our time is not that men have no super-sensible
experiences; they could have plenty if they so wished. Such
experiences are accessible, but healthy reason is not applied in
order to reach them. What is lacking to-day is the application of
this healthy human reason.
It is of course unpleasant to have to say this to a generation that
prides itself particularly on the exercise of this very reason. But
at the present time it is not super-sensible experience that is in the
worst plight; it is healthy logic, really sound thinking, and above
all, too, the force of truthfulness that are worst off. The moment
untruthfulness asserts itself, the super-sensible experiences fade
away without being understood. People are never willing to believe
this, but it is a fact.
The first requirement for understanding the super-sensible world is
the most scrupulous veracity in regard to the experiences of the
senses. Those who are not strictly accurate about these experiences
can have no true understanding of the super-sensible world. However
much may be heard about the super-sensible world, it remains so much
empty verbiage if the strictest conscientiousness is not present in
formulating what happens here in the physical world.
Anyone who observes how humanity is handling palpable truth today
will have a sorrowful picture! For most people are not in the least
concerned to formulate something they have experienced in such a way
that the experience is presented faithfully; their concern is to
formulate things as they want them to be, in the way that suits
themselves. They know nothing about the impulses that are at work to
beguile them in one direction or another away from a faithful
presentation of the physical experience.
Leaving aside trifling matters, we need only observe the impulses
which arise from ordinary human connections in life and prompt men to
varnish the truth in one respect or another. Further,
we need only realise that the majority of people to-day are not
speaking the truth at all about certain things, because of national
interests or the like. Anyone who has national interests of some kind
at heart can neither think nor say anything that is true in the sense
in which truth must be conceived to-day. Hence the truth is virtually
never uttered about the events of the last four or five years,
because people everywhere speak out of one or other national
interest.
What must be realised is that when a man desires to approach the
super-sensible world, infinitely much depends upon such things. In
times when procedures such as I characterised at the end of the
lecture yesterday are possible can you believe that many
avenues to the truth lie open? [Steiner was quoting
scurrilous statements based on deliberate falsification published in
newspapers in Germany about the alleged political aims, methods and
activities of the Threefold Commonwealth Movement at the time it was
founded. He also referred to articles in a Roman Catholic periodical,
and to a book by a Professor of Psychology containing false
information about Anthroposophy.] They certainly do not. For
those who wallow in such swamps of untruthfulness as were disclosed
yester-day, spread fog which completely shuts off what should be
grasped as super-sensible truth by the healthy human reason. There is
equal unwillingness to perceive that straightforward, candid
relations between man and man must prevail if super-sensible truths
are to penetrate in the right way into the social life. One cannot
varnish truth on the one hand and, on the other, wish
to understand matters of a super-sensible nature.
*
When they are put into words, these things seem almost matters of
course, but actually they are so little matters of course that
everybody to-day ought constantly to repeat them to himself. Only so
can there gradually be achieved what is necessary in this domain. As
I said here recently, the essential principle of social community is
that it must be founded upon confidence, in the sense
indicated. This must be taken in all earnestness. In very many
respects this confidence will also be necessary in the future with
regard to paths of knowledge. The attitude adopted towards those who
are in a position to say something about the science of Initiation
should be to examine their utterances with the healthy reason only,
not with sympathy, antipathy or the like, nor in the mirror of
personal feeling. It must at all times be realised that the
Anthroposophical Society should become in the real sense a bearer of
super-sensible truths into the world. Thereby it could achieve
something extraordinarily necessary and significant for the evolution
of mankind.
But it must be remembered that to have experiences in sensible
spheres is obviously a matter to be taken in earnest. I told you some
time ago how a friend of our Movement, shortly before he died from
the effects of war-wounds, wrote lines in which, in the very face of
death, he speaks of the air becoming hard, granite-like.
I said at the time that this is an absolutely true experience. [See
lecture given at Dornach, 15th November, 1919: An impression
of this nature must be understood. ... For in wrestling to acquire
the wisdom needed for the future, one of the most frequent
experiences is this: the surrounding world presses in upon one, as if
the air had suddenly hardened to granite. The reason for these things
can be known, for it need only be remembered that it is the striving
of the Ahrimanic Powers to cause the earth to become completely
rigidified.] Think only of the most elementary
experiences connected with crossing the Threshold of the spiritual
world and you will be able to gauge the importances of these things.
In our life by day or also by night, for then there is
electric light the sun, the light of the sun, illumines the
objects around us; the sunlight makes them visible. In a similar way
the other senses become aware of surrounding objects. If I limit
myself at the moment to the example of the sunlight, directly the
Threshold is crossed man must become one with the light in his inmost
being. The light cannot enable him to see objects because he has to
pass into the very light itself. Objects can be seen with the help of
the light only as long as the light is outside. When man is himself
moving together with the light, the objects illumined by it can no
longer be seen. But when, in his being of soul, he is moving in the
light itself, then for the first time he becomes aware that thinking
is, in reality, one with the light weaving in the world.
Thinking that is bound up with the body is proper to physical life
only. Directly we leave this body, our thinking loses definition; it
weaves into the light, lives in the light, is one with the light. But
the moment our thinking is received into the light, it is no longer
possible to have an ego as easily as man has one between birth and
death, without doing anything towards it. His body is organised in
such a way that his being reflects itself through the body, and he
calls this mirror-image his ego. It is a faithful mirror-image of the
real ego, but it is a mirror-image, a picture only, a
picture-thought, a thought-picture. And the moment the Threshold is
crossed, it streams out into the light.
If another anchorage were not now available, man would have no ego at
all. For this ego, this I, that he has between birth
and death, is furnished for him by his body. He loses it the moment
he leaves the body, and then he can be conscious of an ego only by
becoming one with what may be called the forces of the planet
especially the variations of the planet's force of gravity. He
must become so entirely one with the planet, with the earth, that he
feels himself to be a part of the earth, as the finger feels itself
to be a member of the human organism. Then, in union with the earth,
it is possible for him again to have an ego. And he perceives that
just as here in earthly life he makes use of thinking in the physical
body, after earthly life he can make use of the light.
From the standpoint of Initiation, therefore, one would have to say:
Man is united with the earth's force of gravity and through
radiating light concerns himself with the things of the world.
Applied to the experience beyond the Threshold, this would express
the same fact as when one says here on earth: Man lives in his body
and thinks about the things of the world. Of the life between birth
and death we say: Man lives in the body and concerns himself with
things through thinking.
As soon as he leaves the body, we must say: He is united with the
earth's force of gravity or with its variations, with
electricity or magnetism, and through radiating light, inasmuch as he
is now living in the light, concerns himself with the things of the
world.
*
When things that have been illumined in this way
instead of being merely thought about, as is generally the case
are put into words, they are entirely comprehensible to the healthy
human reason. And even the Initiate, if he has not developed his
reason in the right way, gains nothing whatever from his
super-sensible experiences. When someone to-day please take
what I am now saying as a really serious matter has learnt to
think in a way perfectly adapted to meeting the demands of school
examinations, when he acquires habits of thought that enable him to
pass academic tests with flying colours then his reasoning
faculty will be so vitiated that even if millions of experiences of
the super-sensible world were handed to him on a platter, he would see
them as little as you could physically see the objects in a dark
room; for that which makes men fit to cope with the demands of this
materialistic age darkens the space in which the super-sensible worlds
come towards them.
Men have become accustomed to think in the one and only way that is
possible when thinking is based on the bodily functions. This kind of
thinking is ingrained in them from their youth onwards. But healthy
human reason does not unfold on bodily foundations; it unfolds in
free spiritual activity. And even in our Elementary Schools to-day
children are educated away from free spiritual activity. The very
methods of teaching hinder the development of free spiritual
activity. Dare one incur the responsibility of concealing from the
world these vital truths of the age? People may not realise why it
was thought necessary to set into active operation an institution
such as the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. But through this Waldorf
School some at least of the children of men will be given a real
chance to discard the bigotry of the times and to learn how to move
in the element of thinking that is truly free. As long as such things
are not regarded in this serious light, we shall make no progress.
Now I would like to call your attention to another tendency which is
still far too common. Because people are tired of the old in its
ordinary form, they like to get hold of something new; but for all
that they want the new to be somehow veiled, whenever possible, in
all the old, habitual conceptions. I have known many people
and it is well to be under no delusion about these things who
have realised that anthroposophical Spiritual Science is endeavouring
to promulgate something true and right about Christianity, about the
Mystery of Golgotha. But among them were some for whom this was right
only because it exposed them to less disapproval in Church circles;
hence they found Anthroposophy more opportune than some other form of
spiritual science holding a different view of Christianity. In
anthroposophical Spiritual Science the one and only question is that
of truth; but with some people it has not always been a question only
of truth, but often only of opportunism. Naturally it is unpleasant
nowadays to have to witness the attitude to truth adopted by the
representatives of the religious confessions and ultimately by their
congregations who are also influenced by it. This is a trend of the
times that must be kept clearly in view.
*
If it is desired to approach the super-sensible world in the right
way, we must have interest in all things but never mere
curiosity. People are so ready to confound curiosity with interest.
They must learn not only to think differently but to feel differently
about all things. If anthroposophical Spiritual Science were ever to
be given a mantle suitable for the atmosphere of coffee-parties or
what corresponds to them nowadays, this would by no means conduce to
the fulfilment of its task for this task is of grave moment.
The reason for the hostility that is asserting itself at the present
time in such ugly forms is simply this: People realise that here it
is not a matter of a sect, or of a happier family circle
such as many desire, but that something is truly striving to activate
the impulses needed by the times. But what interest have the majority
of people to-day in these impulses? If only they can bask in
happiness or have something in the nature of a new religion! This
egoism of soul, which impels very many people to anthroposophical
Spiritual Science, must be overcome. Interest in the great affairs of
humanity is necessary for any true understanding of Anthroposophy.
These great concerns of the life of humanity are clearly to be
discerned in the most seemingly trivial facts of life. But in one
respect our whole life of perception and feeling must change if
we want so to orientate healthy human reason that it functions in the
right stream of Spiritual Science. Let me repeat: The whole of our
life of soul must change in one particular respect if our healthy
human reason is to function within the stream of spiritual life that
is to be brought to mankind through Anthroposophy. What is the
orientation given us here on earth by the culture that is smothered
in materialism? Our orientation is such that we feel ourselves as
bodily men with bones, muscles, nerves. And our body
acts as a mirror, reflecting the image of our ego to us
schematically, like this:
Your true being is somewhere in spiritual regions. Here, in the
physical world, is your body. It becomes a mirror, reflecting back to
you the image of the ego. The ego itself is here (= = =), but the
image of the ego is reflected back to you by the body. You know of
this ego-image when you look at the body with that centre of
your being of which most people at present know nothing, but in which
they nevertheless live. So the ego, together with the thoughts,
feelings and impulses of will, is mirrored by the body. Behind this
ego-image is the body, and man calls these mirrored images his soul;
behind the soul he perceives the body and uses it as his support.
But this picture: There, down below, is the body; there the ego
emerges ... this picture must be entirely changed. It is a picture
perceived in complete passivity, and is indeed perceived only because
the body is behind it. We must learn to perceive quite differently.
We must learn to perceive: You are there in your spiritual world, a
world in which there are no plants, minerals and animals, but
Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, and the other Beings of the
Hierarchies; in them you live. And because these Beings
permeate us through and through, we ray forth the ego:
We ray forth this ego from the spiritual world. We must learn to feel
this ego, to feel that we have within us the ego behind which stand
the Hierarchies, just as the body, composed of elements of the three
kingdoms of nature, is behind the ego that is an image only. We must
pass out of the passive experience into activity in the fullest
sense. We must learn to feel that our real ego is brought into being
out of the spiritual world. And then we also learn to feel that the
mirror-image of our ego is brought into being for us out of the body
that belongs to physical existence.
This is a reversal of the usual feeling, and to this reversal we must
habituate ourselves. That is the important thing not the
amassing of facts and data. They will be there in abundance once this
reversal of feeling has been experienced. Then, when thinking is
active in the real sense, those thoughts are born which can fertilise
social thinking. When the ego is allowed to remain a mirror-image,
thinking can take account only of those social matters which are (as
I said yesterday) merely the outcome of changes in phraseology. Only
when man is active in his ego can his thoughts be truly free.
In past centuries, not so very long ago, this freedom in thinking was
still present in men, although springing, it is true, from atavistic
qualities of soul. Instinctively, they regarded it as an ideal to
achieve this freedom in their thinking, whereas we have to achieve it
in the future by conscious effort. There is an outer illustration of
this. Just look at the diplomas conferring the Doctor's degree
at universities in Middle Europe. As a rule, people are made not only
Doctors, but Doctors and Masters of the Seven Liberal Arts
Arithmetic, Dialectic, Rhetoric, and so on. This no longer means
anything, for the Seven Liberal Arts are nowhere included in the
curriculum of modern universities. It is a relic, a heritage from an
earlier period when through university life men strove to liberate
their thinking, to develop a life of soul able to rise to truly free
thinking.
At the universities to-day the degrees of Master of the Liberal Arts
and Doctor of Philosophy are still conferred. But this is no more
than a relic, for nobody understands what the Liberal Arts really
are. They are justly named Arts because they were
pursued in a sphere lying above that of sensory experience, just as
the artist's imagination unfolds freely and independently of
material existence. The degrees inscribed in university diplomas once
represented a reality, just as many other things still surviving in
the formula current at universities were once realities. The title,
Magister Artium Liberalium, is a very characteristic example.
*
This living grasp of the self (Sicherfassen) must again be
achieved. But it goes against the grain, because people to-day prefer
to move about on crutches instead of using their legs. Their ideal is
to have what they are to think conveyed to them by the outer,
material facts. It is unpleasant for them to realise that thinking in
the true sense must be experienced in free spiritual activity,
because it means tearing themselves away from the convenient things
of life, from all props, all crutches in the life of soul. Whenever
things are said from the standpoint of a kind of thinking that has
nothing whatever to do with the sense-world, but in complete freedom
creates out of intuitions, people do not understand it. My
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
was not understood because it can be
grasped only by one who is intent upon unfolding really free
thoughts, one who is truly and in a new sense a Master of the
Liberal Arts.
These are the things that must be understood today with the right
feeling and with the earnestness that is their due. Especially to the
English friends who are here for a short time only, I want to say
this: The Building we have erected on this hill must be regarded as
an outer beacon for the signs of the times. This Building stands here
in order that through it the world may be told: If you go on thinking
in the old way, as for four centuries you have become accustomed to
think in your sciences, you will condemn humanity to destruction.
With the help of crutches you may seek in the easy way to establish
principles of social life, but in so doing you will only be
preserving what already has death within it.
For the life of soul to-day it is essential to unfold thinking that
is as free as are those forms out of which, in architecture,
sculpture or painting, the attempt has been made to create this
Building. Its purpose is that at one spot on the earth these
things shall be said not through words alone, but also through forms.
Men should feel that here, through these forms, something different
from what can be heard elsewhere in the world to-day is intended to
be said, and also that what is said is urgently necessary for the
further progress of mankind in respect of knowledge and social
principles, in respect of all the sciences and of all branches of
social life.
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