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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Philosophy, Cosmology and Religion
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Philosophy, Cosmology and Religion
Schmidt Number: S-4970
On-line since: 15th June, 2009
EXERCISES OF THOUGHT, FEELING AND VOLITION
PHILOSOPHY did not arise in the same way in which it is continued in
modern times. In these days it is a connection of ideas which are not
experienced in one's inner being, in the soul, in such a manner
that a man, conscious of self, feels himself in these ideas as in a
reality. Therefore we seek after all possible theoretical means to
prove that the philosophic content does refer to a reality. But this
way leads only to different philosophic systems, and of these one can
say they are right to a certain extent; for mostly the grounds on
which they are refuted are of as much value as those on which it is
sought to prove them.
Now with Anthroposophy it is a question not of attaining the reality
of the philosophic content by theoretic thought, but by the
cultivation of a method which on the one hand is similar to that by
which in ancient times Philosophy was won, and on the other, is as
consciously exact as the mathematical and natural scientific method of
more recent times.
The ancient method was semi-conscious. Compared with the condition of
full consciousness of the modern scientific thinker it had something
almost dreamy. It existed not in such dreams as concealed indirectly
by their very nature their real content, but in waking dreams, which
pointed to reality precisely by means of this content. Nor had such a
soul-content the abstract character of the modern presentation, but
rather that of picture-making.
Such a soul-content must be regained, but in full consciousness,
according to the modern stage of human evolution; exactly in the same
sense of consciousness as we find in scientific thought.
Anthroposophical research seeks to attain this in a first stage of
super-sensible knowledge in the condition of imaginative
consciousness. It is reached through a process of meditation in
the soul. This leads the entire force of the soul-life to
presentations which are easily visualized and held fast in a state of
rest. By this means we finally realize, if such a process is
constantly repeated over a sufficient period of time, how the soul in
its experience becomes free from the body. We see clearly that
the thought of ordinary consciousness is a reflection of a spiritual
activity which remains unconscious as such, after having become so by
the incorporation of the human physical organism in its course.
All ordinary thinking is dependent on the super-sensible spiritual
activity which is reproduced in the physical organism. But at the same
time we are conscious only of what the physical organism allows us to
be conscious of. The spiritual activity can be separated from the
physical organism by meditation, and the soul then experiences the
super-sensible in a super-sensible way; no longer the physical but the
etheric organism is the background of the soul's experience. We have a
presentation before our soul's consciousness with the character of a
picture. We have before us in this kind of presentation pictures of
the powers which, coming from the super-sensible are the basis of the
organism as its powers of growth, and also as the very powers which
function in the regulation of the processes of nourishment. We gain in
these pictures a real vision of the life-forces. This is the
stage of imaginative cognition. This is life in the
etheric human organism, and with our own etheric organism we live in
the etheric Cosmos. There is between the etheric organism and the
etheric Cosmos no such sharp distinction relating to subjective and
objective as there is in physical thought about the things of the
world.
This imaginative knowledge is the means whereby we can
recall the very substantial reality of ancient Philosophy, but we can
also conceive a new Philosophy, and a real conception of Philosophy
can only come into being by means of this imaginative knowledge. And
when this Philosophy is once there it can be grasped and understood by
the ordinary consciousness; for it speaks out of
imaginative experience in a form which springs from
spiritual (etheric) reality, and whose reality-content can, through
the ordinary consciousness, be recalled in experience.
A higher activity of knowledge which is forthcoming when meditation is
extended, is required for Cosmology. Not only is intensive quietness
cultivated on a soul-content or subject matter but also a fully
conscious stationary condition of the quiet, content-less soul. This
is after the meditative soul-content or subject matter has been
banished from the consciousness. The stage is reached where the
spiritual content of the Cosmos flows into the empty soul the
stage of inspired cognition. We have in part of us
a spiritual Cosmos, just as we have a physical Cosmos before the
senses. We succeed in seeing, in the powers of the spiritual Cosmos,
what takes place spiritually between man and the Cosmos in the process
of breathing. In this and the other rhythmic processes of man we find
the physical reproduction of what exists in the spiritual sphere in
human astral organization. We attain to the vision of how this astral
organism has its place in the spiritual Cosmos outside the life on
earth, and how it takes on the cloak of the physical organism through
embryonic life and birth, to lay it down again in death. By means of
this knowledge we can distinguish between heredity, which is an
earthly phenomenon, and that which man brings with him from the
spiritual world.
In this way, through inspired knowledge, we attain to a
Cosmology which can embrace man in respect of his psychic and
spiritual existence. Inspired knowledge is cultivated in the astral
organism because we experience an existence outside our bodies in the
Cosmos of the Spirit. But the same thing happens in the etheric
organism; and we can translate this knowledge into human speech in the
images which present themselves in this sphere, and we can harmonize
it with the content of Philosophy. So we get a Cosmic Philosophy.
For Religious Cognition a third thing is necessary. We must dive down
into those existences which reveal themselves in picture form as the
content of inspired knowledge; and this is attained when
we add Soul-exercises of the Will to the kind of
meditation which we have till now been describing. For instance, we
attempt to present to ourselves events which in the physical world
have a definite course, but in reverse order, from the end to the
beginning. Doing this we separate the soul-life, through a process of
will which is not used in ordinary consciousness from the cosmic
externals, and let the soul sink into those Beings which manifest
themselves by inspiration. We attain true intuition, a union
with beings of a spiritual world. These experiences of intuition are
reflected in etheric and also in physical man, and produce in this
reflection the subject matter of religious consciousness.
Through this intuitive cognition we gain a vision
of the true nature of the Ego, which in reality is sunk into
the spiritual world. The Ego which we know in ordinary consciousness
is only a quite faint reflection of its true proportions. Intuition
provides the possibility of feeling the connection of this faint
reflection with the divine primal universe, to which in its true shape
it belongs. Moreover, we are enabled to see how spiritual man, the
true Ego, has his place in the spiritual world, when he is sunk in
sleep. In this condition the physical and etheric organisms require
the rhythmic processes for their own regeneration. In a waking
condition the Ego lives in this rhythm and in the metabolic processes
that are a part of it; in the condition of sleep, the rhythm and the
metabolic processes of man have a life of their own as physical and
etheric organisms; and the astral organisms and the Ego then take
their place in the spirit world. The translation of man into this
world by inspired and intuitive knowledge is conscious; he
lives in a spiritual Cosmos, just as by his senses he lives in a
physical Cosmos. He can speak of the content of the religious
consciousness from knowledge, and he can do this because what he
experiences in the spiritual sphere is reflected in the physical and
etheric man. Moreover, the reflected pictures can be expressed in
speech, and in this form have a meaning which throws religious light
on the human disposition of ordinary consciousness.
Thus we reach the heart of Philosophy by imaginative cognition, of
Cosmology by inspiration, and of the religious life through intuition.
Besides that already described, the following soul-exercise helps
towards attaining intuition. One tries so to grasp the life, which
otherwise unconsciously unfolds itself from one human age to another,
that one consciously contracts habits which one did not have
before, or consciously changes such as one had. The greater the
effort that such a change necessitates, the better it is for gaining
intuitive knowledge; for these changes bring about a loosening of the
will-power from the physical and etheric organism. We bind the will to
the astral organism and to the true form of the Ego and consciously
immerse both of them into the spirit world.
What we may call abstract thought has been perfected only
in the modern spiritual development of mankind. In earlier periods of
evolution this kind of thought was unknown to man, though it is
necessary to the development of human spiritual activity, because it
frees the power of thought from the picture-form. We achieve the
possibility of thinking through the physical organism, though such
thinking is not rooted in a real world; only in an apparent world
where the processes of Nature can be copied without man himself
contributing anything to these pictures. We attain a copy of Nature,
which, qua copy, can be genuine, because the life in the
thought-copy is not in itself reality, but only apparent reality. But
the moral impulses can also be taken up into this pseudo-thought, so
that they exercise no compulsion on man. The moral impulses are
themselves real because they come from the spirit world; the manner in
which man experiences them in his apparent world enables him to adapt
himself in accordance with them, or not. They themselves exercise no
compulsion on him either through his body or his soul.
So man strides on; thought which was in ancient times completely bound
to the unconsciously imagined, inspired and intuitive knowledge,
thought in which the subject matter was laid as open as Imagination
and Inspiration and Intuition themselves, becomes abstract thought
conducted through the physical organism. In this thought, which
has a pseudo-life, because it is spirit substance translated into the
physical world, man has the possibility of developing an objective
nature-knowledge and his own moral freedom.
More details on this subject you will find in my Philosophy of
Spirit Activity, my Knowledge of Higher Worlds and how to
attain it, Theosophy, Occult Science, etc. What is necessary in
order to return to a Philosophy, a Cosmology and a Religion that
embrace all man, is to enter upon the province of an exact
clairvoyance in Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition; and this
consciously that is in contradistinction to the old
dreamlike clairvoyance. Man attains to his full consciousness in the
province of a life of abstract presentations. It remains to him, in
the further advance of humanity, to bring this full consciousness of
the spiritual world to bear on his daily life.
In this must true human progress in future consist.
Last Modified: 23-Nov-2024
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