True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation

LECTURE NINE

ABNORMAL PATHS INTO
THE SPIRITUAL WORLD
AND THEIR TRANSFORMATION

Blackboard Drawing 10, August 20, 1924

We began these lectures with an enquiry into our normal dream life and from here we moved on to a consideration of further states of consciousness which enable us to enter into worlds other than the one we inhabit between birth and death. Finally we discussed mediumistic consciousness, the consciousness which man experiences in a somnambulistic condition, for the mediumistic state is always of this nature.

Now both kinds of experience, those of the dream and of somnambulism, are conditions of the soul which are also found in their true form in normal life. It is only when they are intensified that they lead into true or false channels.

Today we will examine our dream life once again. We have seen that when man in normal consciousness passes over from the waking state into sleep, he is subject to dreams and that his astral body registers during the latter state an after-vibration of his experiences in the etheric and physical bodies. Then follow the chaotic, indeed extraordinary dream-experiences which only an Initiate can rightly interpret, because the man who does not penetrate more deeply into the nature of the spiritual world is simply bewildered by these normally chaotic experiences.

But we have also seen how, through exercises in meditation and concentration, the weft of dream life can be interwoven with the woof of higher consciousness. We therefore envisage man transplanted into the chaotic and wondrous world of dream; but he remains fully conscious in this dream life which is as real to him as ordinary life. Then he gains insight into another world where he can accompany the dead in their after-death existence. He feels that a world of much greater reality than our present world envelops him. The question now is: what is the real nature of the world he now contacts? I have already spoken about this, but today I would like to touch upon this question from a different angle.

I described how there once lived on Earth illustrious teachers who did not inhabit physical bodies, but only subtle etheric bodies, and were able therefore to incarnate in the ether surrounding the Earth. They instructed men through Inspiration and laid the foundations of the primordial culture on Earth. When we look back into these ancient times with the appropriate condition of consciousness, we find these primeval spiritual teachers sharing the life of mankind. Then they withdrew to the Moon sphere and today are only to be found in this sphere where they have subjected to their purposes all manner of beings who have never lived on Earth. They live amongst these elementary beings and work upon human beings who have passed through the gates of death, instructing them how to acquit themselves in relation to their karma. These are the Beings with whom we are concerned when we first enter the spiritual world. Just as we cannot ignore society and social relationships in our life on Earth, so we must cooperate with these other Beings in order to attain higher knowledge. And it is with the help of these Moon Beings who were once the primeval teachers of humanity on Earth and the beings whom they have taken into their service, that we investigate the spiritual world immediately adjacent to our own. It is there that we find the key to earlier Earth epochs and to the earlier incarnations of human beings. We can then discover personalities who once lived on Earth and with whom we either had, or had not, karmic connections. In order to illustrate this, I pointed out how, by further developing this level of consciousness, we gradually contact earthly beings such as Brunetto Latini, Dante, Alanus ab Insulis and others who are no longer incarnated on Earth today.

This state of consciousness is therefore an illumination, a translucence of the dream state. In ordinary life the dream state represents, so to speak, only the rudimentary beginnings of this state. Now it is very easy to show the difference between the Initiate and the man living at the ordinary level of consciousness.

Under normal conditions of sleep man's physical and etheric bodies are left behind, whilst his astral body and Ego are outside his body. In the dream state experience is solely the province of the Ego. The occurrences experienced in the dream belong, it is true, to the astral body which is still outside the physical and etheric bodies, but in terms of ordinary consciousness only the Ego can experience the dream.

The Initiate, however, experiences with his Ego and especially with his astral body. The difference, therefore, between the Initiate and the ordinary dreamer is that the latter only experiences with his Ego when he is outside his physical and etheric bodies, whilst the Initiate experiences with his astral body as well.

Now this mode of perception was developed to a high degree, especially in the ancient Mysteries, for the purpose of investigating the super-sensible worlds. It was further developed in a decadent form throughout the Middle Ages and later epochs. In modern times it has virtually disappeared. Isolated individuals, either by spiritual means or through tradition, have always received instruction from the ancient teachers in the Mysteries how to remain fully conscious in ordinary dream life. Individuals have at all times been able to penetrate into these worlds, but the attempt is fraught with danger. When the Initiate with Imaginative Knowledge is immersed in the normal dream world, he immediately has the feeling that he is losing touch with the physical world, that he is losing consciousness and sinking into a void. He feels as if solid ground were slipping from under his feet, as if he were no longer subject to the force of gravity. He experiences a feeling of inner release, a feeling that he is being swept away into a cosmic ocean, that he might easily lose control over himself because he is no longer firmly anchored.

The purpose of the spiritual exercises described in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, is to obviate this danger. Whoever undertakes these meditations in the right way will find that he develops “wings” of the soul and that, having overcome gravity, he can now take wing. When the Initiate loses the physical and etheric ground beneath his feet and has not yet developed the “wings” of the astral body and Ego, a dangerous situation arises. Though I express myself figuratively you will understand my meaning. The dangers are real enough. If we prepare ourselves assiduously for the world we enter as a result of these exercises, all possibility of danger is excluded. We can gradually participate in these worlds just as we participate in the physical world through our physical and etheric bodies.

This was more or less the condition of man in earliest times. Today we have to achieve this condition through the practice of spiritual exercises. The make-up of primordial man was such that, in contrast to our waking consciousness, he enjoyed a natural condition of spiritual vision such as I have described amongst the Chaldeans and a condition that could not be equated with our dream state, but was a form of Imaginative perception. When confronted by another human being a man perceived not only his physical contours, but had a dreamlike impression of the aura around him. It was the true aura, not merely a subjective illusion. In addition to this gift for perceiving the aura of the physical body, he also possessed another faculty — for both are related to each other — which enabled him to perceive the aura of a spiritual being who is not incarnated in a physical body. And then he dreamed the form of the spiritual being.

Note the difference: if, in ancient times, a man looked at his physical counterpart, he imagined in a true dream the aura around him. If he met with a spiritual being, an Angel or an elementary being, he had, from the first, a spiritual perception of the aura and ‘dreamed’ the form belonging to it.

This is how the earliest painters worked, but we are unaware of it today. These painters saw the spiritual beings and ‘dreamed’ the corresponding forms. They depicted the Beings of the hierarchy of the Angels almost in the likeness of human beings, the Archangels with unsubstantial bodies, but with clearly defined wings and head; and the Archai solely with a winged head because this was the form they ‘dreamed.’ These insights were as natural to men of ancient times as it is natural to us today to see another's physical features. Since man has gradually lost his clairvoyance, he must reacquire it through spiritual training. But as clairvoyance was natural to primitive man, and relatively easy to regain through spiritual training, it has been the subject of extensive investigation over the years. There has always been an active interest in the world ruled by the Moon Beings and the Initiates of the ancient Mysteries, who were the true investigators, have much to say of this world, of their encounter with the dead, of the investigation into the Moon sphere and how the world appears from the perspective of the Moon sphere.

Copernicus established his heliocentric system from the point of view of the terrestrial consciousness only. The old Ptolemaic system is not erroneous; seen from the perspective of the consciousness of the Moon sphere its findings are correct. Now it is a characteristic of these investigators, i.e. the Initiates of the Moon sphere, that their activities are restricted to that sphere.

It is common knowledge to all of you that the present Anthroposophical Society was formerly a part of the Theosophical Society. The Theosophical Society which is similar to many societies of a kindred nature that have been founded in the course of recent years, has accumulated an abundant literature. If you refer to this literature you will find — whether rightly or wrongly is immaterial for the moment — that it describes the world of which I am now speaking, the Moon sphere, the world that we investigate in conjunction with the Moon Beings. When it was proposed that I should work in the Theosophical Society it had important implications for me — although I was faced with certain difficulties at first, for in the Theosophical Society I found investigations and a literature which were limited solely to this Moon sphere. Undoubtedly this material contains much that is incorrect, but much that is highly important and unique, especially in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky. But everything to be found in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky is determined by her association with the Moon sphere and her relationship with Initiates who elected to stay behind in this Moon sphere as an act of sacrifice.

I can assure you that I have come to know many of these Initiates and how such spirits penetrate into the Moon sphere but are indifferent to man's desire to develop further.

When I wrote my book, Occult Science — an Outline, in the years between 1906 and 1909, I described the Earth in its earlier incarnations of Moon, Sun and Saturn. [See Chapter IV: Man and the Evolution of the World.] My description did not end with the Moon incarnation; I traced the Earth incarnation as far back as the Saturn incarnation, whereas all the Initiates who spoke of these matters concluded their account between Moon and Sun; in reality, they traced the Earth incarnation only as far back as to the Moon sphere. Any suggestion that they should look back to still earlier incarnations of the Earth was met with indifference, sometimes even with a sense of disquiet. They declared this to be impossible, for the path was blocked by an insuperable barrier. It was of course, most important and not without interest to understand the reason for this. It soon became apparent on closer acquaintance that these Initiates had an aversion, an antipathy to the modern scientific outlook. When these Initiates were introduced to the ideas of Darwin, Haeckel and their followers they became most indignant and regarded them as childish and stupid and refused to have any truck with them. They were less antipathetic to the ideas of Goethe at first, but ultimately they found that he too spoke the language of the modern scientist and then they dismissed the whole affair.

In short, one could not appeal to the Initiates with such ideas. And it was in the years 1906 to 1909 when I first steeped myself in modern scientific ideas in order to impregnate them with Imaginations that I found it possible to penetrate to the Sun and Saturn spheres. I did not use these scientific concepts as a method of cognition after the fashion of Haeckel or Huxley, but as an inner motivation in order to overcome the limitations to which the Initiates were subject at a time when the modern scientific outlook did not yet exist and when therefore one could achieve higher consciousness only by impregnating the dream-world with Imaginations. In writing my Occult Science I attempted to imbue with inner meaning the fully conscious scientific outlook of Huxley and others which normally is only associated with the external world, and to impregnate the Imaginative world with it. Then it was possible to understand this whole sequence of Saturn, Sun and Moon and to investigate on Earth the old Initiate-knowledge.

I am describing this path to knowledge in order that you may understand how these things arise. You may perhaps say that this is a personal interpretation. But in this case the personal element is, in fact, wholly objective. The criticism directed against my book Occult Science is that it is written like a mathematical text-book, that I sought to avoid subjective interpretation and that I described with mathematical detachment the whole path of development I have been discussing. None the less this path is precisely as I have described it. Its origin lay in the circumstance that the modality of thought which has existed since the time of Copernicus and Galileo and which was enriched by Goethe was combined with the same disposition of soul that is normally present in Imagination. Thus it was possible to trace back this sphere that had always been accessible to the Initiates, to its origin in Saturn.

From this example you will appreciate perhaps how important it is to approach these matters not in a vague, haphazard fashion, but with clear and conscious deliberation, to introduce a note of caution where thoughtlessness so easily takes over. Under normal conditions the dream life is in contact with the Ego only, but here we have an example where it contacts the astral body also.

To the question: what is the difference between modern natural science and the information I have given in Occult Science? I would reply: the modern scientist can only appeal to the Ego and begins to dream the moment he surrenders his Ego, whilst I was able to take over into the dream life the concepts of natural science, to direct the astral body into the worlds I had to describe.

This is a path which can be described to you exactly and will serve as an example to indicate perhaps more precisely how the true paths differ from the false.

The condition diametrically opposed to the dream state is that of somnambulism and mediumism. The dreamer lives wholly in his Ego and astral body. Even though he has no conscious perceptions in the astral body, he nevertheless lives within it. He lives wholly in his Ego and astral body outside his physical and etheric bodies. He is thrust down into, immersed in his own being, and his own being is then affiliated to other worlds. Thus the dreamer is submerged, so to speak, in his own being and hence is immersed in the Cosmos and, to a certain extent also in his physical organism.

The precise opposite is the case with the medium and somnambulist. Man is only in a mediumistic or somnambulistic condition when his Ego and astral body are outside his physical and etheric bodies; but in this case, as I have pointed out, his Ego and astral body are possessed by an alien being.

Thus we have the medium or somnambulist with his physical being, but the Ego and astral body are outside the physical and etheric bodies. The Ego and astral body are suppressed, for another being takes them over. Consequently the medium cannot influence the physical and etheric bodies in the right way. Even when we are in dreamless sleep, for instance, we exert an effect upon the physical and etheric bodies. In waking life we permeate our physical and etheric bodies from within; in sleep we protect them from incursions from without.

This no longer applies to the somnambulist. The medium or somnambulist has no control over his physical and etheric bodies; they are, so to speak, deserted territory.

When a man is endowed with the constitution of soul that is normal for our time, it is the forces of the plants and minerals alone that have an influence upon his physical and etheric bodies. If the forces of the minerals, i.e. of the mineral Earth, did not influence our physical body, we should be unable to walk or move around, because we are dependent upon these forces. It is permissible to share the world of the mineral forces; that is the normal condition, but they must not enter into the etheric body.

The same applies to the plants. It is permissible for the forces of the plants still to work to a certain extent upon the etheric body, although not too strongly. But the forces that stimulate sensation in the animal and the forces of another human being should no longer be permitted to influence the physical body of man, and especially his etheric body. Because the physical and etheric bodies of the medium or somnambulist are deserted, the animal and terrestrial human forces work upon the medium or somnambulist. The physical and etheric bodies become influenced by suggestion. Just as thought passes from the dream into the environment, so in this case the will is detached from the human being and merges into the environment. We can suggest to the medium or somnambulist that he should stand up and walk; if we offer him a potato we can suggest that it is a tasty pear and so on. As human beings when we suggestionize the medium or somnambulist we make direct contact with the physical body, and hence with the etheric body. The medium and somnambulist bear within them in their etheric body their physical environment which should be reflected only in the physical body, as is the case with normal man. Normal man therefore surrenders himself in a dreamlike state to his inner spiritual world, the medium to the external world of nature.

Now mediumism or somnambulism is a normal condition in so far as the condition itself is normal. For the ability to move about, to seize hold of objects, to be able to perform any kind of external action is a magico-somnambulistic achievement on the part of everyone. But this activity must be limited to the physical body; it must not find its way into the etheric body, otherwise the normal passes over into the abnormal.

And so the dreamer lives entirely within his own being; the medium or somnambulist is outside his being. The physical and etheric bodies of the medium or somnambulist function somewhat after the fashion of automata and we can work upon them because his own Ego and astral body fail to provide for them. Consequently, just as in the dreamer an inner spiritual world is created, so in the medium or somnambulist there comes into being a union with the external world of nature, with the world of form and its origin, with all that is perceptible and all that is related to space and time.

When we sink down into the world of dream, we are immersed in the formless, in that which is in a state of constant transformation. When we penetrate with our physical and etheric bodies into the world where the somnambulist or medium is exercising his will under the influence of suggestion, everything is sharply defined; all that supervenes as the result of external influence is carried out with extraordinary precision.

This world is the exact antithesis of the normal world of dream; in the somnambulist it is a dream activity, a natural creation externalized. It is dreaming in action, activity in a dreamlike state, in place of dreaming in inner experience only.

From the standpoint of Initiation this antithesis is most interesting and significant. When the Initiate sinks down into the world of dreams in order to permeate it with Imaginations he meets with difficulties. I have already spoken of this. He feels that he is no longer subject to gravity, that he no longer has firm ground beneath his feet. When the Initiate enters into this world he must gain access to it consciously, whilst the somnambulist finds his way into it unconsciously — he feels that he may at any moment lose consciousness. He is always faced with this possibility, and he must take himself firmly in hand so that he maintains full consciousness. If, as Initiates, we penetrate more deeply into this world, we must proceed here as sensibly and intelligently as normal beings in the visible and tangible world. The Initiate must not betray the fact that, whilst he is living a normal life, he is at the same time living with full consciousness in a spiritual world. For were he to imagine for a single moment that he was detached from the physical world, he would begin to give himself airs and his fellow men would think him rather odd. And they would say: what madman is this! This may happen if he does not keep a tight hold on himself in order to preserve full consciousness as he passes through the spiritual world which is omnipresent just as the sensible world is omnipresent.

This opens up a sphere that has not been dealt with by the Theosophical Society, but which the “big guns” among the natural scientists have seized upon, namely, the sphere of psychical research. These researches are carried out by men with a scientific background and of limited potentialities who undertake statistical surveys and who experiment with mediums in order to ascertain the nature of the spiritual world. In all kinds of societies, and from different points of view, attempts are now being made to investigate objectively what processes are involved when a man moves his limbs or reacts, not with his normal consciousness, but with a diminished or totally obliterated consciousness, at a time when other beings have taken possession of his soul. The reactions of those whose consciousness has been damped down in this way are thus recorded.

The suggestion has even been made by enthusiasts for this kind of investigation that I, together with the fruits of my investigations, should put myself at their disposal in their laboratories in order that they may be able to investigate objectively the phenomena of the inner world. This is about as sensible as if someone were to come along and say: I understand nothing about mathematics so I cannot say whether the statements of mathematicians are true or false. The best thing for him to do would be to come to me in my psychical laboratory and I will make experiments with him to show whether he is a great mathematician or not. — That is approximately the situation. I am here speaking of a field of investigation at the present time in which no real attempt is being made to penetrate to the inner being of man, but simply to investigate somnambulism and mediumism from outside by methods that are a caricature of the scientific method. For if people really penetrated to the inner being of man they would realize that in mediumism and somnambulism they are faced by the external vehicle, an automaton consisting of physical and etheric bodies; that they are not investigating the spiritual reality, but that what they wish to investigate has deserted the external vehicle. They simply refuse to look into the more subtle aspects of the spiritual world. They often want to perceive the spiritual, not only through inner experience, but also in visible and tangible form.

This approach sometimes assumes other forms as, for example, in the Theosophical Society, at the very time when I had already described this path. They were looking for the spiritual figure of Christ in a physical body. They wanted to find a direct manifestation of the spiritual in the external world.

We must accept the physical world as it is and seek the spiritual where it really exists — in the physical world of course, but essentially in the spiritual spheres that permeate the physical world.

Here lies yet another region. Man in a healthy state feels impelled to bridge the gap between the region of inner experience and external perception, between the chaotic world of the dreamer and the abnormal world of the medium and somnambulist. Art is born of the union of these two worlds and their mutual fructification. For in art the external form is imbued with spirit and the spiritual content is clothed in external form.

Whilst the Theosophical Society was busy proclaiming an ordinary human being to be a spiritual entity, we in the Anthroposophical Society were impelled to direct the occult stream into art. The Mystery Plays and Eurythmy were born, and the art of Speech Formation was developed. [See list of literature] These and similar developments in the Anthroposophical Society were the fruits of the impulse to bridge the gap between the spiritual and the physical, so that consciousness bridges the chaotic world of dream and the chaotic world of the medium or somnambulist. In art these two worlds are consciously merged.

Some day this will be understood. People will understand the purpose of our endeavours when Speech Formation, as practised by Frau Marie Steiner, shall be restored to the level it once enjoyed when men were still instinctively spiritual. For them rhythm and measure in speech were more important than empty, abstract diction. These must be revived again. And Eurythmy restores to us again man unfolding before us through movement, man as he really is as a being of soul and spirit. This is what we learn from Eurythmy.

In art, therefore, we have had first of all to build a bridge from the world in which the dreamer wanders aimlessly to the world in which the medium or somnambulist blindly stumbles around. In our present materialistic age the dreamer is left to his solitary reflections and knows nothing of configurations and material forms which express and reveal the spiritual. And the somnambulist lives his life caring little whether he enjoys a medium's fame or whether he invents theories of an ideal State like the Bolshevists and, like the medium, projects all kinds of manifestations into the world around. Both dreamer and somnambulist share the life of the contemporary world without the slightest suspicion of the existence of the spiritual.

It is essential to find once again the bridge leading from the spirit into matter and from matter to the spirit. In the sphere of art we must first build this bridge so that we no longer stumble and drift along in a semi-conscious state, but develop a sense for art through spiritual movements which are not of the normal kind. Thus Eurythmy has its true, inner source in an impulse arising out of Initiation and all that we practise in the art of Speech Formation stems from the same source. And when the forthcoming Course on Dramatic Art is held at Dornach we shall try to restore once again the spiritual image of dramatic art. For a long time attention has been focussed on how to present the actor on the stage with a maximum of realism. In the nineties discussions on this subject were simply comic. The question was discussed — and naturalism finally won the day — whether Schiller's characters should declaim their heroic lines with their hands in their trouser pockets because that was the contemporary fashion. There is every reason therefore for finding the right way to explore the spiritual world. It is a sound principle to follow the path of art.

It is most important to transcend the ancient Initiation-Science that was steeped in the Moon mysteries and everything pertaining to them and to develop that inner condition of soul that can only be reached when the achievements of natural science — I am referring in this context to the intellectual conquests of natural science — can be used to fructify the occult knowledge of the Initiate. On the other hand, it is equally important to make a special field of research the confused, dilettante experiments which are undertaken in order to ascertain what takes place in the ectoplasmic forms when, in trance condition, the somnambulist or medium is possessed by elementary beings. For these two paths are really one and the same, namely, the emergence from within the dream into conscious dreaming and the conscious apprehension of the external world which natural science knows only in its mineral properties — these, so-called psychical research proposes to explore in its dilettante fashion. Since we live in a scientific age it is important to pursue this path of spiritual investigation and also to explore spiritually that other realm which is the polar opposite of the world of dreams.

The somnambulist or medium produces phenomena to which we are not accustomed in ordinary life. His handwriting, movements, speech and sense of taste are not those of the normal man because his astral body and Ego are outside the physical and etheric bodies and we are dealing with a physical and etheric body which are deserted and are given up to the influence of the Cosmos. We are confronted with physical and etheric manifestations which do not reflect the normal workings of nature, but which proceed from the spiritual world. For after all it is immaterial whether we suggestionize the medium or whether the medium is subject to some stellar, climatic or metallic influence which he assimilates into his etheric body.

We must bear in mind that the vehicles of the medium are at the service of the spiritual for magical ends. We cannot study these manifestations without knowledge of the spiritual as the Society for Psychical Research would like to do by means of external experiments. We must look into their spiritual relationship. We must observe the phenomena produced by the medium or somnambulist and the spiritual basis behind them.

All these phenomena manifested through the medium or somnambulist are associated with other mediumistic phenomena. When in trance condition a medium performs some act under human or cosmic influence, i.e. when a physical and etheric body perform some act, then this is temporarily the same as the process which takes place, though determined by other factors, in the poisonous plants which are the source of disease in man. It is only the external, transient mask of disease that is revealed in the mediumistic, somnambulistic state. From a certain point of view — and we shall have to discuss this in greater detail in the course of the next lectures — we can see in the phenomena of mediumism and somnambulism (there is no necessity to do so, but it is always possible) what is happening in the person who is ill, because his Ego and astral body have withdrawn in some abnormal way from an organ, or from the whole organism, and have been replaced by other spiritual influences.

Since men were aware of this relationship in ancient times the Mysteries were always associated with medicine. And because people were not so inquisitive as today, they never felt the need to be interested in mediums and somnambulists, for they were familiar with their activities just as they were familiar with the conditions of disease. They approached these matters more from the medical point of view. It is a standpoint that we must acquire once again.

And the other path which approaches the spiritual through natural phenomena, through natural science, in dilettante fashion must be pursued in the right way. All phenomena and particularly everything that is expressed through the pathological states of men and animals must be reviewed again in the right perspective. Only then shall we be in a position to investigate the phenomena which the Society for Psychical Research would like to explore.

And this field of investigation has now been opened up by the Anthroposophical Society. We have been able to study pathological phenomena in such a way that through them the door to the spiritual world has been opened. This has become possible because Dr. Ita Wegman and I endeavoured to develop along the right lines this field of investigation that had been ignored by psychical research; and also because Ita Wegman possesses not only the knowledge of a qualified doctor, but also those intuitive therapeutic gifts which lead directly from observation of the clinical picture to spiritual insight and thence to genuine therapy.

Here, then, lies the path that must be followed in order to explore the region that I have indicated. Through our efforts we hope to develop a genuine Initiation-medicine, which itself is an Initiation-natural science. Thus the true path, in contradistinction to the many false paths, will be demonstrated to all. And the first volume of the book written by Dr. Wegman and myself will indicate the steps that must be undertaken. [See list of literature]

In this connection it would be well to point out perhaps that the differences between the true and false paths can best be illustrated by examples.

I said previously that a path to art must be found that will link once again the sphere of the spiritual with the sphere of natural science. I must now add that it appears to inhere in the conditions of modern civilization that we shall only find the right path to art when we have first explored the right path in relation to the investigation of natural phenomena, the path of spiritual science. For in the sphere of art today mankind is so far removed from building the bridge of which I have spoken that it can only be persuaded of the active permeation of art by the spirit when it can be finally convinced of the activity of the spiritual that can be seen especially in the genesis of the pathological; when there is clear evidence of how the spirit operates and reveals itself in matter. When mankind becomes aware of the activity of the spiritual in the kingdom of nature, then it may perhaps be possible to arouse sufficient wholehearted enthusiasm for the idea that the spiritual can be presented directly to the world in the form of works of art.

I will speak further on these matters tomorrow.